Transformed into a group, Meng Zhong and Meng Hu became the generals of Zhao State, and together with Wu Ying, Meng Hu, Meng Sui, Xiang Yi and other small partners, they were also incorporated into the guard of Lord Zhao's father, as if this Lord Zhao trusted the Song people more than the local Zhao people.

On the sixth day of the sixth month of June, Meng Hu, who had been awarded the military rank of "Yu Sima", reported to the military camp outside the Dune Palace and began his experience as a general of the Zhao State, while Meng Zhong and others followed Zhao's father as guards.

Including Meng Zhong, a group of friends have never had the experience of becoming a personal guard of a certain big man, which feels quite novel, but they don't know what to be responsible for as a guard, or what skills to master.

"Master, as a guard, I don't know what to be responsible for?"

Meng Zhong asked Zhao Yong curiously.

Master Zhao smiled and said, "Just protect me." ”

But to be honest, this answer is very perfunctory, because Zhao Yong originally had guards around him to protect him, and those were all elite soldiers of Zhao State, although Meng Zhong, Meng Hu, Wu Ying, Hua Hu and others learned martial arts since childhood, but in front of those Zhao State Rui soldiers, they couldn't get any bargains, after all, the other party was a strictly trained soldier.

There are such elite soldiers, do you still need their protection?

After hesitating for a while, Meng Zhong still didn't ask the question in his heart, because he was not very familiar with this Master Zhao.

In the afternoon of the same day, Lord Zhao's father tested the martial arts of Meng Zhong and others, and he instructed the soldiers to prepare several thin wooden sticks of different lengths, wrapped in cloth at both ends, and dipped in flour made of wheat, so that Meng Zhong and others could choose a "weapon" to compete with him, so as to test everyone's martial arts level.

At first, including Meng Zhong, the sons were a little uneasy about this, after all, their opponent was this Zhao master's father, but under the comfort of this Zhao master's father, everyone was gradually able to let go of the uneasiness in their hearts and gradually show their skills.

After the test of Master Zhao's father, among all the people, Wu Ying, Meng Hu, and Hua Hu are the three most talented, in the words of Master Zhao, these three people are strong and strong, and they are good embryos for practicing martial arts.

But he is most optimistic about Meng Zhong, because Meng Zhong is the only one who can leave a "white spot" on him, in other words, if they both use weapons, Meng Zhong can already hurt him.

The reason is that Meng Zhong knows how to "think" and will use some false tricks to deceive him, and he doesn't want to "go straight" like other people, and he is easily blocked by Master Zhao's father every time.

"Your martial arts are taught by the family?"

Master Zhao asked Meng Zhong in surprise.

Meng Zhong shook his head and said: "The martial arts taught in the family are the same as Ah Hu and Ah Sui, but I watched the process of the master's father competing with them, and I knew that the master's father's martial arts were exquisite, and the straightforward tricks could not be effective, so I thought of the "virtual reality" as stated in the Art of War, and it was lucky. ”

"You've read a book of soldiers?" Master Zhao was even more surprised.

After inquiry, Master Zhao's father learned that the young man in front of him, who was only 15 years old, had actually read "Taigong's Art of War", "Sun Tzu's Art of War", "Sun Bin Art of War", "Wu Qi's Art of War", "Sima War's Art of War" and other military works.

Surprised, Master Zhao couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "At your age, it's rare to have read so many art of war." ”

Under the approval of Master Zhao's father, Meng Zhong's reaction was very calm, and he said truthfully: "It's not that people of the same age rarely read many art of war like me, but because my teacher is Master Zhuang, and there are many art of war ...... in his collection."

Indeed, in this era, books written in bamboo slips are quite rare and valuable, it is generally monopolized in the hands of the aristocratic class, and ordinary commoner children have no chance to contact at all, and Meng Zhong is only because his teacher is Zhuang Zhou Zhuang Master, and Zhuang Zhou Zhuang Master has collected many books in the world, which gives Meng Zhong the opportunity to contact these.

In this matter, we have to praise the Confucian sage Confucius, because it is this Confucian sage who broke the previous situation of "the monopoly of knowledge by the big nobles", so that the children of the small nobles and the common people also have the opportunity to contact knowledge and learning, otherwise, the world will be even more ignorant.

Compared with Confucius's empty remarks of the so-called gentleman, this is the great change he brought to the world, which affected the whole world later.

Seeing that Meng Zhong had no pride after being praised, Master Zhao nodded and praised him sincerely: "Looking at the virtues of your disciple, I can know what kind of sage your teacher Zhuangzi is. …… He is worthy of being a Taoist sage. ”

After that, Master Zhao's father chatted with Meng Zhong about the art of war.

As Meng Zhong guessed, Zhao's father, like Song Wangyan, was a monarch who advocated force, and the reason for this was that when he first succeeded to the throne, Zhao suffered a very difficult crisis, and even almost destroyed the country.

He smiled and said to Meng Zhong: "When I first succeeded to the throne, I was the same age as you. At that time, his deceased father Marquis Su (Zhao Suhou Zhao Yu) passed away, and Wei Fu, the king of Wei Hui of Wei, was still alive, and he gathered the five kingdoms of Wei, Qin, Chu, Yan, and Qi, and each of the five parties brought an army of soldiers and horses to attend the funeral of his deceased father......"

Meng Zhong listened quietly, this history of the Zhao State, he had already learned about it when he asked Hui Ang for the "Zhao Song Alliance".

The cause is Zhao Suhou Zhao Yu, the father of Zhao's father, when the Wei State has gradually begun to decline, the three Jin Dynasty sometimes united, together against Qin, Chu, Qi, and sometimes internal fighting, in such a tense and chaotic situation, Zhao Su Marquis Zhao Yu changed the previous "Wei, Zhao, Han" of the three Jin order, replaced the former Wei State, became the leading country of the Three Jins, and fought viciously with Wei, Chu, Qin, Yan, Qi and other countries for many years without being at a disadvantage.

In fact, at that time, the state of Zhao had already risen.

However, when the Marquis of Zhao Su reigned for twenty-four years, the male lord who was nearly fifty years old passed away, so Wei Hui, the king of Wei Hui, saw the opportunity and invited the four kingdoms of Qi, Chu, Qin, and Yan to try to carve up the Zhao State - the only Korea in the Three Jin Dynasty, because Zhao Suhou let Zhao Yongying marry a Korean woman and wife before his death, so he did not join the war against Zhao, and he was still in the wait-and-see stage.

At that time, Zhao Yong was only fifteen years old as the new monarch, and with the help of his late father Feiyi and his uncle "Gongzi Cheng", he first strengthened the alliance with Korea, and then brought the Song Jun Dai Yan, who had just been expelled from Chengjun for a few years, to the side of Zhao, and successively bribed Yue to attack Chu, and bribed Lou Fu to attack Yan and Zhongshan, forming a situation where the "Three Kingdoms of Zhao, Han and Song" faced "Qin Weiqi", and finally resolved the danger of losing the country this time.

This made Wei Hui, the king of Wei Hui, realize that Zhao Suhou "has a successor", and finally gave up his intention to carve up Zhao State, and brought his son Wei Si to Zhao State in person to congratulate Zhao Yong on his succession, so far, the head of the Three Jin Dynasty transitioned from Wei to Zhao.

Although Meng Zhong had heard this history from Hui Ang once, he learned it from the father of Zhao as the party concerned, but it was a different taste, after all, Hui Ang knew far less about the dangers faced by Zhao Guo at that time than Zhao Yong as a party.

So he praised from the bottom of his heart: "Master Zhao's father is indeed worthy of the world's so-called 'male master' evaluation." ”

Master Zhao laughed when he heard this.

On the eighth day of the sixth month, Zhao Yongxian was bored living in the Dune Palace, so he deliberately took Meng Zhong and others out hunting.

Therefore, he asked Meng Zhong in advance: "Have you participated in the hunt?" ”

Meng Zhong nodded.

Since "archery" is still commonly used in the world and regarded it as a measure of a person's morality, archery can be said to be a skill that every nobleman's son must master, even if he is a commoner, as long as he wants to be valued by others.

Therefore, archery is nothing to the children of Meng Zhong's family.

However, Master Zhao shook his head with a smile and said, "The hunting of my Zhao Kingdom is different from the hunting you know. …… I, Zhao Guo, hunt with mounted archery. ”

Mounted archery, as the name suggests, is to hunt with a bow and arrow on a warhorse, compared to standing on flat ground and standing on a chariot to shoot arrows, this is not a star and a half - first you have to be able to ride a horse.

Since Meng Zhong and the others couldn't ride horses, Zhao Yong gave up his plan to go out hunting that day, and took Meng Zhong and others to the military camp outside the palace to teach Meng Zhong and others horsemanship.

Anyway, whether it is hunting, teaching Meng Zhong and others riding skills, he uses them to pass the time, and there is not much difference.

Around noon, Zhao Yong, Meng Zhong and others had lunch, and then came to the army, and instructed the soldiers in the barracks to divide a few war horses and let Meng Zhong and others try to ride.

I have to say that although the domesticated war horse has actually become docile, because of its physique, ordinary people are still a little afraid to see it.

Meng Zhong and Meng Hu are okay, because they have participated in the war between the Song State and the Teng State, and they have a lot of experience with war horses, but Wu Ying, Meng Sui, Xiang Yi, Hua Hu and others are the first time to get close to war horses, and they seem a little panicked.

"Meng Zhong and Meng Hu, you two are no strangers to war horses, so let's try it first."

Zhao Yong said with a smile, and at the same time ordered someone to bring a low table, sit on the straw mat, and watch the princes try to ride the war horse.

To be honest, Meng Zhong was indeed no stranger to war horses, but he had never tried to ride on them, let alone he didn't know the habits of the war horses in front of him.

Fortunately, in the miscellaneous books he had read, there were also some records about the domestication of wild horses, so he abandoned his distracting thoughts and slowly walked to the horse he had picked step by step, first gently stroked the head of the war horse, and when the latter turned his head to look at him, he stretched out his hand to lick the palm of his hand while trying to show friendliness, and then stroked the horse's mane, until the war horse "comfortable" a few times, then stepped on the left side of the pedal, turned over and jumped on the horse's back.

First time!

"Wonderful!"

Master Zhao's father stroked his palms and praised not far away.

To tell the truth, the war horses in the barracks have all been domesticated by man, and they have long lost most of their wildness, but it can be seen from Meng Zhong's actions that this young man knows how to get close to war horses.

No, it was obviously a stranger and a horse to each other, but behind Meng Zhong's turn on the horse, the war horse seemed quite "quiet", just trampling on its four hooves, without any panic.

One might ask, what happens if a horse panics?

Just look at Menghu's side.

"Ahh

With a slightly panicked cry, Meng Hu was thrown off his horse by the horse he had chosen, and fell to the dirt in a sad manner, gnawing on the dirt on the ground.

Suddenly, Master Zhao and the surrounding Zhao soldiers laughed.

Even Meng Zhong, Meng Sui, Wu Ying and others couldn't help but laugh out loud when they looked at Meng Hu's embarrassed appearance.