Zhong Heng felt that God was very unfair to him, and every time he gave him a little sweetness, he always snatched it back violently before he realized the real benefits.

When he was still in the Central Plains, his career was not smooth, he had been in the army for many years, he had no merit, he spent a lot of money, and finally found a small officer in the military department, and as a result, he was assigned to the Western Regions for a month, saying that he had been trained for a few years, and he was appointed after returning to the dynasty, which was actually tantamount to allocation.

Nominally, he was promoted, from six to five, but in a sinister world like Biyu City, the city patrol captain has no authority, and the core task is to protect the personal safety of the city governor, which is not much different from the family.

At the end of the governor's term, he could get a huge "peace charm", and he didn't even have much chance to accept bribes.

Seeing the rich people everywhere in the north and the countless enjoyments in the south city, it is an extremely painful thing to have no money, like forcing a hungry beggar to watch the guests in the restaurant eat and drink through the window.

It was in this kind of torment that could not be shaken off at any moment that Zhong Hengsheng had a nihilistic attitude towards life: he was loyal to the monarch, he had never even seen the land that the emperor had stepped on; patriotic? The Central Plains was thousands of miles away, and all the benefits won in Biyu City would fall into the hands of the city governor in a roundabout way, and had nothing to do with the country; ideal? Zhong Heng's only hope was to be submerged in gold and silver, and even if he lost his life for ten years, it was worth it.

Then the strange boy named Huan Nu appeared.

When they first met, the two hardly spoke, but the sophisticated Zhong Heng immediately saw that the young man was special, and there was a word "slave" in the name of Huan Nu, but there was still some kind of pride in the clothes and food.

In the Western Regions, it is common to change from rich to poor, from noble to cheap, and princes and princesses have fallen into slavery at times, but after the harsh training of Jinpeng Castle, they have not fully accepted the status of slaves, which is rare.

When Huan Nu accepted the lecture of "discovering the truth and solving the problem" from the captain of the city, and successfully freed himself and the Xu family siblings from the murder case, Zhong Heng felt more and more that this young man was not simple, but he was just thinking about it.

What Huan Nu didn't know was that his behavior at that time gave great encouragement to the lieutenant of the patrol city, this was the first time, someone appreciated the insights of this five-grade petty official, Zhong Heng's martial arts are average, and his literary talents are completely lacking, the only thing he is proud of is his keen eyes and accurate judgment, but in the officialdom, this is not an advantage, but a frightening shortcoming, the boss never trusts him, and always finds excuses to prop him to the outermost periphery.

On the one hand, the captain of the city who has not done anything in middle age, and on the other hand, the young man who endures humiliation and waits for a good opportunity for revenge, the fates of the two have been entangled since then, sometimes parallel and sometimes separated.

Many years later, Huan Nu has become the dragon king, and Zhong Heng has become the prime minister of Shiguo with the help of his strength, no matter how weak the country is, it can be regarded as a major turning point in his life.

God is still so unfair, before Zhong Heng tastes the true taste of the prime minister, Shiguo was invaded, most of the territory fell, and only the capital was barely supported.

This time, Zhong Heng didn't intend to give in, he didn't know if there would be such an opportunity in the future, anyway, this time, he had to hold it tightly in his hands and not let go of it.

When the Dragon King left Shi Guo to rescue the army of the Great Snow Mountain, he promised that he would return with the rescue troops in two months, but Zhong Heng's judgment told him that even if the Dragon King returned on time, the small Shi Kingdom would still not be enough to fight against a powerful enemy, so he immediately set out to make long-term plans.

At this time, the country of Shi was in chaos, the former prime minister Yang Dou was expelled, the army was only a few hundred people left, the people were panicked, full of distrust of the new prime minister, the king was frail and sickly, simple-minded, and his only enthusiasm was to accept the meticulous worship of the eunuchs every morning.

The only forces available to Zhong Heng's men were dozens of Great Snow Mountain swordsmen led by the swordsman Lin Xiaoshan, more than two hundred bandits with vague positions, and four or five hundred Shiguo soldiers.

The alliance of the four countries of Xiaoyaohai had already arrived at the border, and there was not much time left for the new prime minister, so Zhong Heng immediately set about doing several things at the same time:

Giving up the national war, he sent messengers to recall all the garrisons in the border posts to the capital, and barely gathered more than 200 soldiers.

The prime minister promised that after the end of the war, the land and houses would be returned to their original owners, and other losses would be compensated by the state treasury.

Zhong Heng also found time to call the group of bandits brothers and sisters, and socialized according to the rules of the rivers and lakes, and soon discovered the truth, the people who these people defected to—or feared—were not the Dragon King, and the female escort Lotus Girl beside the Dragon King, this fear was very strong, enough to support a certain degree of loyalty.

On the day of the Dragon King's departure, Zhong Heng confiscated the family property of the old prime minister Yang Dou, the amount was not small, even more than the treasury of Shiguo, this money Zhong Heng did not hand over, but used to hire craftsmen to repair the city wall, recruit young farmers into the city as soldiers.

The most urgent material is food, without food, no matter how strong the army is, it will not be able to hold the city.

When the war broke out suddenly, the official grain reserves of Shiguo were very small, and Zhong Heng adopted two methods, on the one hand, he bought grain from ordinary people at a high price, and on the other hand, forced the rich and nobles to hand over their own grain stocks, and finally made the country's granary full.

This was one of the most important reasons why Shi Guo was able to hold the capital, and after only three months, the price of grain skyrocketed, and it was impossible for the people to sell a grain of rice at ten times the price.

The gold and silver confiscated from Yang's house were soon insufficient, Zhong Heng consulted with the king twice, and after finding that he could not convince the other party at all, he simply bypassed the incompetent king, took over the treasury and the royal treasury, and then sent someone to forcibly seize Meng's business and money in Shiguo, and obtained another sum of money.

Even so, it is an impossible task to defend the capital with less than a thousand soldiers, Zhong Heng made all efforts, and in the end, he still had to rely on the enemy's wrong decisions to barely keep the small country that had just arrived.

The number of the coalition army formed by the four kingdoms of Xiaoyao Haikang, An, Sha and Hui was 2,000, and it was commanded by a general sent by the most powerful Kang State.

It was these three people who had major disagreements on military strategy.

The general felt that the troops in his hands were too small to storm the capital, and hoped to invite a battle on the border, and the two sides faced each other according to the traditional model, and at the same time, he gave preferential treatment to the king of Shiguo and retained his throne, so as to urge Shiguo to surrender as soon as possible.

Yang Dou is full of hatred, Shi Guo does not belong to the royal family, but the private property of the Yang family, and now it is snatched away, he wants to snatch it back desperately, and he does not hesitate to shed blood for this, he makes all kinds of tempting promises, claiming that the people of Shi Guo have long lost their loyalty to the royal family, and there are many Yang supporters in the city, as long as the Four-Nation Alliance advances quickly, there is no need to fight, someone will open the city gate.

Prince Kang still has a longing for Princess Shiguo, he doesn't want to transfer Shiguo to the exiled Prime Minister Yang Dou, and Shi and Kang border each other, and they can seize more land, which can not only force Shiguo to change his mind and marry the princess to him, but also expand Kangguo's power.

The three men argued for many days, so they lost the best opportunity to attack, and finally came to the conclusion that the troops were divided into two routes, one to attack the capital and the other to seize the various towns.

As it turned out, it was a decision that couldn't have been more wrong.

The first group of men and horses advanced to a place more than thirty miles away from the capital, and got the news that the capital of Shiguo not only did not open the city gate to meet the army, but waited for the battle, and the number of defenders of the city increased day by day, reaching more than 1,000, which was on par with the attacking side.

Yang Dou was disappointed, so he wrote dozens of letters with his own hands, calling on the supporters of the Yang family to take action, and then the archers shot into the city at night.

In response, early the next morning, more than a dozen heads were thrown out of the city, including Yang disciples and recognized Yang supporters.

Yang Dou's status in the coalition immediately fell to dispensable.

When the other group occupied the land in Shiguo, and found that the towns were empty, only houses and heavy objects could not be taken away, and they could not find gold and silver treasures, they were very angry, so they set fire to all the buildings they encountered on the road.

When the news reached the capital, it did Zhong Heng a great favor, and the people of Shiguo, who had a wait-and-see attitude so far, had a common hatred for the enemy overnight, and no one dared to propose surrender anymore.

Due to their equal strength, many even hoped to go out of the city for a decisive battle and defeat the invaders in one fell swoop.

Zhong Heng kept his soberness, knowing that although the number of Shi ** team increased, the combat effectiveness was not very high, and it was not a big deal to rush to victory, once he lost the battle, he would immediately suppress the enthusiasm for defending the city to the bottom, so he tried his best to resist public opinion and hold on.

After waiting for a month, the coalition forces converged and found that Shi Guo really had no intention of surrendering, so he launched a siege battle.

The siege was fought for more than half a year.

The news of the annihilation of the Dragon King and the Great Snow Mountain almost crushed the Shi Kingdom, but Zhong Heng did not believe it when he was killed, and decided to take a desperate gamble, his firmness miraculously touched many people, and the entire Western Regions, only the people of this small area, still believe that the Dragon King is not dead, and is gathering more powerful forces, and will come back to rescue the Shi Kingdom at any time.

Several times during this period, the coalition forces had the intention of retreating, but Jinpeng Fort was like a bamboo in the Western Regions, and the progress was faster than everyone expected, and the four kingdoms of the Xiaoyao Sea were originally allies of the Dubu King, but it didn't take long for them to fall to vassals, and finally became servants, and even their nominal independence was in jeopardy.

Now, the coalition forces are no longer fighting for the interests of their own country, but fighting for the Dubu King, which makes the morale of the besiegers lower and lower, but they dare not say anything about giving up.

Life in the city was not easy, the war lasted too long, there was a shortage of clothing, food was distributed daily, and only half of the food was distributed, and the morale of the army and the people also fell to the bottom, and no one dared to surrender because of the prime minister's tough hand.

A few months later, a new commander appointed by King Dubu arrived, and more soldiers were recruited from Shikoku to launch a series of large-scale attacks.

It became more and more difficult to defend the city, and even Zhong Heng couldn't help but hesitate, feeling that Shi Guo couldn't hold out for long, and the Dragon King was either dead or would never return to the Western Regions.

At this time, the new commander of the Four-Nation Alliance sent a messenger to send a letter, praising Prime Minister Zhong Cheng and the people of Shi Guo for their perseverance in an unprecedented friendly gesture, and then put forward generous conditions, as long as the city gate was opened and surrendered, Shi Guo could still maintain its independence, Zhong Heng's position as prime minister would also be vigorously guaranteed by Jinpeng Castle, and the people could return to their old homes without any punishment.

For the king, for the prime minister, and for the people of the city, this was a rare condition, and when the contents of the letter were "inadvertently" made public by the envoys of the coalition forces, the call for surrender suddenly increased, and Zhong Heng felt pressured and had to agree to a formal negotiation.

At this time, the news that the Dragon King led his army from Osan into the Xiaoyao Sea was being strictly blocked by the coalition forces outside the city.

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