Emperor Jianwen issued an edict and ordered the general Sheng Yong to command the northern expedition of the Pingyan army, the deputy general Wu Jie to march into Dingzhou, and the governor Xu Kai and others to stay in Cangzhou.

When Zhu Di, the king of Yan, heard that Sheng Yong was marching in the direction of Beiping, he wanted to attack Cangzhou first, but he was afraid that the Ming army would be prepared, so he threatened to attack the Ming army in Liaodong.

When the soldiers of the Yan army heard that they were going to fight in Liaodong on a cold day, they were all depressed. When he walked to Tongzhou, Zheng He entered the account and persuaded King Yan: "Now that the enemy is present, we have sent an army to expedition to the bitter cold land of Liaodong, and the soldiers are centrifuged, so I am afraid that it will be disadvantageous to send out the army." ”

Zhu Di withdrew from others and said to Zheng He: "Now the Ming general Sheng Yong garrisons Dezhou, Wu Jie and Ping'an defend Dingzhou, Xu Kai and Tao Ming build a solid city in Cangzhou, and rely on each other as horns. When we send out our army now, we are actually going to attack Cangzhou, and the cities of Dezhou and Dingzhou are thickly walled, so they will definitely not be able to take them. Cangzhou City has been collapsing for a long time, and now the weather is cold and freezing, and the speed of the Ming army to build the city wall must be very slow. Zheng He listened to it and suddenly realized.

When the Yan soldiers arrived in Tianjin, after passing through Zhigu, Zhu Di suddenly ordered the army to turn southward, and most of the Yan soldiers did not understand the reason, and asked one after another: "Aren't we going east to conquer Liao? Why are we marching south again?"

Zhu Di, the king of Yan, pretended to be a ghost, and replied mysteriously: "At night, I saw two white lights, pointing from the northeast to the southwest, divining a hexagram, and the hexagram indicates that the southward journey is auspicious. So he commanded the Yan soldiers to march quickly, and traveled three hundred miles in a day and night, and at dawn, they had reached the city of Cangzhou.

The Ming general Xu Kai heard a spy report that Zhu Di led his troops to attack Liaodong, so he was unhurriedly urging the Ming soldiers to carry stones and marl to build the city. The Yan soldiers suddenly arrived at the city, and the Ming army realized that the enemy was coming, and most of the soldiers trembled, so frightened that they didn't even have time to put on their armor.

Regardless of fatigue, the Yan soldiers landed in the city and soon captured the city. Xu Kai and other generals fled in a hurry, and were intercepted by the Yan soldiers who had already been ambushed halfway, several generals were captured alive, the Ming army was beheaded by the Yan army more than 10,000 soldiers, and the tens of thousands of Ming soldiers who surrendered were all ordered to be buried alive by the Yan general Tan Yuan.

Zhu Di also ordered the Yan soldiers stationed in Zhigu to take a large ship to the north, loaded with captured baggage and property. He himself personally led the army to the south along the river, tun the army pavilion pottery, plundered the daimyo, and burned countless salaries of the Ming army. Soon, the king of Yan led the army to Wenshang, plundered Jining, and the Ming generals Sheng Yong and Tie Xuan avoided its edge, followed behind the Yan army, and camped in Dongchang. As soon as Sun Lin, the vanguard of the Ming army, arrived at the slip, he was attacked and defeated by the Yan army, and Sun Lin was defeated.

The Yan army assembled in Dongchang and prepared to launch an attack on the Ming army. When Sheng Yong and Tie Xuan heard that the Yan army was coming, they were busy slaughtering cattle and rewarding the soldiers, swearing to encourage the people, doing enough ideological work, and preparing for a decisive battle against the city.

Due to the repeated victories of the Yan soldiers, they already had the heart to underestimate the enemy, and when they saw the Ming army out of the city and lined up, the Yan soldiers rushed up. The Ming army has already ambushed firearms, poisonous crossbows together, the Yan army was killed and wounded, at this time the Ming army led by Ping An led the Ming army, and Sheng Yong joined the army, and the two sides fought.

Zhu Di, the king of Yan, repeated his old tricks, he rushed to the left with fine horses, broke into the backbone of the Ming army, the Ming army gathered thickly, surrounded Zhu Di several times, and surrounded this Yan king every day. Fortunately, Zheng He and others led strong troops to attack the northeast corner of the Ming army's position in turn, so that Sheng Yong and others withdrew from the southwest corner of the soldiers to resist and resist, and the Ming army surrounding Yan Wang slowed down slightly.

Zheng He led the elite cavalry to break into the formation, fighting to the death to protect Zhu Di from the encirclement. Yan general Zhang Yu did not know that King Yan had been safely evacuated, and desperately broke into the Ming army to save the master, and finally exhausted his strength, and was chopped into several pieces by the Ming army with people and horses. The Ming army took advantage of the victory to attack, killing more than 10,000 Yan soldiers, the Yan soldiers were defeated, and the Ming army followed and pursued, and killed tens of thousands of Yan soldiers.

In this war, if there was no edict from Emperor Jianwen not to harm King Yan before, Zhu Di would have been reimbursed for ten more lives. Zhu Di himself also got cheap and behaved, and he stood up in every battle and fought with the Ming army in short combat. In addition, he himself is good at cavalry and archery, and every time the Yan soldiers are defeated, he often rides behind the palace alone, shoots arrows, and shoots hundreds of pursuers, so that his troops can escape safely. With this kind of unfair competition, the Ming soldiers and generals had to admit that they were unlucky and look at the people's admiration.

On the way to escape, Zhu Di's son Zhu Gaoxu rushed to the aid in time to repel Sheng Yong's pursuers, and soon Yan General Zhu Lu and others also arrived, and everyone joined the army, and the troops rested a little. Hearing that the general Zhang Yu was killed in battle, King Yan cried bitterly and sighed: "Victory or defeat is a common thing in soldiers, so there is no need to worry. In a difficult time, the loss of such a good general is really sad and hateful. In the future, Zhu Di was proclaimed emperor, with Zhang Yu as the first hero of Jingjing, and posthumously crowned the Duke of Rongguo and the King of Hejian.

The news of Dongchang's victory came, Emperor Jianwen was overjoyed, entered the temple to worship his ancestors, sacrificed Dongchang's victory, and rewarded the soldiers with property.

Zhu Di, the king of Yan, returned to Beiping, personally wrote a memorial text, mourned Zhang Yu and other fallen soldiers, and took off his battle robe and burned it in front of everyone, sacrificed the deceased with clothes, and cried and said: "Although it is only a thin piece of clothing, it shows my righteous heart with you." This kind of performance of buying people's hearts is very effective, and the fathers and brothers of the Yan army soldiers saw it and were all moved to tears.

After the memorial service, Zhu Di gathered the soldiers again and summarized the reasons for the defeat in the Battle of Dongchang, and he said to the soldiers: "In the past, our Yan army won every battle, and the battle of Dongchang was retreated, so the previous efforts were wasted." You can fight hard to escape from all deaths, and the so-called those who are not afraid of death will live. After that, you must not underestimate the enemy, you must not retreat, and there will be no forgiveness for violators. ”

The Yan army sent out another division and attacked Baoding. At that time, the Ming army Sheng Yong gathered 200,000 troops from all armies to garrison Dezhou, and Wu Jie and Ping'an led the army in and out of Zhending.

Zheng He suggested that he should first gather heavy troops to capture Dingzhou, but Zhu Di said that he couldn't: "It's easy to fight in the field, but it's difficult to attack the city." Now Sheng Yong gathered troops in Dezhou, Wu Jie, Ping'an stationed in Zhending, each other is a horn, if the siege is not down, the two Ming armies come to the aid together, the strong city is in front, the strong enemy is behind, and the victory is difficult to judge. Today, Zhending is more than 200 miles away from Texas, and if our army enters it, the enemy army will definitely come out to meet it, and as long as one of its troops is taken, the rest of the enemy army will be able to break through. ”

Zheng He was puzzled, and asked again: "Our army is sandwiched between the two enemies, if they attack from the belly and back, what should we do?"

Zhu Di said: "A hundred miles away, the momentum is incompatible, the two armies attack each other, victory or defeat is in the breath, although there are a hundred steps can not save each other, let alone two hundred miles." ”

The Yan army crossed the Hutuo River, and Zhu Di sent more cavalry guerrillas to walk around between Zhending and Dingzhou to confuse the Ming army. Soon, the scout cavalry reported that Zhu Di and Sheng Yong led the army to camp in Jiahe, and Ping'an was stationed at Danjiaqiao. Zhu Di led his troops to cross the river from Chenjiadu and went up, forty miles away from the Ming army.

In the previous battles, Zhu Di, the king of Yan, was mostly a surprise soldier and suddenly attacked. This war is really about playing the safe card. The two sides set up positions on the bank of the Jiahe River, and each was well prepared.

Zhu Di still looked big and indifferent, he rode out of the battle, with only three horsemen behind him, not in a hurry, galloping to a place dozens of meters in front of Sheng Yongming's army to enter and exit carefully observe. What caught Zhu Di's eyes was the neat and orderly strong formation of Sheng Yong's Ming army, as well as the spray trains, giant guns and strong crossbows next to the formation.

If it was other Yan generals who came to watch the battle, not to mention four people, it was four hundred, and the Ming army gave an order, and the crossbows were wild, and the people who came would definitely become hedgehogs immediately. King Yan himself came, and the Ming generals still obeyed Emperor Jianwen's edict not to harm my uncle, and watched Zhu Di move past the front of the battle as if he were inspecting his troops. It wasn't until Zhu Di swept past that Sheng Yong sent people to pursue, but they were all repelled by the prince who was good at shooting.

King Yan returned to the formation and waved his hand to signal more than 10,000 infantry and cavalry to march forward and enter the left flank of Sheng Yongming's army formation. The Ming army raised a huge and difficult shield to resist the Yan army's arrow blade, but the Yan soldiers had already prepared for the shield array, they made a big spear six or seven feet long in advance, traversed the iron nail at the end, and there was a barb at the end of the nail, so that the second row of Yan soldiers stood up and threw the javelin like a javelin at the Ming army's shield array, and then hugged forward and pulled back, in this way, the Ming army would definitely get up and break free, and suddenly the shield array revealed a lot of flaws and gaps, and the rest of the Yan soldiers holding short weapons just took advantage of the opportunity to enter, killing and wounding a lot of Ming soldiers. The Ming army couldn't resist it, and they abandoned their shields and retreated, and the Yan soldiers ravaged the formation.

Yan general Tan Yuan saw that the left flank of the Ming army was in chaos, and immediately led his subordinates to take advantage of the momentum to attack, but unexpectedly, the Ming general Zhuang De rushed to the Ming general Zhuang De in the oblique stab, and led all the soldiers to fight to the death to fill the gap in the left formation of the Ming army. and immediately beheaded Tan Yuan and hundreds of his men.

Yan generals Zhu Neng and Zheng He also swung their troops forward, Zhu Di himself relied on the southern soldiers and did not dare to shoot arrows and spears at him, and led a team of strong horsemen to protrude from the back of the Ming army, straight through the front of the formation, and Zhu Neng's army, like a sharp blade, stabbed the Ming army through the heart. The firearms and crossbows prepared at the beginning were too late to be launched, and the Ming army was suddenly in chaos, and all of them became a pot of porridge.

In the melee, Zhuang De, who had just killed Yan General Tan Yuan, was beheaded by Yan soldiers again, and Zhang Soaqi, the most brave and warlike role model in the Ming army, was also killed in battle. This person is a tall and fit soldier, every time he rushes into battle, he holds a soap flag in his hand and ascends first, Yan Jun is very afraid of this person, and calls him a soap flag Zhang. Although he was stabbed countless times by swords in the chaotic battle, Zhang Soap Flag still held the Soap Flag and refused to let go when he was dying. The two sides fought fiercely for a whole day, and in the evening, they each collected their troops and returned to their camps.

In order to drag down Sheng Yong's Ming army in an attempt to annihilate it, Zhu Di led more than ten horsemen to the Ming camp and stayed overnight. At dawn, everyone opened their eyes, and suddenly saw Sheng Yong's Ming soldiers on the left and right, and the guards on the left and right begged King Yan to flee quickly, Zhu Di still said calmly: "Don't be afraid!" He calmly arranged his clothes and armor, and then turned over and got on his horse.

When the sun came out, Zhu Di led the horse to sing the horn, passed through the enemy camp, and left calmly. The generals of the Ming army glanced at each other and did not dare to launch a single arrow. This situation and this scene are completely the most sensational and unbelievable pictures, which can be remembered Zhu Di's generous and heroic posture under the rising sun, and the sentence of Emperor Jianwen's ignorance of Emperor Jianwen's ignorance of Emperor Zhen's uncle.

After Zhu Di, the king of Yan, returned to the camp, he instructed the generals: "Yesterday, Tan Yuan counterattacked too early, so he couldn't succeed." Although the enemy army was defeated for a while, it still had the fighting spirit, and only by cutting off their way of life could the enemy be annihilated in one fell swoop. Today, the two armies are fighting, you must keep the formation unchaotic, I will lead the elite cavalry to gallop back and forth between the formations, once you see that the enemy has a gap, you will rush into the fight with all your strength. The strength of the two formations is equal, and the brave will win, and today's battle depends on the bravery of the generals. ”

The two sides fought again, Sheng Yong's Ming army was arrayed in the southwest, and Zhu Di's Yan army was arrayed in the northeast. From the time of the hour to the beginning of the battle, the two armies won and lost each other, retreating and advancing, and it was really impossible to distinguish the winner from the defeat for a while. Because they had been fighting desperately with hunger, the soldiers on both sides were extremely tired, and they sat on the ground to gasp and rest.

Suddenly, the northeast wind was blowing, dust was flying, sand and gravel hit the face, and no one was visible at hand, and the soldiers on both sides were blown so that they could not open their eyes. Most of the Ming troops were southerners, and they rarely saw this kind of sandstorm weather, coupled with the strong wind blowing head-on, they were immediately panicked.

The Yan soldiers took advantage of the wind and shouted to attack, and Zhu Di sent the reserve troops on the left and right flanks to move forward together, and the sound of cymbals and drums shook the heavens and the earth. Sheng Yong's Ming army was defeated, and they threw down their weapons and fled.