Chapter 22 Section 5 Thick black means and shrewd mind

It stands to reason that Zhu Yuanzhang is now Guo Zixing's greatest hero, and he should be promoted to rank and concentrate on his position: now Guo Zixing has 40,000 troops, three-quarters of which are created by Zhu Yuanzhang.However, the interpersonal relationship in traditional China is so strange. The more credit Zhu Yuanzhang made, the more complicated Guo Zixing's feelings for him were.The energy of this son-in-law was beyond his expectation.At the beginning, this small subordinate only brought twenty-four personal soldiers out to open up a base area, and he was worried about whether there would be no return, so he would make his daughter a widow.Never dreamed that in just over a year, Zhu Yuanzhang would hand over 30,000 well-trained troops.And he has been in business for so many years, but only has more than 10,000 horses.Wouldn't it be clear at a glance whether the two were capable?

The so-called master of high merit, there can only be one core, one authority, and one object of allegiance in a team.Zhu Yuanzhang made too much contribution and won the morale of the army. Guo Zixing was not so at ease when he was enjoying Zhu Yuanzhang's business achievements.So he did not give Zhu Yuanzhang a promotion for a long time, but kept finding fault with him.Guo Zixing's two sons, Guo Tianxu and Guo Tianjue, are also narrow-minded people. They don't want this brother-in-law to steal their limelight, so they will gossip about it whenever they have the opportunity.Some of Zhu Yuanzhang's former subordinates also saw that the limelight was wrong, sowed discord in front of Guo Zixing, and reported Zhu Yuanzhang's various mistakes when he led the army independently.

Guo Zixing was worried about Zhu Yuanzhang at first, and coupled with the fact that everyone said so much money, no matter how he saw Zhu Yuanzhang's awkwardness, he began to deliberately suppress Zhu Yuanzhang.He first transferred away all the trusted generals and staff around Zhu Yuanzhang, and then deprived Zhu Yuanzhang of his actual power. up.When the relationship was at its worst, Guo Zixing even locked Zhu Yuanzhang up because of a disagreement, and prevented him from going out, relying on his wife Ma Shi to secretly send him food several times.Once, Ma Shi took the freshly baked pancakes to him in his arms, and a large piece of his chest was burned red.This scar made Zhu Yuanzhang respect this married wife all his life.

Although it was an army created by himself, once he handed over his military power, Zhu Yuanzhang found that he had nothing.Of course Zhu Yuanzhang was angry, and of course he was depressed, but with his insight into the world, he could see through Guo Zixing's heart at once.Although he had the backing of 30,000 soldiers trained by himself, Zhu Yuanzhang didn't want to fall out with Guo Zixing.Because the patriarchal clan consciousness of the peasants is deeply rooted, no matter how capable Zhu Yuanzhang is, he is also Guo Zixing's son-in-law and subordinate.If the following offends the superior, and the minor rebels against the major, no matter how capable he is, he will immediately be criticized by thousands of people, and people will lose their hearts.With his qualifications, age, and status, he still has to rely on Guo Zixing.

Zhu Yuanzhang knew how to win back Guo Zixing's trust.The more Guo Zixing treated him too much, the more submissive and cautious he became.It is said that the son-in-law is the son-in-law, but he, the son-in-law, completely put himself in the position of a dutiful son. If the king wants his minister to die, the minister has to die.If the father wants the son to die, the son has to die.Zhu Yuanzhang was beaten and scolded, but never complained.The more you doubt me, the more loyal I will be to you. If you don't let me take care of things, I will honestly stay at home and take care of you.If you ask me to lead the team to go out, I will fight desperately and go forward indomitably.The so-called Lu Yao knows the horsepower and sees the hearts of the people over time. After a long time, Guo Zixing's family felt sorry for Zhu Yuanzhang.

Guo Zixing also felt that without Zhu Yuanzhang, he would not be able to do things smoothly.Other people's ideas are not as clever as Zhu Yuanzhang's, and Zhu Yuanzhang's judgment is not as clear as Zhu Yuanzhang's.In addition, the left and right cronies also began to say good things for Zhu Yuanzhang. After a few months, he finally dispelled his doubts about Zhu Yuanzhang and appointed him again.Zhu Yuanzhang once again became the general with the most say under Guo Zixing, and Guo Zixing mostly relied on Zhu Yuanzhang's opinions on major issues and minor sentiments. He used to be subordinate to others, but now he has become the commander-in-chief of an army of 40,000, and he has repelled several attacks by the Yuan army in a row. Guo Zixing is full of ambition and has the idea of ​​becoming king.At the beginning, he destroyed his family and set up an army, putting all his eggs in one basket, just to fight against a widow.Now that we are self-reliant, why not be addicted to being king in the south?When his subordinates heard that he had this intention, they all agreed.

Only Zhu Yuanzhang immediately objected: "Chuzhou has no danger to defend, and it is not a place to be called a king. We now only have an isolated city and a few surrounding towns. If we become king, we will only get a false name, but the tree will attract the attention of the court. It is bound to gather heavy troops to attack, and by then it will be too late to regret.” Zhu Yuanzhang repeatedly persuaded Guo Zixing to remain silent after hearing this, but the matter of becoming king was finally left alone.Judging from this result, Zhu Yuanzhang actually became the backbone of this army again.

Indeed, at that time, Guo Zixing's more than 40,000 troops were only trapped in the city of Chuzhou, occupying a limited area, and food was also very scarce.Not only is it unrealistic to become king, but survival is also in danger.Zhu Yuanzhang suggested that Guo Zixing take Hezhou (now Hexian County, Anhui Province) in the south to expand his power: "It is not a plan to be trapped in an isolated city. Today, if you want to seek what you want, you can only seek it in Heyang." Zhu Yuanzhang also planned a specific strategy for Guo Zixing to capture Hezhou. He said that although Hezhou was "small", it had a solid defense, "it can be counted, but it is difficult to win."You can use the strategy of cheating the city to capture the city.The original words of Zhu Yuanzhang recorded in historical records are:

When attacking the people's stronghold, he got the number two of the soldiers' uniforms. The text is called "Luzhou Luyi Soldiers". Today, three thousand soldiers are planned to be selected. Brave soldiers are selected. The soldiers drove forward with four packs (camels) carrying rewards, and people claimed that the Luzhou soldiers sent envoys to Heyang to reward the generals, and the Heyang soldiers would accept them when they saw them.Because the crimson-clothed soldiers (the red scarf soldiers were all in red at that time) were followed by tens of thousands of people, about ten li apart, waiting for the green-clothed soldiers to thin the city, and raising fire as a response, the crimson-clothed soldiers marched with drums, and it was bound to be broken. .

In other words, when attacking the landlord's armed forces before, two number plates were seized, called "Luzhou Road Yibing".How about imitating 3,000 of them like this, sending 3,000 elite soldiers to wear the clothes of the landlords' armed forces, sew this number plate on the front and back of the chest, pretend to be a village regiment, bring four camels, pack rewards, and claim to be Luzhou The landlord armed forces sent envoys to reward and state troops.Send another 10,000 people to follow behind, and when the front team enters the city, they will attack from inside and outside.

In the first month of the fifteenth year of Zhengzheng (1355 A.D.), Guo Zixing adopted this strategy and successfully captured Hezhou, doubling the scope of his rule.In terms of rewards for meritorious deeds, he was promoted to Zhu Yuanzhang as the commander-in-chief of Hezhou soldiers and horses.In other words, Zhu Yuanzhang became the number two figure among Guo Jun overnight. Although he was promoted to this position by virtue of his illustrious military exploits, many of the other general officers complained about this.The reason, of course, is that Zhu Yuanzhang was young and had little qualifications, so he rose too fast and was favored too much.Relying on the fact that they are Guo Zixing's old subordinates and are much older than Zhu Yuanzhang, they rely on their old men to sell their old men in front of Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhu Yuanzhang often does not give orders.Especially Guo Zixing's brother-in-law, Zhang Tianyou, who captured Hezhou, was even more secretly dissatisfied when he saw that the position of chief military officer was not given to him but to Zhu Yuanzhang, who advised him.Every time when the commander-in-chief discusses collectively, because Zhu Yuanzhang ranks first among the commander-in-chief, he naturally sits in the first place. The veteran officers are very uncomfortable because of this, and gossip behind their backs, saying that Zhu Yuanzhang relied on The identity of "Jie Ke" (son-in-law) jumped up, saying that marrying a good wife is worse than going through life and death. With his extremely high talent, Zhu Yuanzhang made a typical case in controlling people with skills.In order to establish his prestige, Zhu Yuanzhang came up with a way.He asked Xiaobing to remove the chairs in the conference hall and replace them with benches.In this way, everyone can freely choose their own seats during the meeting. The next day, Zhu Yuanzhang was late on purpose. When he entered the venue, he found that all the generals were honest and polite. At that time, the right was the most respected. They filled up the right hand and left him the leftmost seat.Zhu Yuanzhang sat down without saying a word.A meeting was held to discuss military issues, and the person at the head of the right line spoke first.These big bosses babbled for a long time, but they couldn't say a few words of level.The last one was Zhu Yuanzhang's turn. He talked eloquently and his analysis was reasonable. After hearing this, everyone had to nod in agreement and acted according to Zhu Yuanzhang's intention.After this situation happened several times, when we held a meeting again, everyone consciously left the position of the right hand to him.In this way, Zhu Yuanzhang's prestige was completely established.