Chapter 7 Chapter 6: The Beginning of Hegemony

And states are too small. Zhu Yuanzhang felt this urgently. It is impossible to have a big development in this small county. His eyes turned to Jiqing (Nanjing). Superstition is a common problem among people in the feudal era. If you want to occupy the world, you must occupy the place of kingship. Nanjing is such a place. The origin of the dragon and the tiger in Nanjing. In addition, there is a Yangtze River in front of Nanjing. The emperor, like us, always checks Fengshui before buying a house. Nanjing is surrounded by mountains and facing water. Fengshui is so good.Before the Ming Dynasty, six dynasties established their capitals here. In the Yuan Dynasty, this place was called Jiqing Road.Not only is the terrain dangerous, but it is also very rich.

The vicinity is not only an important grain-producing area, but also serves as a commercial center. Most importantly, there is a canal here. In the era when it took several months to travel from Beijing to Nanjing, waterways were really important. Feng Guosheng (Feng Sheng) was not only brave in battle, but also very far-sighted. He suggested to Zhu Yuanzhang that he should immediately cross the Yangtze River and occupy Jiqing. This suggestion deeply moved Zhu Yuanzhang, and he made up his mind to occupy Jiqing! But as for the ship, Zhu Yuanzhang's men were either cavalry or infantry, but without the navy, he was in a hurry, and the arrival of a person brought him a solution.

His name is Yu Tonghai. In Ming history, he was said to be the leader of the naval army. In fact, this person was a pirate who robbed along the river. He often did something similar to the "Water Margin" in "When you get to the heart of the river, I ask you if you want to eat noodles or wontons." The way of deeds. But when it comes to Zhu Yuanzhang, he is an important person. It doesn’t matter if he kills some people or grabs some money, as long as it is useful. So he summoned thousands of warships to attack the quarry first, then break the peace, and finally arrived at the final destination, Jiqing.

These so-called thousands of warships are actually just small fishing boats. Zhu Yuanzhang's major military defect, the navy, also became the main factor restricting his later military combat methods. The festival is just around the corner! At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang was the left deputy marshal of the rebel army, while Guo Tianxu was the capital marshal, and Guo Zixing’s brother-in-law Zhang Tianyou was the right capital deputy marshal. This position was granted by Liu Futong, and Zhu Yuanzhang had the lowest status. The capital of Zhu Yuanzhang's struggle, the actual commander of the army is Zhu Yuanzhang.At this time, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty were already very troubled. There were rebels everywhere, and they had no time to pay attention to the little Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang seized this opportunity and launched a general attack on Jiqing.

Due to poor ships and underestimation of Jiqing's city defense, Zhu Yuanzhang attacked Jiqing twice in August and September in the 15th year of Zhizheng (AD 1355), but was defeated by the Yuan army. It's not necessarily a bad thing, because in these two battles, both Guo Tianxu and Zhang Tianyou were killed, and Zhu Yuanzhang naturally became the Marshal of the capital. In the second year (AD 1356), Zhu Yuanzhang personally led his troops to attack Jiqing in three ways. It took ten days to break through Jiqing and changed Jiqing to Yingtian. The poor Zhu Yuanzhang finally got rid of Fengyang, Haozhou, and Chuzhou, and came to the wealthy Nanjing, but the real career has just begun, keep working hard!

Zhu Yuanzhang occupied Yingtian, which was a good thing for him, but from the perspective of historical trends, his situation is not optimistic. Since ancient times, occupying the north has the right time and place. China's terrain is from north to south, and troops from the south attacked the north and finally won. , with few precedents. But Zhu Yuanzhang took advantage of Yingtian by occupying Yingtian at this time. Let’s introduce Zhu Yuanzhang’s neighbors. The army of the Yuan Dynasty lives in Zhenjiang to the east of him, Zhang Shicheng lives in Pingjiang (Suzhou) to the southeast, Zhang Mingjian’s rebel army lives to the northeast, and Yuan general Ba Sierbuhua lives to the south. The name is very characteristic), and the west is Xu Shouhui.

On the surface, Zhu Yuanzhang’s neighbors are all better than him, and they have a big business. Surrounded by them, Zhu Yuanzhang is like a migrant worker who goes to work in other places, and lives under the fence. Although these neighbors don’t like Zhu Yuanzhang, they are also happy It was because he was too weak, no one took him seriously, and they called and beat him, so there was no time to talk to him. More importantly, Zhu Yuanzhang's neighbor to the north is Liu Futong, who is a brother unit.Help Zhu Yuanzhang block the Yuan Dynasty army's attack.The rulers of the Yuan Dynasty attached great importance to Zhu Yuanzhang, but they couldn't beat him.So there was such a situation, those who could fight didn't want to fight, and those who wanted to fight couldn't fight.

Zhu Yuanzhang made full use of this feature. For him, although the Yuan Dynasty was the target of his bitter revenge, he had to take care of his two neighbors before it was time.For him, these two neighbors were truly formidable adversaries. Next we will introduce his two neighbors, their names are Zhang Shicheng and Chen Youliang.