Chapter 51 The fourth quarter Poyang Lake battle

Zhu Yuanzhang's territory is expanding day by day, while Chen Youliang's is shrinking day by day. The development of the situation is more and more beneficial to Zhu Yuanzhang and not conducive to Chen Youliang.Chen Youliang was very angry, but still determined to destroy Zhu Yuanzhang.He recruited a large number of ironworkers and carpenters to rebuild hundreds of large warships.These boats are several feet high and are divided into upper, middle and lower floors. Each floor has a horse shed, and the hull is painted with red paint.The largest warship can hold more than 1,000 people, and the small one can carry hundreds of people.In April 1363, Chen Youliang dispatched his entire army, claiming to be 600,000, and marched towards Hongdu (now Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province) with his family members and hundreds of civil and military officials.

Chen Youliang arrived in Hongdu, landed and besieged the city.Zhu Wenzheng, the guard of Hongdu, sent troops to defend the area.Chen Youliang ordered the soldiers to attack the city desperately, breaking through a big gap more than 20 feet long in the city wall.The guard Deng Yu ordered the soldiers to beat back the enemy with firecrackers, and erected wooden fences outside the gap overnight to cover the building of the city, and the city wall was built in just one night.Chen Youliang's army exhausted all methods of attacking the city, and Zhu Wenzheng also exhausted all methods of defense. The battle was very fierce, and both sides suffered heavy casualties.The offensive and defensive battle in Hongdu lasted for 85 days.It wasn't until July of this year that Zhu Yuanzhang personally led an army of 200,000 to rescue and entered Hukou. Chen Youliang had to withdraw from Hongdu and sent the army to Poyang Lake to fight.

Chen Youliang's army has a large number of people, and the navy ships are tall and large, so they still have an advantage in terms of military strength.Facing such a powerful enemy, Zhu Yuanzhang divided the navy army into 11 teams, and each team was equipped with firecrackers, longbows, and crossbows.Xu Da, a general under Zhu Yuanzhang, led his army to battle first, defeated Chen Youliang's vanguard, killed 1,500 people, captured a large warship, and returned to camp victoriously. Zhu's army's morale was even stronger.In one battle, Chen Youliang's brave general Zhang Dingbian rushed to the battleship Zhu Yuanzhang was on.Due to the shallow water, Zhu Yuanzhang's warship stopped and could not move.In order to protect Zhu Yuanzhang from danger, Yajiang Han Cheng put on Zhu Yuanzhang's clothes and hats, and jumped into the water.The enemy thought that Zhu Yuanzhang had thrown himself into the water, so he relaxed the siege.Zhu Yuanzhang's general Chang Yuchun shot Zhang Dingbian with an arrow, and the enemy warships began to retreat.Taking advantage of the high tide of the river, Zhu Yuanzhang's battleship sailed away from the dangerous place.

During the battle, Zhu Yuanzhang saw the weakness of Chen Youliang's joint formation and ineffective movements, so he decided to adopt the suggestion of his general Guo Xing and use fire to defeat the enemy.Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the navy to prepare various firearms such as artillery, firecrackers, rockets, and fire thorns, and only waited for the attack to launch these firearms at the same time to burn the enemy's large ships.He also ordered to prepare a batch of small boats for fire attack, loaded with reeds, filled with gunpowder in the middle, and surrounded by straw men in armor and holding weapons as camouflage.Then tie a light boat to the stern of each boat, and the soldiers will withdraw in the boat after preparing to light the fire.Everything was ready, and a strong northeasterly wind blew up at dusk.Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the daredevils to drive seven fire attack boats, rush to Chen Youliang's fleet, take advantage of the wind to light fire, and launch a fire attack.Seven small boats rushed into the enemy fleet like seven fire dragons. At the same time, Zhu Yuanzhang's navy also fired all kinds of firearms, burning all the enemy's warships.The fire takes advantage of the power of the wind, and the wind helps the fire, thick smoke fills the air, and the flames rise into the air, making the water of Poyang Lake red.Many of Chen Youliang's troops were burned to death and drowned, and even more were captured and surrendered.Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that the prisoners should not be killed, and the wounded should be treated, and then they were all sent back.In this way, many generals and soldiers of Chen Youliang's army were won over, including Chen Youliang's chief guard, left and right generals Jin Wu, all came to surrender.

From the beginning to the end of the war, Zhu Yuanzhang personally commanded the soldiers and persisted in fighting. Although the guards around him were all killed in battle, he still refused to take a step back.After several fierce battles, Zhu Jun took control of Hukou. Chen Youliang's army was defeated again and again, and the food had been eaten up, so it was really impossible to fight.Chen Youliang saw that the general situation was over, so he took the remnants of the defeated generals and broke out from the mouth of the lake. Unexpectedly, he was shot to death by flying arrows during the breakout.Zhang Dingbian loaded Chen Youliang's body in a boat, and together with Prince Chen Li, fled back to Wuchang overnight.The next day, Chen Youliang's deputy prime minister, Chen Rong, and others collected all the remaining 50,000 sailors and surrendered to Zhu Yuanzhang.The Battle of Poyang Lake ended with Zhu Shengchen losing.

The Battle of Poyang Lake was a life-and-death battle between the Zhu and Chen armies. Zhu Yuanzhang won a complete victory in the end, which laid the foundation for him to pacify the south of the Yangtze River, and also made necessary preparations for his further northward extermination of the Yuan Dynasty and the unification of China. After the war, at a military meeting, Zhu Yuanzhang analyzed the reasons for the victory and defeat of the two sides. He said: "The weather is not as good as the location, and the location is not as good as the people. They are not united, people are of one mind, they are suspicious from top to bottom, and they use troops year after year, always losing battles, unable to accumulate strength, and not good at capturing favorable opportunities, so they fail in the end. The reason why our army can win is because we have grasped the opportunities and Soldiers can unite as one and win harmony, so the battle of Poyang Lake is like a bird of prey (zhi, a ferocious bird like an eagle) catching a chicken, making Chen Youliang 'catch all eggs'."