"Pengcheng Chronicles" contains: In the 30th year of King Xiang of Chu Qing, in winter, there were 5,000 bandits who did not know where they came from, and there were strange things for more than a month around Pengcheng. At the beginning, it was like a tired egg.

The night was deep and breathtaking. The cold wind howled, like the whimpering sound of a god, seemed to be crying for the people of Pengcheng, which made people's hearts unravelable. The people of the city hid in their homes, did not dare to light the candles in their homes, and looked directly at this cruel world, preferring to hide in the darkness and sleep and never wake up again. There was hardly any trace of the lights in the entire city, as if it were a dead city without people.

In the main hall of the city guard mansion, a candle that was about to burn out was still shining with its faint light, more than a dozen people gathered in the city guard mansion, their gray figures were reflected on the ground, swaying with the shaking of the lights, and the scene of "dark room scheme" was alive.

"Song County Prince, County Duke has led troops to leave Pengcheng for many days, and now Pengcheng is short of soldiers and horses. There are less than 1,000 soldiers and horses left who can fight, and their subordinates are all reckless men who have no good ideas for what to do next. A burly-looking man who couldn't bear to be quiet suddenly stood up and bowed to Song Yu. Song Yu knew him, he was ordered by the county prince to stay in Pengcheng, and now Peng Wei, the supreme commander of Pengcheng's soldiers and horses.

Song Yu is now the Pengcheng Order, that is, the county Yi (gong) of Pengcheng, according to the official system of the Chu State, the county Yi is the largest governor of the administrative unit at the county level, which means that Song Yu is the highest governor of Pengcheng County.

Chu is the earliest implementation of the county system of the country, the Spring and Autumn Period, Chu took the lead in the county system on the border, the general situation is to destroy the country for the county, the newly occupied land is not to implement the feudal system, but to set up a county, send the county Yin (Gong) governance, at this time the county has the nature of a border military town, for all things within the county Yi has the right to cut first, the right to arbitrarily, at the same time, in order to prevent the county public tail from falling, the king of Chu stipulated: the king has the right to appoint the county Yin (Gong), can be changed at any time, the official position of the county Yin (Gong) is not hereditary. The king of Chu wanted to use this method to ensure that the border was guarded by virtuous ministers and good generals at all times to ensure the safety of the border.

By the time of the Warring States period, the intensity of wars increased on a large scale, and wars between vassal states became more frequent and larger. Wars with tens of thousands of people are no longer enough to mention, and wars with a scale of 100,000 or even hundreds of thousands of people are not uncommon. The expansion of the scale of the war made the shortcomings of the county system apparent. Due to the shortage of military and material resources, it is no longer possible to effectively resist a large-scale attack by the enemy country with the strength of a single county, and the counties that originally had border defense functions cannot undertake the heavy task of border defense. Faced with the county system, which could not meet the requirements of the development of the war situation, the state of Chu carried out some reforms and established a new kind of organization, the function of this organization is to concentrate the military and material resources of several counties within a large area, unify the dispatch, unify the command, and resist the enemy state, its name is the county. The supreme governor of the county becomes the county (gong), and the county magistrate has the right to make decisions on the military affairs of the county, and has the supreme power to decide on the military affairs of the county, but the administrative affairs of the county have no management powers.

In the early years of the Warring States Period, when King Chu was in power, the King of Chu appointed Wu Qi as Ling Yin and implemented the law change. The law change stipulates: all nobles who have been crowned kings will be cancelled for three generations; Cease the routine supply of the alienated aristocracy, and enrich the domestic aristocracy to the vast and sparsely populated remote places. This policy made a large number of power vacuums in the heart of the Chu State, the county system was established on a large scale, and the county system quickly followed. Pengcheng County and Pengcheng County were established at this stage.

Although Song Yu was demoted to Pengcheng as a county magistrate more than ten years ago, he was still an enterprising young man at that time, full of beautiful visions for the future, and he believed that with his own ability, he would one day be able to get ahead and be recalled to the central government by the king of Chu again. At that time, the county prince of Pengcheng was also a very virtuous person, and he was lucky to be able to show his talents. He led the army of Pengcheng County to cooperate with the county magistrate to suppress bandits many times, which made the bandits in Pengcheng County empty; He advised farmers to build canals and dams, making Pengcheng County a wealthy county among Pengcheng counties; He judged the case like a god, mediated the disputes of the people, and made Pengcheng rule at that time.

As the saying goes: if the wood is beautiful in the forest, the wind will destroy it; Heaps out of the shore, and the flow will be turbulent; Walk above men, and the crowd will not. Song Yu's achievements aroused the jealousy of Yongcheng County Gong, the supreme governor of Yongcheng County, who also belonged to Pengcheng County. The county magistrate of Yongcheng wrote a letter and sent it to Song Yu's teacher's original political enemy Le Shang, Le Shang was a villain, so it didn't take long for the former Pengcheng County Keeper to be transferred away, and Pengcheng County ushered in a new county guard, Le Jian, the son of Le Shang. Obviously, this new county guard was sent to trouble Song Yu.

Although in terms of position and power, the county magistrate is not subordinate to the county magistrate, and the county magistrate has no right to direct the county magistrate in how to conduct administration, and can only command the county magistrate when conducting military operations. However, from ancient times to the present, China has never clearly demarcated the boundaries of rights, and the phenomenon of the intersection of various rights and the mutual influence of rights has emerged one after another, which is not uncommon. Especially in the Warring States period, when the administrative system was just beginning to appear, a clear division of power was even more impossible. As soon as Le Jian came to Pengcheng, he took advantage of his position to gather a large number of people for military training today, and to gather soldiers to go to the other place tomorrow to suppress bandits, and the day after tomorrow he feasted all the gentry and officials, and paraded around the day after tomorrow. In short, he doesn't do his job on weekdays, wanders around, and does things that waste money and food, and doesn't see results, and the most hateful thing is that he doesn't know how to sympathize with the people's feelings and do evil in Pengcheng. As a result, it didn't take long for public order in Pengcheng County to be bad, bandits were rampant, and the people were living in dire straits.

Song Yu could not tolerate Le Jian's behavior, and asked for the people's lives many times to confront Le Jian. Nor was Le Jian an official who was ignorant of political struggle, and through a series of means, either bribes with thick coins or coercion with power, he pulled a cadre of powerful people and gentry in Pengcheng County, as well as some people who had been opposed to Song Yu, into his chariot. Gradually, these people, with the support of Le Jian, took control of the administrative department of Pengcheng County, and the end result was that Song Yu was completely emptied, and some of his policies were either scrapped or stillborn. So Song Yu began his career as a vase county magistrate for six or seven years, and it was at this stage that Song Yu began to believe in Taoism.

Looking back on his career that has been hollowed out over the years, Song Yu really wants to beat up these officials and gentry who came to his mansion to seek advice.

"He's a bunch of cowardly villains, who joined forces with Le Jian to empty me at the beginning, but now that he is dying, he knows that Le Jian is unreliable, so he comes to beg me. You want me to save you, delusional. Song Yu thought so. According to the law of the state of Chu, the county prince has the duty to defend the territory, and if the territory is lost, the county prince will be punished with death, and the county will be demoted to the title. For Lechamp, even if Pengcheng fell, he had nothing to worry about. With his father's backing in the court, he naturally does not have to worry about being sentenced to death, so someone among his subordinates must be responsible for the fall of Pengcheng. Song Yu has been elevated for many years, everyone knows it, and he is also a small nobleman, naturally, the death penalty cannot fall on him, and in the end, the death penalty falls on Pengcheng's subordinate officials who have no background, that is, the dozen or so people who came to Song Yu's mansion.

"County duke, county duke. Ask the county government to save us, and ask the county government to save the people of Pengcheng! Please the county princess to guard Pengcheng, we will definitely obey your orders. Seeing that Song Yu had not reacted after listening to the words of the person in charge, more than a dozen subordinate officials and gentry stood up from their seats, walked in front of Song Yu, knelt on the ground, and said in a choked voice.

Although Song Yu didn't want to take over this rotten beach in his heart, and he hated this subordinate official from the bottom of his heart, one thing in their words was still very right. The 30,000 people of Pengcheng are innocent, and they urgently need a leader to lead them to defend the city and their homeland. Otherwise, Pengcheng will fall, and the people will fall into the fire of water. Whether to choose a rational escape, let Pengcheng fend for himself, watch a subordinate official and gentry destroy their families, and relieve the depression in their chests for many years, or choose to go crazy, save the people from fire and water, throw their heads and spill blood, and spare a few lives, defend the city, and leave a name for the people, Song Yu hesitated.

The lights became smaller and smaller, the lights became weaker and weaker, and Song Yu fell into a situation where heaven and man were at war. The subordinate officials who knelt on the ground did not dare to come out at all, for fear of destroying Song Yu's thinking. The people in the hall are like sculptures, not moving. The hearts of the officials and gentry were like raising their throats, and they were completely out of breath under the oppression of the quiet environment.

I don't know how long it took, the candle burned out, and the hall fell into darkness, and the dark environment added a little oppression to the hearts of a subordinate gentry, and several people with poor psychological tolerance showed symptoms of imminent collapse, and the people next to them continued to hold on to the people who were about to be unable to hold on.

A maid walked into the hall from the inner courtyard with a lit candle in her hand, illuminating the dark hall. The arrival of light calmed the mood of a dozen people a little.

"Extinguish, step down." Song Yu, who had been at war between heaven and man, suddenly spoke. The maid did not dare to slack off, and quickly blew out the candle and exited the hall. The hall was once again plunged into darkness and silence, and the officials and gentry once again felt endless pressure.