The first few letters of his brother Meng Bo were still very happy, but when he followed Wang Shi into the territory of Teng, and even fought two large-scale wars with the Teng army, the atmosphere between the lines of the letters gradually became heavy.

In early November, when the cold winter was approaching, Meng Zhong was about to take his mother Ge Shi to Zhuangziju for a temporary winter, when suddenly Meng Hu hurriedly broke into the courtyard and shouted: "Ah Zhong, Ah Zhong, some people who went to the battlefield have returned." ”

When Meng Zhong heard this, he followed Meng Hu to the east of the township.

In the distance, Meng Zhong heard a miserable cry, which made his heart chuckle.

Sure enough, in the crowded crowd, there were more than a dozen carts parked, and the carts were full of corpses, and there were more than a dozen sisters-in-law and aunts in the clan, lying on the corpses on the cars at the moment, howling and crying.

"Brother Meng Bo is not among them, I have seen it."

Meng Hu secretly told Meng Zhong that he seemed to be relieved when he looked at his expression, and Meng Zhong also secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Suddenly, a Montessori disciple, who was about five or six years older than Meng Zhong, walked up to Meng Zhong and asked, "You are Meng Bo's younger brother Meng Zhong, right?" ”

"You ......"

Meng Zhong looked at the visitor carefully, and saw that the other party was wearing armor, his eyes were deeply sunken, and his face was gray and expressionless.

"I am Mengzhi, and your brother asked me to bring you some letters from home, and he asked me to convey to you, don't let others see those letters." As he spoke, the brother who claimed to be Meng Zhi took a package from the horse-drawn cart and handed it to Meng Zhong.

"It turns out that he is the brother who clashed with Uncle Meng Zhi because he questioned this war."

Meng Zhong suddenly realized, and thanked him after taking the package.

Meng Zhi nodded and left on his own.

At this time, Meng Zhong noticed that the clan brother was limping while walking, and it seemed that he had been seriously injured in the leg.

Glancing at the package in his hand, Meng Zhong looked up at the dozen horse-drawn carts full of corpses.

There were about 40 corpses in these horse-drawn carts, all of which were the corpses of his Montessori children - only the corpses of Montessori children were carried back to the countryside by horse-drawn carts, and as for the corpses of the rest of the domestic slaves and displaced people, most of them had been buried on the spot in the Tengguo area.

Because Meng Zhong didn't see a single body.

At this time, the elders of the clan, Meng Jian and others, were coming forward to appease those women in the clan who had lost their sons and husbands, and it didn't take long for the sect leader Meng Qi and the young sect leader Meng Yu to appear, and everyone's mood was very low, whether it was Meng Zhong, Meng Hu, or the Meng clan people who were watching from the sidelines.

Not daring to stay in that sad place, Meng Zhong came to his family's field, and in the grass hut next to the field, he unwrapped the package that his brother Meng Ber brought with him.

Just as he had guessed, inside the package was a thick stack of letters from home that were carried by cloth, apparently following the last letter that had been delivered.

Part 1:

"On August 19, in the past ten days, we destroyed three townships and killed hundreds of unarmed Teng people, and the clan brother Meng Chun in the west of the township dropped his weapon, saying that it was a tyrannical killing, and was reprimanded by Shi Qi, who was sent by Jun Sima (Jing Yuan), he asked Uncle Meng Qing to punish Meng Chun, and the young people in the clan all stood up angrily, frightening that Shi Qi's face was ugly, and finally, Uncle Meng Qing stopped the incident, but the morale of the clan has become more and more low."

Part 2:

"On August 21, today we were attacked by a Teng army, and I killed two Teng soldiers, and I was finally able to slaughter innocent Teng soldiers without having to violate my conscience, and I was a little relieved. When I was examining the corpse after the war, I found that the Teng soldier I had killed was clutching a bundle of hair in his hand, and I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. In his hometown, there may be a young woman who is praying for him day and night, praying that he will return safely."

Chapter 3:

"On August 23, Teng's resistance became more and more intense, and due to the slaughter of our Song people, more and more Teng people fled to Tengcheng, and under Teng Hu's leadership, they resisted us together. Teng Hu is the son of Teng Hong, and now the monarch of Teng Kingdom."

Chapter 4:

"On the 25th of August, we attacked 'Gongqiu', and it was Sima 'Bi Zhan' of Teng who defended the city, and when we attacked this city, the soldiers and civilians of Teng in the city joined forces to resist us, in addition to this, there were also some men in cloth clothes and barefoot, these barefoot men, all of them were very powerful, and a single sword could make three or five foot soldiers unable to approach, but in the end, these people were killed by our bows and arrows. Uncle Meng Zhi called them 'Ink Masters', who were they? Is it a helper invited by Teng Guo?"

Chapter 5:

"On August 29, we breached Gongqiu today, and Jun Sima ordered the slaughter of all the men in the city who had participated in assisting in the defense of the city. I followed Uncle Meng Zhi and met a group of Teng people, two men, three women, and three children, a man and two women, who were visually less than ten years old, and they were protected by three or four 'ink men' armed with sharp swords. One of the ink scholars asked Uncle Meng Zhi 'why he wanted to help the raging Song King slaughter the innocents of Teng Kingdom', but Uncle Meng Zhi did not answer, but only told the ink masters that they did not belong to this war and could leave. But those ink masters did not leave, saying that they were willing to sacrifice themselves to protect the group of Teng people. In the end, we killed those ink masters, and also killed those men from Teng Kingdom. From the corpse of one of the Ink Artists, I found several pieces of cloth with many words written on them, most of them the remarks of a man named 'Juzi', which I secretly hid and did not dare to tell anyone."

Chapter 6:

"On the fourth day of the ninth month, it turns out that I was wrong a few days ago, that 'Juzi' is not a person's name, but refers to the head of the Mo family, and those men who are called 'Mo people' are the disciples of the Mo family. This is a group of righteous people who advocate both love and oppose war, and when they learned that our Song State was attacking Teng State, they gathered to Teng State from all over the world to protect the Teng people against us without asking for anything. It is said that the earliest leader of the Mozi is 'Mozi', and he is also a native of my Song Kingdom."

Chapter 7:

"On the sixth day of the ninth month, in the past two days, I secretly looked at the cloth, which was the cloth that recorded the remarks of 'Juzi'. …… According to the news that the Confucian sage 'Mencius' is now living in seclusion in his hometown of 'Zōu', and today his disciples 'Wan Zhang', 'Gongsun Chou', 'Chen Zhen (zhēn') and others have come to the army, as if to persuade Jun Sima (Jing Yuan) to stop the attack on Teng. It is said that the military Sima was very unhappy about this, but because he feared Mencius's reputation, he did not dare to embarrass them, so he sent these men to the king of Song, saying that the king's order could not be disobeyed, and if these people could persuade the king of Song to stop the war, then he would immediately withdraw his army."

Chapter 8:

"On the eighth day of the ninth month, we followed Wang Shi to the capital of Teng State, 'Tengcheng', according to Jia Sima, the monarch of Teng State, Teng Hu, has gathered the Teng people of the whole country and the Mo people who took the initiative to come to help, ready to defend the city. Uncle Meng Zhi said that it doesn't matter if the vine people and the ink people are not important, what he is worried about is the attitude of the Qi and Lu countries. It is said that the state of Lu is a large country to the north of the state of Teng, and it seems to be on a par with my Song country; The state of Qi is a more powerful country than the state of Lu, and Uncle Meng said that if the armies of the two countries of Qi and Lu intervene in this war, then it will be difficult for us to achieve victory. However, in private, the clan brothers no longer care whether they can win this war, and we hope to end this war as soon as possible and return to the countryside of Jingbo as soon as possible."

Chapter 9:

"On the ninth day of the ninth month of September, today we were defeated by the army led by Sima Bi Zhan of Teng State, because the clansmen in the army are more and more homesick for their hometowns and more and more resistant to this war, not only us, but also the clansmen of other families such as the Hua clan and the Le clan. It is said that Jun Sima was going to punish us, but Uncle Meng Qing and the other family Sima joined forces to resist, so that Jun Sima gave up the punishment for us, but we had to assist Wang Shi to capture Tengcheng, it is said that Jun Sima said to Uncle Meng Qing and others that if he lost the battle, the King of Song would kill him, and before that, he would order us to be executed. Uncle Meng Qing can't help it."

Chapter 10:

"On September 11th, today we defeated the army of Sima Bi of Teng, but I am not happy at all, because Uncle Meng Zhi said that the soldiers and civilians of Teng and the ink who helped Teng are all desperate and not afraid of death, but our army is demoralized, if we can't break through Teng City as soon as possible, we may not be able to support Teng Guoxian first. I think Uncle Meng is right, because I'm already disgusted with this war."

Article 11:

"On September 14th, there was no fighting today, and since several clan uncles who had served as 'chariot officials' had died in battle, Uncle Meng Zhi recommended me to be a chariot officer, and I took a team of clan soldiers to patrol and guard the vicinity to prevent the Teng people from sneaking up on us. While drinking water by the river, I suddenly noticed that my face had changed greatly, and my eyes were like dead people, and even I was afraid to look at them. I was scared, afraid that when I returned home one day, my mother and my brother would not recognize me."

Chapter 12:

"On the 16th of September, today is the first battle against Tengcheng, which is the capital of Teng, and the city walls are very high. I saw a woman on the city wall. Even the women of Teng have begun to bravely resist us, can we still conquer this city? In this battle, the right leg of the clan brother Meng Zhi was injured, in fact, many people suspect that he was injured by himself, because he, like Meng Chun and several other clan brothers, has been doubting this war, but now everyone has understood that it is us who are unjust, not Teng Guo. Despite the suspicions, no one debunked them, and Uncle Meng Qing asked Meng Zhi to return to the countryside with the corpses of his clansmen, and everyone else was envious, and I was ready to ask him to bring these letters back. …… Afterwards, my brother Meng Heng asked me in private, asking me if Meng Zhi had injured himself, and I said I didn't know. I also wondered if I could hurt myself because I could go back to my country, but I gave up because my sword had too much Teng blood, and I was afraid that their blood would burrow into my body and curse me."

『……』

Seeing these twelve family letters, Meng Zhong was speechless for a long time.

Those who benefit from the war are always only a small group of people, and the parties who really participate in the war, whether they are Song or Teng, are actually the ones who suffer.