In early March, Zheng Zheng and Cai Wu arrived in Fangcheng with about 8,000 soldiers and prepared to start joint training with Fangcheng.

In all fairness, the Wei pawns under the command of Zheng Zheng and Cai Wu were not the elite of Wei at all, just like in the previous battle of Yique, at most, they could only give Gongsun Xi's Hedong Army a hand, responsible for patrolling the surrounding area, or guarding a certain important area, etc., Gongsun Xi really pinned his hopes on the Hedong Army, hoping to defeat the Qin army.

If Meng Zhong hadn't turned the tide at that time, the two local armies of Zheng Zheng and Cai Wu would have been buried with Gongsun Xi in Yique, and now, these two armies have not only returned to their respective stations alive, but also the strength of the sergeants and soldiers has also improved.

Also, as long as the Wei soldiers who can survive the battle of Yique, whether it is their mentality or strength, they will naturally improve, after all, they have also faced the Qin army in a disadvantaged situation, and their psychological endurance has been greatly sharpened.

If the mentality can be corrected, the combat capability will naturally be improved.

Of course, not all the soldiers and soldiers brought by Zheng Zheng and Cai Wu this time were old soldiers, according to his explanation to Meng Zhong, among the two of them about 8,000 Wei pawns, only 5,000 were veterans who had experienced the battle of Yique, and the remaining 3,000 were all new soldiers recruited from Xudi and Yuncheng after the war.

The strength and psychological endurance of the new pawn are naturally far inferior to the old pawn.

But even so, the strength of these two armies is obviously above the Fangcheng army.

Just like Yeyi, who seems to be in ruins, after being taken over by Meng Zhong, the Fangcheng Army also underwent a series of rectifications, through several high-intensity physical training, eliminated some of the soldiers with weak willpower, leaving only more than 4,000 soldiers, and the rest of the eliminated soldiers were rushed into the command of Sima Lexu of Yeyi, as the supervision force to maintain the security and stability of Yeyi, and can only be used as the second echelon of the Fangcheng Army in the future.

As for the first echelon, it is naturally the Fang Cheng Army.

It is precisely because of the extremely high expectations of the Fang Cheng army that Meng Zhong, Meng Sui and others also have an extremely strict attitude towards the training of the Fang Cheng army, and all the training standards are on par with Wei Wushu.

And such a strict training standard will inevitably cause complaints from the soldiers.

At this time, Meng Zhong and Meng Sui couldn't help but miss Le Yi a little, after all, when Le Yi was still there, it seemed that training was basically in charge of Le Yi, and Meng Sui was mainly responsible for miscellaneous things in the army, such as rewards and punishments, logistics, etc.

As for Meng Zhong, he was simply only responsible for leading troops to fight.

And now, Le Yi has gone to Yan Kingdom, and Meng Sui can only take on the responsibilities of Le Yi in the past, training soldiers and planning military tuntian, which can be said to be very busy.

Because of this, Meng Zhong couldn't stay in Wuyangyi to accompany his family, so he could only stay in Fangcheng honestly and help Meng Sui share his responsibilities.

As a result, the task of training the new pawns fell on Meng Zhong himself.

Training, to be honest, is not Meng Zhong's strong point, mainly because when Le Yi was still there, he shared this part of the responsibility, which made Meng Zhong lack a certain amount of experience in military training, but fortunately, he was not ignorant of this, and after a period of exploration, he gradually formed his own way of training.

Different from Le Yi's training method of "stimulating soldiers with humiliating words", Mengzhong's military training mainly adopts the "reward and punishment mechanism" of Tong Suo and no bullying, to put it bluntly, that is, first stipulate a training standard, such as running ten laps around Fangcheng, and the soldiers who meet this standard can get a more sumptuous meal, while the soldiers who fail to meet this standard can only eat white rice - roughly this means.

As for how to motivate the soldiers in the middle of training like Le Yi, Meng Zhong really couldn't wipe his face.

Think about it, as a disciple of Zhuangzi, Mencius, and Huizi, how could he be embarrassed to spit out filthy and humiliating words after training the soldiers? But Le Yi can use this way to stimulate the soldiers under his command, so that they can give full play to their hidden potential.

Since he couldn't learn Le Yi's way of training, Meng Zhong could only motivate the soldiers through rewards and punishments, but obviously, the reward and punishment mechanism was indeed inferior to Le Yi's method, especially for the kind of Wei soldiers who were impulsive and full of blood.

But in general, the recruitment and training of the Fangcheng Army have gradually become regular.

By the beginning of March, Fangcheng's army had recruited 6,000 new soldiers from Yeyi, half of whom were Wei and half were former Chu people who defected to Fangcheng.

In fact, to tell the truth, the number of those Chu people who defected to Yeyi was far more than 3,000 people, but Meng Zhong and Meng Sui considered the issue of share, and did not want to recruit too many Chu people for the time being, so as not to leave any bane, at least in another two years, until those Chu people who defected to Yeyi had a sense of belonging to Yeyi.

It is precisely because of the restriction on the number of Yeyi Chu people who can join the army that as of the first recruitment, the total number of Fangcheng troops is only about 10,000 soldiers, plus about 16,000 soldiers brought by Zheng Zheng and Cai Wu, a total of only about 26,000 soldiers.

In view of the fact that Meng Hu, Hua Hu, and Mu Wu were still leading the cavalry to wander in the Han River, and were always paying attention to the battle situation of the Qin army crossing the Han River to attack Yanyi, Meng Zhong summoned Wu Ying and Le Jin, so that they could help train the new soldiers.

On 12 March, Meng Zhong took Gang Zheng Zheng and Cai Wu to visit the drills of the new army in Fangcheng.

I have to say that more than 10,000 soldiers are running around the city with logs, which is still quite spectacular, and Zheng Zheng and Cai Wu can see at a glance that this is Wei Wushu's training method.

Seeing this, the two also gave some suggestions to Meng Zhong.

Not to mention, Zheng Zheng and Cai Wu are Wei people after all, and their views on Wei Wushu are still quite insightful, for example, the two of them know very well that Wei Wushu's strength is not in his outstanding combat ability, but in the combat mentality of all members who are "not afraid of death".

Why can Wei Wushu have a combat mentality of "not afraid of death"?

The reason is very simple, because Wei Wushu has no worries, every Wei Wushu is equivalent to a small landlord supported by Wei, with a house, a land, and a servant at home, even if Wei Wushu dies on the battlefield, his family can live a prosperous life, unlike soldiers in other countries, they will be afraid of death, because they know very well that once they die, their family will no longer be able to receive their military salary, and life will be better and more difficult.

Then the question arises, does Fangcheng have the capital to create a group of Wei Wushu?

You must know that if you can't make Wei Wushu abandon his worries about his family, no matter how strong these Wei soldiers are, there is still a gap between them and the real Wei Wushu.

In response to this, Meng Zhong had discussed with Meng Sui and Xiang Yu earlier.

The real treatment of Wei Wushu is something that Fang Cheng can't afford now, but Fang Cheng can try to be flexible.

For example, the treatment given by the Wei State to the military pawn is that a family is exempt from all taxes here, to put it bluntly, that is, after the father is elected as the Wei warrior, even if he dies on the battlefield, his sons, grandsons, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren can be exempted from all taxes from generation to generation.

I have to say that this treatment stimulated the soldiers of Wei to rush to join the army, hoping that they could become military soldiers, and Wei also relied on this rule to suppress the Central Plains countries and dominate the Central Plains once upon a time, but in the long run, this decree has quite serious drawbacks, or future troubles.

For example, it has been more than 100 years since the famous general Wu Qi trained the first batch of Wei Wushu in the Wei State, and the first batch of Wei Wushu is basically no longer alive, but even after a hundred years, the descendants of the first generation of Wei Wushu still enjoy the special treatment of exemption from taxes.

Then the second generation of Wei Wushu, the third generation of Wei Wushu, in a period of up to a hundred years, Wei in order to fight with the countries, constantly select new soldiers, but also make up for the old soldiers, died in battle, which makes more and more households in Wei have "tax exemption", and in the long run, Wei can eventually collect less and less taxes.

Some people may say, are the monarchs of Wei all fools, haven't they seen the disadvantages of this decree?

Of course not!

The point is that even if the monarchs of Wei saw the drawbacks of this decree, they did not dare to change it, lest it cause resistance from the military guards.

Back then, Wei used the strength of one country to fight wars everywhere against four or five countries, what did it rely on?

Even though the national strength has plummeted now, the Qin State is still jealous of the Wei State, what does this rely on?

Aren't they all Wei Wushu?

Wei Wushu is the foundation of Wei, and it is also the foundation of Wei's national strength is obviously inferior to Qin and Qi, but it still has the potential to dominate the Central Plains.

However, Meng Zhong, Meng Sui and others used the example of Wei to see the drawbacks of this decree, so they made some changes: whether a military soldier was still alive or died on the battlefield, his family members were exempt from all taxes; If a soldier dies in battle, Fang Cheng will assist in raising his children to adulthood, and until the eldest son reaches the age of fifteen, the family will still enjoy the special treatment of being exempt from all taxes.

All in all, it shortened the period for the families of the warriors to enjoy this special treatment, so that Fangcheng would not follow the old path of the Wei State.

Some people may say that Fang Cheng's side has greatly shortened the period of Wei Wushu's treatment, won't it cause Wei Wushu's dissatisfaction?

Actually, it doesn't.

The reason is very simple, there were no Wei soldiers on Fangcheng's side before, and the first batch of Wei soldiers who appeared here were only 2,500 Hanoi soldiers brought by Cao Chun, Wei Xu and others, but some of these soldiers became cavalry, and some were promoted from non-commissioned soldiers to generals.

As for whether the rest of the Wei soldiers in Fangcheng will be dissatisfied, these Wei soldiers don't dare at all, because there are a large number of Chu people who defected to Yeyi staring at this special treatment, if someone chooses to retire from the army because they are dissatisfied with this treatment, I believe that there will be a large number of soldiers from Chu who are willing to take their place - you must know that in Chu State, there has never been Wei Wushu-style treatment.

It has to be said that this is the advantage of starting from scratch, even if Meng Zhong shortens the waiting period of Wei Wushu, no one will raise any objections.

As for whether Wei Wushu in other parts of the Wei State would raise objections after hearing about this matter, Meng Zhong was not worried about this, anyway, he was only doing it in Fangcheng, and he didn't want to change Wei's treatment of Wei Wushu, and he was not Wei Xiang.

If there are still soldiers who want to be dissatisfied with him, then they are dissatisfied, what does it have to do with him?

After hearing Meng Zhong's explanation, Zheng Zheng and Cai Wu smiled bitterly.

They secretly said in their hearts that this Fang Cheng Ling was worthy of being young and vigorous, and like them, they did not dare to involve the treatment of Wei Wushu at all, for fear of causing resistance from the domestic military soldiers and being reprimanded by Da Liang.

While smiling bitterly, the two of them couldn't help but feel a little envious in their hearts.

After all, the two of them are just the garrison Sima of Xu Di and Yuncheng, not Xu Di Ling or Yuncheng Order, so naturally they don't have the confidence to engage Wei Wushu, but Meng Zhong is different, although he is Fang Cheng Ling, his actual authority is similar to that of the "county guard".

In this era, countries basically only set up counties in the border areas bordering other countries, and sent a county guard to be responsible for military administration, and the civil affairs and military affairs in the county were all in charge of this county guard - Meng Zhong was also in charge of Fangcheng, Yeyi, and Wuyang, in fact, the power in his hands was more like a county guard, rather than a county order, but Yeyi and Wuyang were his fiefdoms, not counted in the cities where Wei sent him to garrison, so he was appointed as a county commander by the King of Wei.

It is precisely because he is in charge of three cities that Meng Zhong has the capital to support a Wei Wushu, which makes Zheng Zheng and Cai Wu really envious.

After all, being able to command a Wei warrior who obeyed his orders was probably the lifelong hope of many generals in Wei.

Just as Meng Zhong was communicating with Zheng Zheng and Cai Wu while inspecting the drills of the soldiers, a soldier suddenly came over to report: "Qi Fang Cheng Order, Ye Yi Sima Le continued to ask to see." ”

"Happy?"

Meng Zhong was stunned, and even ordered the soldiers to bring Le Xu.

After a while, Le Xu took Qu Yuan and Zhuang Xin to this side and greeted Meng Zhong.

At the ceremony, Qu Yuan explained: "Zhuang Xin, an old colleague in Xia, came to Yeyi to visit Zai Xia yesterday, hoping to see Fang Chengling, so Lao Fule Sima introduced him on his behalf. ”

Meng Zhong suddenly came to his senses, and immediately summoned Wu Ying and Wei Xu, who were training new soldiers, and asked the two of them to continue to take Zheng Zheng and Cai Wu to visit the surroundings, while he took Qu Yuan and Zhuang Xin and invited them to the county capital in Fangcheng.

When he came to the county government in the city, he ordered someone to bring tea, and Meng Zhong looked at Zhuang Xin politely.

At this time, Zhuang Xin was also looking at Meng Zhong, and he was really surprised to see Meng Zhong's words and deeds being gentle and elegant.

He said with a smile: "I have heard that Fang Cheng Ling is a fierce general who defeated the Qin army in the Battle of Yique, I thought it would be so brave, but I never thought that it would be so elegant......

Hearing this, Meng Zhong smiled slightly, after all, he had heard too many similar words.

Indeed, as long as he takes off his armor and puts on his robe, most people will mistakenly think that he is a Confucian disciple, and few people can see through it, he is actually a general who leads troops to fight.

The main thing is the problem of temperament, Meng Zhong, as a disciple of the three Taoist Confucian families, does have a kind of elegant temperament that ordinary generals do not have.

"Dr. Zhuang has an overreputation, and it was just a fluke at that time."

"Huh. Fang Chengling was too humble to say this...... Yesterday, I had a night talk with Dr. Qu, but Dr. Qu highly respected the other party's city order......"

"Oh?" Meng Zhong turned his head to look at Qu Yuan in some surprise.

Qu Yuan smiled slightly, did not deny it, and nodded lightly.

Indeed, he had a great affection for Meng Zhong, after all, it was Meng Zhong who instructed him on how to save the Chu State.

It may be that seeing that Meng Zhong is still a little distant from him, Zhuang Xin joked: "I heard that Fang Cheng Ling is the high foot of Master Zhuang, and he is also surnamed Zhuang in Xia, isn't it enough to make Fang Cheng Ling a little closer to Zaixia?" ”

Hearing this, Meng Zhong couldn't help but laugh.

In fact, although Zhuang Zhou and Zhuang Xin are both surnamed Zhuang, Zhuang Zhou is the descendant of "Song Zhuang Gongzi Feng", and Zhuang Xin is the descendant of "Chu Zhuang Wang Xiong Brigade".

But despite this, Meng Zhong still had a great affection for Zhuang Xin, who had the same surname as his teacher Zhuangzi, so after listening to Zhuang Xin's words, he smiled and nodded his head again and again.

In this way, the atmosphere in the hall suddenly became more harmonious, and Zhuang Xin was finally able to ask some more sensitive questions.

He asked Meng Zhongdao: "Fangcheng Order, when I went to Yeyi yesterday, I saw that a camp was being built on this side of Fangcheng, and I inquired a little, and I heard that Wei had transferred two more armies......

Hearing this, Meng Zhong turned his head to look at Qu Yuan, in his opinion, Qu Yuan should know about this matter.

As if noticing Meng Zhong's actions, Zhuang Xin said with a smile: "Fang Cheng Ling doesn't need to be suspicious, Doctor Qu has already informed me of this matter, it was Fang Cheng Ling who invited Sima from Xu Di and Yuncheng to lead the army to Fang Cheng together, I just want to ask, Fang Cheng Ling summoned two Wei armies, is it to fight against the Qin army?" ”

Hearing this, Meng Zhong glanced at Qu Yuan again, and when he saw that the latter shook his head slightly, he knew that this was Zhuang Xin's own question.

After thinking about it, he said truthfully: "As far as I am concerned, I have not received any orders from the King of Wei, and I dare not fight against the Qin army without authorization; As far as our city and Yeyi are concerned, Doctor Zhuang also knows that spring ploughing is imminent, and the top priority is to lead the local army and civilians to farm, not to fight against the Qin army......"

Zhuang Xin Zhengse said: "Yesterday, Dr. Qu told Zai Xia that Han intended to mediate, but Wei had an ambiguous attitude, and privately thought that it might be that Wei hoped that our Chu State and Qin State would lose both sides. However, in the long run, Yu Wei actually has no interests in this matter. …… The state of Qin has now become a major problem for the three kingdoms of Wei, Han and Chu, and I think the three kingdoms should cooperate sincerely to jointly fight against the Qin state. ”

Meng Zhong smiled and said: "This remark, Doctor Zhuang should tell King Wei and Tian Wen, it is only a county order in Fangcheng, and he is not qualified to intervene in the affairs of diplomatic relations." ”

"But Fang Chengling has the ability to defeat this Qin army, doesn't he?" Zhuang Xin Zhengse said: "That Qin general Bai Qi, but Fang Cheng Ling's subordinates are defeated, if Fang Cheng Ling is willing to help, and our country's Zhaoju together to flank the Qin army, or can defeat the Qin army in a big way......"

Meng Zhong raised his hand to interrupt Zhuang Xin's words, shook his head and said: "Doctor Zhuang misunderstood, Bai Qi was not defeated under his subordinates, and in the battle of Yique that day, he only defeated the Qin army, not Bai Qi...... In fact, I'm not very sure about this person. ”

"......" Zhuang Xin frowned slightly, not seeming to believe Meng Zhong's words very much.

But in fact, Meng Zhong was telling the truth.

He was able to counter Bai Qi at the beginning, the main reason was that Gongsun Xi blindly counterattacked that night, which dragged the Qin army to exhaustion, which made Meng Zhong organize a counterattack after dawn, although Bai Qi had 60,000 soldiers under his hands, but because of physical exhaustion, he was unable to fight with the Wei army, which greatly boosted the morale of the Wei army.

It was precisely because of this step behind that Bai Qi was controlled by Meng Zhong step by step.

Therefore, Meng Zhong never thought that he defeated Bai Qi, he only defeated the Qin army - Bai Qi lost the insufficient troops under his command, and exhausted the physical strength of the soldiers with 80,000 Qin soldiers and more than 200,000 Wei and Han armies.

If Bai Qi is given another 20,000 or 30,000 troops, Meng Zhong may not even have a chance to turn the tables.

Because of this, Bai Qi did not dare to provoke Meng Zhong, and Meng Zhong did not want to provoke Bai Qi, the two of them had scruples about each other, which made the two armies of Qin and Wei have a tacit understanding that each other's well water does not interfere with river water.

Changing Xiang Shou to try, even if there is no order from the King of Wei, Meng Zhong may not use the Qin army to sharpen the army of other cities.

Seeing his truth, it made the atmosphere a little dull, Meng Zhong thought for a while and said: "Doctor Zhuang, presumably Doctor Qu has already mentioned to you yesterday about the connivance, so Dr. Zhuang should understand that in Xia actually supports the unity of Wei, Han and Chu, if the conditions allow, he will definitely lead our city army to attack the Qin army, but at the moment, I have not received an order from the King of Wei, and our city does not have the strength to fight with the Qin army, so I am really powerless to help the ......Chu State."

"In fact, Fang Chengling has already helped a lot." Qu Yuan said a fair word on the side, and at the same time gestured to Zhuang Xin with his eyes.

He originally thought that Zhuang Xin wanted to see Meng Zhong and wanted to meet this talent, but he didn't expect Zhuang Xin to have other plans.

For Qu Yuan's words, Zhuang Xin did not deny it, after all, Meng Zhong did help Chu State a lot, if saving more than 100,000 Chu people was out of Meng Zhong's selfishness, then privately tell Qu Yuan the truth of the Qin army, and let Qu Yuan write a letter to reveal it, which is enough to prove that Meng Zhong is on the side of Chu State.

In the final analysis, it was just that Zhuang Xin himself was still insufficient, and hoped to drag the armies of Wei and Han into the water.

But now that Meng Zhong is the general of the Wei State, he naturally has to think more about the Wei State, how can he be dizzy because of Zhuang Xin's few words of praise, and help the Chu State deal with the Qin army regardless of the interests of the Wei State?

He received the Yulu of Wei, which Meng Zhong still knew very well.

"Doctor Zhuang, it's over." Qu Yuan whispered.

In all fairness, Qu Yuan also hoped that Meng Zhong would be able to send troops to help the Chu State, but he knew that Meng Zhong also had his own position, so he never mentioned it, he was just waiting, waiting for a situation that would be beneficial to both Wei and Chu.

At that time, without him Qu Yuan opening his mouth, Meng Zhong himself would lead his army to attack and assist the Chu State in repelling the Qin army.

Hearing Qu Yuan's words, Zhuang Xin nodded with some disappointment, and then bowed his hand to Meng Zhong and said, "I'm out of shape, please forgive Fang Chengling." ”

Meng Zhong smiled when he heard this, shook his head and said, "Doctor Zhuang is worried about the country, what's wrong with this?" ”

After a pause, he continued: "If Doctor Zhuang wants to repel the Qin army as soon as possible, I can give Doctor Zhuang a suggestion, that is, send an envoy to Daliang to state the benefits and disadvantages to the King of Wei, as long as the King of Wei can be persuaded to order the aid of the State of Chu, then everything will be solved. ”

"Hmm."

Zhuang Xin nodded slightly.

But to be honest, he didn't think of this, but Chu Ying's side would also consider whether to ask for peace with Qin or Wei for help, even if he could persuade Xiong Heng, the king of Chu, to send an envoy to Wei for help after returning to Chu Ying, it would take several months to go back and forth, so he would try to start from Meng Zhong's side to see if he could persuade Meng Zhong to send reinforcements to assist him Chu to repel the Qin army.

But it's a pity that Meng Zhong has his own principles to adhere to, and Qu Yuan has no help.

The persuasion of Meng Zhong failed, and Zhuang Xin had no intention of staying in Fangcheng for a long time, so he immediately bid farewell to Meng Zhong and Qu Yuan, and embarked on the road back to Chu Ying.

It took more than ten days for Zhuang Xin to return to Chu Ying and ask to see Xiong Heng, the king of Chu.

And at this moment, Chu Ying suddenly received bad news again, Qin sent the famous general Sima Wrong out of Bashu to attack Wujun and Qianzhong of Chu State, and it seemed that he was going to form a "one north and one west" attack with Bai Qi.

A few days ago, the state of Chu, which had relaxed a little because Bai Qi was blocked by Zhaoju in the Han River, suddenly became nervous again.

The state of Chu seems to be on the verge of extinction. 8)