Whether or not you can firmly control the generals is related to the rise and fall of a dynasty.

Unlike the speculative behavior of Emperor Yuan Shun, Zhu Yuanzhang used a variety of ways to firmly control his subordinates in his hands, he ordered and forbidden, highly centralized power, and the entire army was strict, and the summons could come, and if they came, they could fight, and they could win, which was the reason why his army was invincible.

What clever means did Zhu Yuanzhang adopt to control his once ambitious military generals, so that they would bow down to their subordinates and be willing to work for their lives?

The hostages refer to Zhu Yuanzhang, in order to prevent the rebellion of his generals, stipulating that all generals who go on the expedition must stay in the capital as hostages. As early as when he had just captured Nanjing, Zhu Yuanzhang set up this rule, and he said to the generals: "The wife of the chief military officer who took the city for me must live in the capital and are not allowed to go out." ”

The generals were worried about the safety of their wives and children, so they naturally did not dare to defect to the enemy and rebel or set up their own doors. But the generals couldn't live without women, so Zhu Yuanzhang said: "The general's wife stays in the capital to live and marries concubines outside." ”

The godson refers to the use of the adopted son to replace his own army or sit on one side, Zhu Yuanzhang used his generals to attack the city and use his godson to defend the city, so that he could firmly grasp the fruits of victory in his own hands. Zhu Yuanzhang has more than 20 righteous sons, but unfortunately most of them only have nicknames, Wang Fuma, Zhentong, King Kong Nu, Yexian, Buy Donkey, Po'er, Lao'er and others, the big names have been lost.

Zhu Yuanzhang himself attaches great importance to the landlords and intellectuals, and widely collects talents, and the cities are used by officials and Confucian scholars of the Yuan Dynasty. He did not do this entirely out of love for intellectuals, there were two considerations, one was that he was worried that intellectuals would run to the enemy or be raised by others and become his fierce rivals, on the other hand, most of the intellectuals were scholars, most of them were famous in the local area, and the common people respected them, and raising them could help to do a good job of pacifying the localities, and the common people would also follow, spending not much money, and the social benefits were very high, which was a cost-effective deal.

Therefore, whenever Zhu Yuanzhang occupies a new place, he must visit local celebrities, both soft and hard, Luo Zhi as a secretary, staff officer or consultant in the shogunate, Ke Taiping, Li Xi, Tao An, Ke Nanjing, Xia Yu, Sun Yan, Yang Xian, Liu Ji, Zhang Yi, Ye Chen and other literati in eastern Zhejiang were recruited to Yingtian, Zhu Yuanzhang also specially built a Lixian Pavilion.

But Zhu Yuanzhang strictly forbade his generals to appoint intellectuals, which is related to his own personal experience, Zhu Yuanzhang was originally a cadre under Guo Zixing, because he met Li Shanchang, Feng Guosheng, Feng Guoyong's brothers, and was instigated by them, so he embarked on the road of self-reliance, and since then he has turned his back on Guo Zixing and caused his family to be ruined. He took himself as a lesson and was worried that after his generals appointed intellectuals, they would develop independently like him, so he strictly forbade military generals to use intellectuals as their staff, and if anyone disobeyed, he would be severely punished.

Li Wenzhong is Zhu Yuanzhang's nephew and his adopted son, but Zhu Yuanzhang is still not at ease, he used Confucian Tuxing, Sun Lu, Xu Yuan, Wang Tianxi, Wang Wei when he was in Jinhua, Zhu Yuanzhang learned that the five people were arrested and sent to Nanjing, and Tu Xing and Sun Lu were executed, and Xu Yuan, Wang Tianxi, and Wang Wei were punished and written. The staff that the generals did not have was like a donkey blindfolded, so he could only bury his head in circles and polish it.

The decree refers to Zhu Yuanzhang's use of strict punishment to ensure that the policy is implemented, in order to stop the soldiers from robbing, Zhu Yuanzhang repeatedly killed the soldiers to set an example, the law must start from the pro-noble, Zhu Yuanzhang attaches great importance to the people on his side to show that the six relatives do not recognize, the general Hu Dahai for Zhu Yuanzhang to attack the city and pull out the village, and made great achievements, his son violated the prohibition of alcohol, according to the law should be beheaded, at that time Hu Dahai was fighting in Shaoxing, someone suggested that Zhu Yuanzhang should not kill him, so as not to provoke Hu Dahai, Zhu Yuanzhang said: "It is better to make Hu Dahai rebel against me, not to make me not lawful." He killed Hu Dahai's son with his own hands.

Braiding refers to Zhu Yuanzhang's deliberate grasp of the generals' mistakes, and then let him make meritorious contributions, so as to stimulate their enthusiasm for work. When he captured Hezhou that year, Zhu Yuanzhang hid his letter of appointment, and then tried to punish the generals in the name of slow city building, so as to establish his authority in one fell swoop. Sometimes Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't catch the handle of his subordinates, so he didn't hesitate to act and create a handle to bluff the generals.

Soon after the capture of Nanjing, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately sent Xu Da to capture Zhenjiang. Before the war, in order to strictly enforce military discipline, Zhu Yuanzhang, Li Shanchang, and Xu Da performed a good show of tears and slashing horses, Zhu Yuanzhang deliberately arrested Xu Da on the charge of indulging the soldiers, and pretended to be beheaded by military law.

At this time, Li Shanchang came out to intercede, and the generals didn't know what the plan was, so they also pleaded together. So Zhu Yuanzhang pushed the boat down the river, temporarily exempted Xu Da from the death penalty, and asked him to make meritorious service for his crimes, capture Zhenjiang, and do not burn or rob, so that Xu Da's crime can be completely pardoned. This play has received the effect of killing chickens and monkeys, and the generals saw that Zhu Yuanzhang treated his cronies and generals so harshly, and he abided by military discipline even more.

In-laws refer to Zhu Yuanzhang's marriage of children to win over the generals, most of Zhu Yuanzhang's sons marry the daughters of the generals as wives, the prince Zhu Biao marries the spring girl, the Qin king Zhu Fan marries Deng Yunu as the second concubine, the Jin king Zhu Li marries Xie Chengnu, Chengzu Zhu Di marries Xu Danu, the Tan king Zhu Zi marries Yu Xiannu, the Lu king Zhu Tan marries Tang Henu, the acting king Zhu Gui marries Xu Da's second daughter, Anwang Zhu Ying marries Xu Da's young daughter, Yingwang Zhu Dong marries Guo Yingnu, Shu King Zhu Chun marries Lan Yunu, etc., Zhu Yuanzhang's daughters are also mostly married to Li Shanchang, Lu Zhongheng, Fu Youde, Guo Ying and other meritorious sons.

His daughter was not enough, so he took the method of rewarding beauties, won people's hearts, and took it upon himself to reward the daughter of the general Xie Zaixing to Xu Da as a little wife, but this time he stabbed the basket, which had the nature of punishing Xie Zaixing, Xie Zaixing felt insulted, and betrayed Zhang Shicheng in a fit of anger.

Zhu Yuanzhang firmly held the generals in his hands and drove them to do their best for themselves, so the team showed a strong cohesion. Of course, his overly strict command also has some negative effects, some of the subordinates who made mistakes were punished with resentment, and some of them were afraid of being punished for doing wrong things, and had bad intentions, especially after the founding of the People's Republic of China, many meritorious heroes and nobles were killed.

Zhu Yuanzhang's methods of controlling his subordinates are very harsh, and his methods of eradicating internal competitors are even more vicious, and Zhu Yuanzhang is a rare talent in terms of naughty mischief and framing others.

Since marrying Ma's wife, Zhu Yuanzhang has entered Guo Zixing's inner circle, when the world was in turmoil, someone with a gun can be the boss, many people want to stand on their own, Zhu Yuanzhang himself is no exception, but he wants to be independent even stronger, when he was still a close confidant of Guo Zixing, Ma Zai, he tried his best to encourage Guo Zixing to develop independently from those colleagues who were fighting with him, so as to seize military power from it.

After Zhu Yuanzhang seized Chuzhou, he kept trying to break free of Guo Zixing, which was manifested in his disobedience to Guo Zixing's order to rescue Liuhe, opposing him to claim the throne in Chuzhou, instigating him to attack Hezhou, etc., and later Zhu Yuanzhang even got involved with Guo Zixing's nemesis Sun Deya, Guo Zixing was so angry that he fell seriously ill.

After Guo Zixing's death, Sun Deya wanted to take the opportunity to annex the rest of his army, his son Guo Tianxu was very scared, and wrote to Zhu Yuanzhang to ask him to help coordinate, Zhu Yuanzhang had a good relationship with Sun Deya, and he could completely dispel Sun Deya's ambitions, but he was under the domination of a very complicated mood and did not rescue. Guo Tianxu and others were forced to accept the leadership of the Longfeng regime, Zhu Yuanzhang was very dissatisfied with this, and said: "The eldest husband would rather be controlled by others?"

Zhu Yuanzhang was dissatisfied with this arrangement, and could only explain that he was treacherous and disobeyed the management after Guo Zixing's death. In order to get closer to Zhu Yuanzhang, Guo Tianxu and Zhang Tianyou married Guo Zixing's biological daughter to Zhu Yuanzhang, that is, Concubine Guo Ning, and this family bond cannot bind Zhu Yuanzhang.

In order to seize the supreme power, Zhu Yuanzhang not only did not help Guo Tianxu and Zhang Tianyou when they attacked Nanjing, but secretly poisoned them, killing them and leading to the defeat of the battle. Chen Yexian secretly colluded with the Yuan army, booby-trapped Guo Tianxu, and then joined forces with the Yuan army to defeat the righteous army and kill Zhang Tianyou.

Zhu Yuanzhang did not participate in this battle and did not seem to be responsible for the death of Guo and Zhang Ershuai, but Chen Ye, who rebelled and killed Guo and Zhang, was first captured by Zhu Yuanzhang in the Taiping Battle after crossing the river.

Chen Yexian did not really belong to him, and after surrendering, he had rebellious thoughts and waited for an opportunity to move. Zhu Yuanzhang knew this, and he said to his subordinates: "I also know that he has no sincerity in surrendering, but if I kill him, I will lose the strong man, and no one will dare to surrender to me in the future." ”

He personally summoned Chen Yexian and said to him: "People have their own ambitions and different knowledge, from the yuan or from me, you decide for yourself, I don't force you." ”

Chen Ye was reluctant to leave after gaining freedom first, he advised Zhu Yuanzhang to postpone the attack on Nanjing, Zhu Yuanzhang did not listen, he wrote a letter to Zhu Yuanzhang, pretending to trap the Yuan general Zuo Jing Nazhi, and then ask Zhu Yuanzhang to go to the camp to be captured. After Zhu Yuanzhang saw the letter, he said to his subordinates: "This thief is deceitful and untrustworthy!"

Zhu Yuanzhang knew that Chen Yexian had bad intentions and saw through his tricks, but he did not notify Guo and Zhang, but used him to harm them.

When Zhang Tianyou attacked Nanjing for the first time, Zhu Yuanzhang did not send his own descendants, but sent Chen Yexian's subordinates to go, Chen Yexian was left in Taiping as a hostage, Chen Yexian secretly instructed his subordinates to fight in a pretentious manner, never really fight, get out after a period of time, and then come back to fight the Red Army with his subordinates. This sentence was heard by Zhu Yuanzhang's henchmen, but Zhu Yuanzhang did not inform Zhang Tianyou, and when the war came, Chen Yexian's subordinates only watched from the sidelines, which greatly affected morale, so they suffered defeat.

When Guo and Zhang attacked Nanjing for the second time, Zhu Yuanzhang simply let Chen Ye go first, and let him lead the old department to cooperate with the battle.

After the death of Guo and Zhang Ershuai, the Longfeng regime named Zhu Yuanzhang as the political affairs of Pingzhang, Guo Zixing's third son Guo Tianjue was the right man of Zhongshu Province, Zhu Yuanzhang held the real power, Guo Tianjue watched the Guo family's property being usurped by Zhu Yuanzhang, and sometimes couldn't help complaining, Zhu Yuanzhang found an excuse to kill him, and Guo Zixing never came back.