Chapter 31 Chapter 30 is only one step away from victory

Zhu Di's victory was not easy, because his territory was still small and his army was still small.After defeating Wu Jie, he sent troops many times and won some victories. He burned a large amount of food and grass for the Southern Army in Peixian County, Xuzhou, and cut off the enemy's logistical supplies.Zhu Di originally wanted to take advantage of the victory to pursue, but the Southern Army was already prepared, and generals from Hebei and Shanxi also attacked Zhu Di's old nest, Beiping.In order to protect the base camp, Zhu Di had to withdraw his troops and return to the city.

At this time, Zhu Di finally felt unprecedented pressure. This pressure was not caused by the failure of a certain battle, but because he had vaguely felt that his adventure seemed impossible to succeed.Zhu Yunqi occupies most of the country, and his territory is only the three counties of Beiping, Baoding, and Yongping.In terms of human resources and material reserves, he is far inferior to Zhu Yunqi.Although he has won many battles, he cannot completely defeat his opponent after all. Zhu Di has already begun to believe that if the war continues like this, one day, he will lead fewer and fewer subordinates to be caught by the opponent's soldiers and sent to receive rewards, and then live or die in humiliation.

Failure is nothing, the loss of hope is the greatest pain. The fire of hope that has been supporting Zhu Di seems to be about to go out. What hope is there? There were not many real estate companies in those days, and there were not so many construction sites. You can't expect Zhu Yunqi to be crushed to death by bricks falling from the sky.Besides, even if Zhu Yunqi died, the throne would still not be his turn.No way, no way! At this time, a piece of news changed Zhu Di's fate. The news was provided by Zhu Di's eunuchs lurking in the palace. They sent someone to send a letter to Zhu Di, saying that the capital's troops were very empty. Certainly.

This is a very important piece of information, but Zhu Di was furious after seeing it. Why, because Zhu Di's people are not in Suzhou and Hangzhou, it is not easy to fight from Beiping to the capital? !I have fought for three years to achieve this goal, but the problem is that it is absolutely impossible for Zhu Yunqi to make way for him to fight to the capital. On the way to the capital, the biggest obstacle is Shandong. The people here are tough, the soldiers fight bravely, and there are famous generals guarding them. It is very difficult to beat them anyway.In Zhu Di's view, this is a difficult obstacle to overcome.But does this barrier really exist?

Zhu Di would not have imagined that he had unintentionally fallen into a thinking trap: Do you have to fight Shandong if you go to the capital? In our thinking, there are often some blind spots, and creative thinking is designed to eliminate these blind spots.The so-called creative thinking does not necessarily mean how brilliant ideas are put forward. Many times, the solutions proposed by this kind of thinking are known and understood by many people, but the problem is that they are not aware of these methods.We can illustrate this problem with a historical example: This incident happened in the United States. The National Space Administration found that a part of the space shuttle always broke down, either here or there. It took a lot of manpower and material resources to solve the problem. Finally, an engineer asked whether this part could be eliminated.It turns out that this part is indeed redundant.

This ironic incident tells us that there are some blind spots in our thinking, and we often fall into the predicament of trying to figure it out.For Zhu Di, Shandong was his blind spot. Since he was too deeply impressed by the failure suffered in Jinan, he seemed to think that if he did not capture Jinan, he would not be able to capture the capital. If Zhu Di keeps going like this, he will inevitably fail, but at the critical moment, a person with this kind of thinking wakes him up, and this person is Dao Yan. There is a reason why Dao Yan was considered the best strategist of that era.He doesn't read dead books, doesn't admit death, and is good at flexibility. He keenly discovered this blind spot in Zhu Di's thinking.

Zhu Di is like a clever thief who wants to burglary and is proficient in lockpicking techniques, but he can't open the lock in Jinan no matter how much time he uses with any master key.At this time, the old thief Daoyan came to his side and told him, in fact, your purpose is not to open the lock, but to enter the door, and what is in front of your eyes is just a wooden door. So Zhu Di gave up trying to pick the lock, raised his foot and kicked the door open. The door was opened, the road to the capital was opened, and Zhu Di finally saw the end of the road to the emperor-the shining throne.

On the map, the name of that door is Xuzhou. In December of the third year of Jianwen (1401), Zhu Di once again put on armor in his palace, summoned his generals, and prepared to set off, but this time the attack was different from the previous ones, because Zhu Di had already made up his mind. This will be his last attack. He watched his generals, who had been fighting for many years, and those around him died one by one, Zhang Yu, Tan Yuan, and many others.But I always return to the same starting point.Rather than waiting for death like this, it is better to fight hard! "After so many years of fighting, when will it end! This time, sending troops to fight is the final decision. There will be no return, life and death!"

If you don't succeed, you will succeed! In the first month of the fourth year of Jianwen (1402), Zhu Di started his last attack. His old friends Sheng Yong, Ping An, Tie Xuan and others had already received the news that the repair of the city wall was waiting for Zhu Di to attack. Unexpectedly, Zhu Di did not go to trouble them, but took Taodu River in Taodu, connected Kedong'a, Dongping, Shanxian, and Bingfeng pointed directly at Xuzhou! Sheng Yong and Tie Xuan panicked. They understood Zhu Di's plan. His goal was no longer Dezhou and Jinan, but the final destination - the capital. If Zhu Di could achieve his goal, everything would be over, so they turned back. The normal state of defense began to chase Zhu Di.

Ping'an was the first to catch up. He led an army of 40,000 to follow him at an extremely fast speed. From Ping'an's point of view, although Zhu Di launched an attack by surprise, Xuzhou's city defense was strong enough to resist the northern army. At least it could be delayed for a while. At that time, we can attack from inside and outside and completely defeat the Northern Army.However, what he didn't expect was that Zhu Di didn't attack Xuzhou! It turned out that after Zhu Di defeated the defenders in the city, the defenders couldn't shrink back and tried to stick to it.But Zhu Di played a more unique move. He bypassed Xuzhou and attacked Suzhou instead.Pingan was shocked when he got the news, Zhu Di ignored Xuzhou, obviously his goal was only the capital city!

Zhu Di is like a fiery bull, he doesn't care about anything, and only advances towards his goal.This kind of enemy who sacrifices everything is the most terrible. In March, Ping An got the news that Zhu Di had left Xuzhou and was heading towards Suzhou. Seeing that the northern army was moving so quickly, Ping An ordered the soldiers to march quickly and finally arrived at the Fei River near Suzhou. I will stop more, as long as I can catch up with the Northern Army, it will be a victory. However, what Ping An Wan didn't expect was that Zhu Di, who was running forward, did not forget himself. Zhu Di had already prepared a gift in Feihe, and it was right to thank Ping An for leading the army to see him off. When Pingan ran to Feihe out of breath, he was immediately ambushed by Zhu Di. It turned out that Zhu Di had been lying in ambush here for two days in order to cut off this annoying tail. attack.Ping An did not expect that Zhu Di, who had been chasing him for more than a month, was waiting for him here. The whole army was defenseless and easily defeated.Pingan reacted quickly, and immediately pulled his horse and continued to run wildly, but the direction of running was completely different from the previous one.And his remaining troops followed suit one after another, so it seems that Ping An's main job for this month is to keep running around. Although Zhu Di's attack defeated Ping'an, it also slowed down the advancing speed of his own army. The southern army also used this time to complete the deployment of the pursuit, and regrouped their troops to catch up. Zhu Di finally understood that Sheng Yong and others It will not let him go on the road with peace of mind. Only by solving these worries can he win the final victory. In May, the Southern Army and the Northern Army finally formally met at Xiaohe near Suishui. The commander of the Southern Army was still safe. Facts have proved that if the fight was launched openly, the Northern Army would not have much advantage.After a fierce battle between the two sides, although the northern army had a slight advantage, it was unable to defeat this stumbling block for a while. At this time, the southern army was short of food and grass. Zhu Di judged that now was the time when the southern army was weakest. solves the problem.But Zhu Di has never been a person who played his cards aboveboard, he still used his own method-sneak attack. He deployed soldiers on the other side of the river as usual, but withdrew the main force to 30 miles away overnight, and crossed the river in the middle of the night to attack the southern army.Zhu Di didn't sleep at night, and came out in the dark to personally direct the sneak attack. He thought that this night crossing to the other side would definitely wipe out the Confederate Army, but he didn't expect that on the other side, he would meet a man who had brought him a lot of trouble. old acquaintance. Zhu Di launched an attack on the Ping'an army after the whole team went ashore. As expected, the Ping'an army was unprepared and in chaos. Just when the whole army was about to collapse, an army appeared. This army was the reinforcement of the Southern Army. Zhu Di's brother-in-law, Xu Hui, led the troops day and night, so he immediately ordered the troops to attack. Zhu Diwan didn't expect that the praying mantis was catching the cicada, and the oriole was behind, and another army would come in the middle of the night. After being stupefied by Xu Huizu a few times in a daze, he realized that something was wrong, and immediately led the whole army to retreat.Xu Huizu took advantage of the situation to defeat the Northern Army and beheaded the Northern Army General Li Bin. Zhu Di's night attack can be described as stealing chickens without losing money. Not only did he fail to complete the strategic mission, but he lost the lives of many soldiers.And bigger troubles still await him. After returning to the camp, the anger accumulated by the generals for a long time finally broke out. They have been charged with the crime of rebels, and they fought desperately with their own heads. Although Zhu Di brought them many victories, with the development of the battle situation, They have also seen that victory seems far away.This expedition can be said to be a desperate attempt to go straight to the capital, but now that they have suffered a big defeat, they have not even seen the suburbs of the capital.The matter of losing the head must not be sloppy, at least an explanation must be sought.So they spoke to Zhu Di one after another, asking to cross the river and find another place to camp (in fact, they retreated in disguise). In fact, Zhu Di's heart was also full of turmoil. The so-called going straight to the capital was just a promise, how could it be true?What's more, there are so many car bandits and road tyrants on the road, it may be even more difficult to enter the city singing songs, but things have reached this point, if the army retreats, it will definitely be chaotic, so we must stick to it no matter what! As always, he said in a resolute tone: "There is no retreat in this battle!" Then he ordered those who are willing to stay here to stand on the right, and those who are willing to cross the river to stand on the left.Zhu Di started his wishful thinking again. Generally, such group activities like registered ballots are done in a pretentious manner. He believed that no one would dare to oppose him openly, but this time, he was wrong. Most of the generals cheered and stood to the left. Now Zhu Di really had no choice. He said very angrily: "You can figure it out!" Then he sat down and was sullen. In this difficult time, Zhu Neng Standing up, he supported Zhu Di, and said loudly to the generals: "Please persevere, Liu Bang, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, won nine out of ten battles, and finally occupied the world. Now the enemy army is exhausted and trapped here. , Our army's victory is in sight, how can we have the idea of ​​retreating?" The generals stopped talking, not necessarily because they believed Zhu Neng's words, but because after Zhang Yu's death, Zhu Neng had become the number one general, well-known for his prestige, and he had many cronies in the army, so it might not be good to offend him fruit to eat.After this quarrel, the anger that should be vented has also been vented, and the words that should be said have been said. Anyway, I have already boarded the thief's ship, so let's just do it. Zhu Di looked at Zhu Neng with an almost grateful look, and looked at those who stood up to support him in this difficult time.He also wavered before, but the harsh reality told him that he must persevere, just like before, no matter how difficult it is, as long as he perseveres, there will be hope. The outcome of a war is often determined by the effort of "persisting a little longer". It seemed to be in line with Zhu Di's determination. The imperial court did not know who came up with a bad idea, saying that the Northern Army was about to lose and Xu Huizu should be transferred back to defend the capital, so Xu Huizu, who had just won, was transferred back again.Only Ping An and He Fu stayed in Xiaohe to confront Zhu Di. Since they felt that this place was not easy to defend, the two decided to join forces to Lingbi to defend after discussion. But the house leak happened to be raining all night, and the soldiers under the two men were already exhausted, but the team escorting food and salaries was defeated by Zhu Di, and all the food and salaries were taken away. If you are not full, why fight.So when the two met, they decided to break out and escape tomorrow. In order to ensure that they acted in unison, they also formulated a code: three cannon shots. The next day, the soldiers of the Confederate Army were packing their bags and preparing to slip away. Suddenly, three cannon shots sounded. The soldiers heard the signal and ran away without saying a word.But they never expected that the three cannon shots were not a signal to escape from their own people, but on the contrary, it was a signal for the Northern Army to attack! It turned out that the Northern Army also formulated an offensive code on the same day, and this code happened to be three cannon shots! It's really hard not to blame the government. This was an extremely funny scene. The Northern Army preparing to attack happened to meet the Southern Army fleeing in a hurry. How could we be polite?The northern army took advantage of the trend to pursue and kill, not only wiped out the southern army, but also captured thirty-seven generals including Pingan. Only He Fu ran fast and fled back alone. Zhu Di's persistence finally won the victory. He kicked away the last stumbling block on the way forward and began to advance towards the final goal. The Battle of Lingbi completely defeated the main force of the Southern Army. Since then, the Southern Army has never been able to organize a decent counterattack. After going through untold hardships and defeating countless enemies, Zhu Di finally saw the dawn of victory. Sheng Yong, Tie Xuan, and Ping An have become a thing of the past, and no one can stop me from moving forward! Zhu Di's next goal was Yangzhou. At this time, the guardian of the city was Wang Bin, the censor who wanted to resist, but was betrayed by his subordinates, and Yangzhou surrendered without a fight. The fall of Yangzhou dealt a heavy blow to the morale of the Southern Army. Today, we don’t need to look at the map. We only need a little common sense of geography to know how far Yangzhou is from Nanjing. Zhu Di’s battle of Jingnan has finally reached the final stage. With one kick, you can step into the capital city that you have always dreamed of. Zhu Yunqi, who was sitting in the imperial city, was in a panic to the extreme. He never imagined that cutting the feudal clan would lead to the loss of his throne.He has no master, and Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng are not in the capital at this time, and only Fang Xiaoru is left in his think tank.That being the case, I can only ask this nerd for advice. Fang Xiaoru had a plan in mind. He calmly showed an attitude of learning and listed several countermeasures: first, he sent ministers to recruit soldiers, and then he called on the King of Qin. In order to buy time, he sent someone to negotiate with Zhu Di, expressing his willingness to cede The land paralyzes Zhu Di. Seeing that he was so sure, Zhu Yunwen acted according to his plan, hoping that the bookworm could give him a hand at the last moment. Later facts proved that Fang Xiaoru was indeed a first-class loyal minister, but he was definitely not a first-class hero.What he proposed to go out to recruit soldiers and call on King Qin could not fundamentally solve the problem. Zhu Di had already hit the door, how could he make it in time?And the so-called negotiating with Zhu Di to cede the land in exchange for time is even more idiotic.Playing tricks to buy time is Zhu Di's strong point, so he can't be fooled by Fang Xiaoru.Zhu Di worked hard and diligently for four years to rebel, not for taking a piece of land as the owner, but for everything in the world. Having said that, the ministers at that time still arranged everything according to Fang Xiaoru's deployment, and the most important task of negotiating with Zhu Di was handed over to Princess Qingcheng.Please don't mistakenly judge her seniority from the princess's title. In fact, she is Zhu Yuanzhang's niece and Zhu Yunwen's elder. According to her status and age, she is Zhu Di's cousin. Princess Qingcheng personally crossed the river to negotiate with Zhu Di, and Zhu Di received her warmly, which also made the princess think that Zhu Di was a person who could be discussed. Zhu Di listened carefully to the words of brothers and sisters not to kill each other, and kept nodding in agreement. Princess Qingcheng suddenly felt that the situation was very good, so she stopped and waited for Zhu Di's reply.Seeing that she had finished speaking, Zhu Di finally spoke, but what he said really shocked Princess Qingcheng. Zhu Di said in a calm tone: "I raised troops this time just to avenge my father (I don't know where the hatred comes from) and punish treacherous officials. It is enough to follow the example of Zhou Gong back then. I hope the emperor will agree to my request." Then he gave the cousin a meaningful look, and then said: "If you don't agree to my request, I hope that all brothers and sisters will move immediately and live in your father's tomb on the day I break the city. Everyone." After finishing speaking, Zhu Di fell silent. This is intimidation, blatant intimidation!Princess Qingcheng looked at her younger brother with unbelievable eyes. It turned out that what she just said was all nonsense, and this good brother not only insisted on going his own way, but even dared to threaten her. Only then did she understand that in this person's eyes, there is no There are no brothers and sisters. In his opinion, there are only two kinds of people in the world, those who support him or those who oppose him. Princess Qingcheng didn't know Zhu Di, and it was impossible to understand Zhu Di. She couldn't imagine how many painful choices and sufferings Zhu Di had to go through to get to where he is today.Seeing that victory is just around the corner, it's just a daydream to want to send someone away with a few words! Zhu Di wrote his conversation with Princess Qingcheng into a letter, and handed it to her to take back, expressing his attitude. Knowing the result of the negotiation, Zhu Yunqi finally realized that all his illusions were shattered. His opponent did not and would not issue an order of "don't hurt my nephew". He looked at everything in the palace, those eunuchs, maids and The ministers were still respectful to him, but he knew in his heart that even if the place changed to a new owner soon, they would still do so. Because they are just servants, as long as their interests are guaranteed, the replacement of masters is really not a very important issue for them. Zhu Yunqi finally discovered that the so-called self who owns the world is just a lonely and helpless person. His life is not spent enjoying wealth and honor. From the day he sat on the throne, the pain has begun. He has to guard against ministers, vassals, eunuchs and everyone around him.He and his throne are an open target, ready to respond to external and internal pressures and shocks. He wants to protect his power with his whole life, once the throne of power is taken away, it will also mean the end of his life.Because the emperor is such a scarce product that there can only be one in a unified era.This is both a natural law and a social law. Zhu Yunwen's biggest mistake was that he didn't know that the moment when Zhu Di raised his troops to settle the disaster had already decided the fate of two people, one was Zhu Di himself, and the other was him. Of course the rebellious Zhu Di had no turning back, but neither did he.Because since ancient times, there can only be one winner in power struggles, either one or the other. Things have come to this stage, resign yourself to fate! After Zhu Di rejected Zhu Yunxuan's peace proposal, he launched the final attack. He stationed his troops at Puzikou, and prepared to cross the river from here to attack the capital. What he did not expect was that he encountered stubborn resistance at this last moment. The resister was Sheng Yong, who led the soldiers of the southern army to make a desperate counterattack, defeated the northern army, and temporarily blocked Zhu Di.Sheng Yong is indeed worthy of the title of a famous general. He did not give up hope at the last moment, but chose to persevere tenaciously.He proved his loyalty with actions.Although he did not maintain this loyalty to the end. Sheng Yong's resistance achieved unexpected results, and Zhu Di's army had reached the end of its long-term campaign. The soldiers were so tired that they were unwilling to fight any more, and hoped to go back to rest.This time Zhu Di was also shaken, because he also saw that the army had indeed reached its limit, and if the fight continued, the whole army might collapse. If Zhu Di retreats here, history may have to be rewritten. The so-called God helps those who have a heart. The scoundrel Zhu Gaoxu who was let go by Huang Zicheng's wise decision back then led the reinforcements to help the war. This was a great help to Zhu Di.He was very excited, patted his son on the back and said affectionately: "Work hard, my son is not in good health!" This so-called son is his eldest son Zhu Gaochi, and Zhu Gaoxu's words are undoubtedly an order passed on to him.So they used their breastfeeding strength to attack Sheng Yong desperately. With the full support of the new force Zhu Gaoxu, the Northern Army defeated Sheng Yong, and then crossed the Yangtze River in one fell swoop and reached the final destination, the capital. Zhu Gaoxu will definitely work hard, because all the lands and mountains he conquered will be his own in the future, who will work hard if he doesn't work hard?However, he didn't seem to have carefully analyzed Zhu Di's words. Zhu Di actually only said that the son was in poor health, and he didn't say that he would pass the throne to him.This sentence absolutely depends on how you understand it, and later historical facts have proved that this sentence, which implies too much free information, is just a blank check for Zhu Gaoxu. Zhu Gaoxu is recognized by everyone as a shrewd person, but in terms of smartness, he is still inferior to his father. He seems to have forgotten that checks are only valid if they are cashed, and his father obviously does not open a bank, but started by robbing banks. It would be strange if a check from such a man would be cashed. No matter what happened later, at least Zhu Di achieved his goal at this time and crossed the river smoothly.The next step is to enter the city, but this last step is not so easy. As we said before, the capital at that time was sponsored by the wealthy businessman Shen Wansan and built together with the Ming Dynasty government. The city walls were made of granite mixed with glutinous rice and lime. , very strong.And there are more than 100,000 troops in the city, so it is not easy to capture it! Zhu Yunxuan in the city also realized this, so he rejected the decision to flee to the south, and followed Fang Xiaoru's suggestion to stick to the city.This Fang Xiaoru is really a tough guy, when Zhu Yunxuan was afraid that he would not be able to defend the city and asked him what he should do if the city fell, he actually said: "Even if the city cannot be defended, it is only natural for His Majesty the Emperor to die for the country and the country! " Although Fang Xiaoru is a scholar, he has never been a soldier in his life, but he is proud when facing adversity, which is admirable!Alas! Having said that, the strong defense of the capital at that time was also one of the reasons why Fang Xiaoru dared to speak harshly. Zhu Di couldn't even attack Jinan, let alone the capital? But Fang Xiaoru didn't understand that the strongest fortress in the world is often breached from the inside.Zhu Di was not a fool either, he dared to lead an army to besiege the city, so he naturally had a way to break the city, and this method was very effective. Zhu Di's siege method is his spies, now it's time to introduce his two senior spies, these two are responsible for guarding the Jinchuan Gate of the capital, one is Gu Wang Zhu Wei, and the other is Li Jinglong. Li Jinglong and Zhu Di have known each other since they were young, and even though they fought, Li Jinglong has a bit of a spirit of distinguishing between public and private, no matter how hard the fight is, it will not affect his relationship with Zhu Di.And judging from his poor command, he can be regarded as Zhu Di's hero who won the world. Although Li Jinglong has fought many defeats and was called an idiot by others, he has no problem with integrity after all.However, his subsequent adultery with Zhu Di gave him a new hat - "internal traitor".If Jing Nan is compared to a football match, Li Jinglong's original behavior can be regarded as a bad defender who scored an own goal, and after he decided to betray his master, he became a match-fixer. At this point, Li Jinglong has finally let go of all his disguises. Not only is he shameless, he doesn't even need a mask.After that, he continued to live on his last breath under Zhu Di's rule. From a comprehensive point of view, his life was an idiot life and a shameless life. If Li Wenzhong knew that he had given birth to such a son, he might die of anger again. It is not surprising that the shameless Li Jinglong lived shamelessly, because this is exactly his way of life. With the help of these two traitors, Zhu Di's army broke into the capital, and the country changed hands.