Chapter 56 9. Blood Fertile Central Plains

In the sixteenth year of Zhengzheng, Liu Futong successively sent three Northern Expeditions, which attracted a large number of troops from the Yuan Dynasty.Chahan Timur, Li Siqi and other main forces who had been fighting against Liu Futong were all transferred from Henan. Liu Futong took the opportunity to attack and attacked Bianliang, an important town in Henan, in June of the 17th year of Zhizheng. However, due to the strong city, he failed to conquer it.In August, Liu Futong conquered Daming Road (now Daming, Hebei) and Weihui Road (now Jixian, Henan), and once again defeated the Yuan general Pingzhang, Henan Province, and lost Badulu, pushing his forces to the south of Hebei, and began to threaten Yuan Dadu .The Yuan Dynasty dispatched Li Ma Shili, a member of the Privy Council, to lead an army to intercept it, and fought with the Red Turban Army in Puzhou. The Yuan army was defeated, and Da Li Ma Shili died in battle.Although Batulu, who had been defeated and fought repeatedly, struggled to support the situation, the court suspected that he was suspected of "playing with the bandits and losing his chance", and ordered him to enter the decisive battle.The Red Scarf Army took the opportunity to implement countermeasures, forged a truce agreement between Badulu and its own side, and deliberately threw it on the only way the imperial envoys must pass.After receiving this ambiguous armistice agreement, the majority of parties became even more distrustful of the loss of Batulu.Dashi Badulu, who worked hard on the Henan battlefield, died overnight of worry and indignation after learning the news.Its army was taken over by his son Polo Timur, and the main force was temporarily in turmoil and unable to fight.

Liu Futong then attacked Bianliang City again in May of the eighteenth year of Zhizheng.Yuan Shoujiang Shiliemen knew that he was invincible, so he abandoned the city and fled. Bianliang fell into the hands of the Red Scarf Army.Bianliang is Tokyo, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, which is Kaifeng in Henan Province today. Liu Futong called for "reviving the Song Dynasty" and decided on Bianliang as the capital.However, the good times didn't last long. With the defeat of the West Route Army, the retreat of the East Route Army to Shandong and the expedition of the Middle Route Army to outside the Great Wall and North Korea, the Yuan Army was able to deal with Liu Futong.

In October of the eighteenth year of Zhengzheng, Polo Timur captured Caozhou and killed the Prime Minister of the Red Turban Army Wu and Qiu Zhiyuan.In May of the following year, Chahan Timur successively captured Hulao Pass and Gui, Bo, Chen, Cai and other states, forming a large siege on Bianliang City.Yuan armies from Qin, Jin and other places also sent letters to pass through Hulao, crossed the Taihang Yellow River, and gathered in Central Plains.Chahan Timur commanded the army. The south road went out of Biannan, slightly south of Cao, according to Huanglingdu, and the north road went out to the east of Bianliang.Yuan armies from all walks of life gathered under the city of Bianliang, and first captured the outer city of Bianliang.In August, Bianliang ran out of food, and Chahan Timur launched a general offensive. Liu Futong was defeated in a bitter battle, so he had to lead hundreds of cavalry to protect Han Lin'er and escape from the east gate, and fled to Anfeng.The Yuan army broke through Bianliang and captured tens of thousands of Red Turban soldiers and a large number of families of officials of the Dragon and Phoenix regime.

Just as Henan was in full swing, Mao Gui from Shandong had another accident.In April of the nineteenth year of Zhengzheng, Zhao Junyong, his old boss, was defeated in Huai'an and fled to Shandong to join him.This President Zhao, who has always been known for causing trouble, had bullied Guo Zixing and Zhu Yuanzhang in Haozhou, and he did not restrain himself when he returned to Shandong, and murdered Mao Gui out of control.General Mao Gui, who was on an expedition to Liaoyang, was extremely angry when he heard the news. He returned to Shandong in July and killed Zhao Junyong. After Chahan Timur defeated the main force of Liu Futong's Red Scarf Army, he attacked the Shandong Red Scarf Army in June of the 21st year of Zhizheng, defeating Guanzhou and Dongchang.In August, Chahan Timur sent Kuo Kuo Timur, Yan Sixiao, Guan Bao, Hu Linchi and others with 50,000 elite troops to build a pontoon bridge over the Yellow River from Dong'anan to attack Dongping.Tian Feng, the general of the Red Scarf Army led 20,000 troops to seize the bridge but failed. The Yuan army crossed the Yellow River, captured Changqing, and surrounded Dongping. Chahan Timur wrote a letter to Tian Feng to persuade Tian Feng to surrender.The Yuan Dynasty granted Tian Feng the Pingzhang of Shandong Province. Taking him as the vanguard, he recruited Yu Bao, the general guard of Dizhou, Wang Shicheng, the general of Dongping, Yang Cheng, the general of Dongchang, and Deng, Lai, Yi, Mi and other prefectures along the coast.The Yuan army went down to Tai'an, Jiyang, and Zhangqiu to surround Jinan. The Jinan Red Scarf Army struggled for three months and finally the city fell.There are only two cities left in Shandong, Yidu and Juzhou, which are still guarded by the Red Scarf Army.

For a time, Chahan Timur's army gained momentum, and even Zhu Yuanzhang, who was dominant in Western Wu, sent people to make arrangements.However, Zhu Yuanzhang was, after all, a rare hero in that era. Although he pretended to be friendly to Chahan in order to stabilize the northern front, he pointed out the fatal problem of Chahan keenly to the left and right: Bo La (that is, the different reading of Bo Luo Timur) is indissoluble in military disputes, and repeatedly violates the orders of the emperor. Is this the behavior of loyal ministers? I also heard that he has a good name, such as Tian Feng, who is inclined to others, and Chahan treats him like a confidant, so he secretly Yu Zhiren also."

Zhu Yuanzhang's judgment was quite accurate.The world is so unpredictable, just when Chahan Timur was in high spirits, and when he was about to smash the Shandong Red Scarf Army with all his might, he himself was assassinated by Tian Feng and Wang Shicheng in June of the 22nd year.After Tian Feng's surrender, Chahan was confidant to him, and often went into his tent alone. His subordinates tried to persuade him repeatedly, but he said back: "I treat people with all my heart, and I will protect everyone and prevent them!" Seeing the name of the camp, he tricked Chahan into the camp, and Wang Shicheng assassinated him.The most famous general at the end of the Yuan Dynasty fell like this.Assuming that Chahan is not dead, the affairs of the world are still unknown.Emperor Yuan Shun regretted this unceasingly, and posthumously named him Prime Minister Zuo of Henan Province, King Zhongxiang, and posthumous posthumous title of Xianwu.At that time, heroes, no matter friends or foes, were all stunned. Even Zhu Yuanzhang, who was far away in the east of the Yangtze River, couldn't help sighing after hearing the news: "There is no one in the world!" How boring a dragon battle without heroes!

After Tian Feng and Wang Shicheng assassinated Chahan, they fled to Yidu City to defend.Chahan's tribe promoted Kuo Kuo Timur as the main general and continued to besiege Yidu.In November, they widened Timur's cave and entered the tunnel, broke through the city, captured Tian Feng and Wang Shicheng alive, and executed them by dissection to sacrifice Chahan Timur. Because Chahan Timur attacked Shandong and was assassinated immediately, Liu Futong and Han Lin'er of Anfeng finally survived for a while.But the Central Plains was the place of the Fourth World War after all. Although the Yuan army had no time to take care of it, Zhang Shicheng, a private salt dealer in Jiangdong, focused on Liu Futong and his Anfeng City.

Zhang Shicheng was born in 1994, a private salt dealer in Taizhou. Private salt dealers have two rebellious advantages: first, they are rich; second, they have an organized armed force.In the first month of the thirteenth year of Zhengzheng, Zhang Shicheng took his brothers and eighteen strong men including Li Bosheng to revolt, and quickly expanded to tens of thousands of people, and captured Taizhou, Xinghua, Gaoyou and other cities within a few months.Similar to Fang Guozhen, Zhang Shicheng is also rebellious.However, Fang Guozhen focused on recruiting security and supplemented by rebellion, while Zhang Shicheng did the opposite.

In the first month of the fourteenth year of Zhizheng, Zhang Shicheng became king in Gaoyou, with the country name "Dazhou" and Jianyuan "Tianyou".In September, Prime Minister Yuan left his relatives and led hundreds of thousands of troops to encircle and suppress him. Zhang Shicheng failed in the battle and retreated to Gaoyou City.Just as the two sides were fighting hard in Gaoyou City, the Yuan Dynasty was in disarray. Zhongshuyou Prime Minister Ha Ma instigated the supervisory censor Yuan Saiyin to write to the court without waiting. Military power, resettle Huai'an Road.Most of the generals of the Yuan army escaped from their cronies, so everyone was in danger. Zhang Shicheng took the opportunity to fight back, and hundreds of thousands of troops scattered and fled.

In February of the 23rd year of Zhizheng, in order to expand his territory to Huaibei, Zhang Shicheng sent General Lu Zhen to attack Anfeng, where Liu Futong was guarding.Anfeng City was running out of food, people were eating each other, and even the rotting corpses buried in the ground were dug up and eaten.There is also the tragedy of digging the mud from the bottom of a well and frying it with human beings.Liu Futong wiped his face and sent someone to ask for help from Zhu Yuanzhang, who nominally obeyed the Dragon and Phoenix regime.Liu Bowen, Zhu Yuanzhang's adviser, strongly opposed sending troops, thinking that if he sent troops to the north, Chen Youliang from the west would be in an extremely disadvantageous situation if he took advantage of a false attack.And if Queen Xiao Ming is saved, how will she deal with it?Confess it, it's boring yourself; get rid of it, why save him?It's not worthwhile to bear the charge of killing the master.

Zhu Yuanzhang refused to listen, and at the beginning of March, he personally led an army across the river to rescue Anfeng. When he arrived, Anfeng City had fallen and Liu Futong died in battle.Zhu Yuanzhang repelled Lu Zhen and found Han Lin'er. As Liu Bowen expected, he was at a loss for this titled master for a while, so he had to be placed in Chuzhou to give him some moral care.Three years later, in December of the twenty-sixth year of Zhizheng, Zhu Yuanzhang sent his confidant Liao Yongzhong to Chuzhou to pick up King Xiaoming and go to Yingtian, but this was a complete murder conspiracy. Han Liner's boat was sunk in the torrent of the Yangtze River.