At the same time as the arrest of the Jin merchants, the officials of the local government were also put in prison in shackles and locks, and they were all arrested first.

These people, not to mention complicity or collusion, at least one crime of knowing and not reporting will not be able to escape.

This huge but very sudden arrest was as precise as a surgical operation, and with lightning speed, the Jin merchants who had fornicated with Jiannu were basically uprooted.

All of a sudden, Shanxi officialdom was in turmoil, and everyone was in danger.

No one could have imagined that at the time of such turmoil, their majesty would actually go deep into Shanxi and suddenly come out like this.

Especially the murderous slogan: not killing is not enough to thank the world, not killing is not enough to anger the people, but asking for ten thousand heads of Jin merchants to warn the unscrupulous profiteers in the world is even more terrifying.

It's really that they also have on them, and they can't stand up to inspection!

It's just that what is unexpected is that this sharp and ferocious action turned out to be in a hurry and in a hurry!

After Zhu Yuanzhang enlisted in the army, he was brave in battle, witty and flexible, and coarse in writing and ink, and soon won Guo Zixing's appreciation, so he transferred Zhu Yuanzhang to the Marshal's Mansion as an errand and appointed him as the ninth commander of the personal soldiers. [37-38] Zhu Yuanzhang was shrewd and capable, handled things properly, and took the lead in the war, and soon Zhu Yuanzhang's good reputation in the army spread. Guo Zixing also regards him as a confidant, and he always discusses important matters with Zhu Yuanzhang. [39-40] At that time, Guo Zixing had an adopted daughter, who was the daughter of his best friend Ma Gong. After Ma Gong's death, his youngest daughter was adopted by Guo Zixing. Guo Zixing saw that Zhu Yuanzhang was a talent, so he married his adopted daughter Ma Shi to Zhu Yuanzhang,[41] and renamed him Zhu Gongzi in the army, and Zhu Yuanzhang gave him another official name, Yuan Zhang, the word Guorui. [42]

Xu Da, who met Zhu Yuanzhang in the early days

Xu Da, who met Zhu Yuanzhang in the early days[43]

At that time, in the city of Haozhou, there were five marshals in the Red Turban Army. Guo Zixing's faction, Sun Deya's faction and the other three marshals' faction, there are many contradictions between the two factions. In September of this year, the commander of the Xuzhou Red Turban Army, Sesame Li, was killed by the Yuan army, and his generals Peng Da and Zhao Junyong led their troops to Haozhou, Peng Da and Guo Zixing became friends, while Sun Deya and others won over Zhao Junyong. At the instigation of Sun Deya, Zhao Junyong kidnapped Guo Zixing and took Guo Zixing to Sun's house and beat him up, preparing to kill him. After Zhu Yuanzhang heard the news, with the support of Peng Da, he led his troops to rescue Guo Zixing. Since then, the grudge between the two factions has deepened. [44-45]

Zhu Yuanzhang saw that the generals of Haozhou City were vying for power and profit, and he was determined to rely on his own strength to create a new situation. In the middle of June of the thirteenth year of Zhizheng (1353), Zhu Yuanzhang returned to his hometown to recruit soldiers, and his teenage partners Xu Da, Zhou Dexing, Guo Ying, etc., and acquaintances in the same village heard that Zhu Yuanzhang was the leader of the Red Turban Army, and they came to serve. So he soon recruited more than 700 soldiers and returned to Haozhou, Guo Zixing was very happy, so he promoted Zhu Yuanzhang to be pacified. [45-46]

In the winter of this year, Peng Da's son Peng Zaozhu proclaimed himself King of Luhuai, Zhao Junyong proclaimed himself King of Yongyi, and Guo Zixing and others were still marshals. Zhu Yuanzhang saw that these people had not left Haozhou City for half a year, so he selected 24 people including his henchmen Xu Da and Tang He from the recruits he recruited to leave Haozhou and settle far away in the south. [47] On the way to the south of Luoding, Zhu Yuanzhang first appeased 3,000 militiamen from Zhangjiabao Donkey Village, and then recruited 800 people from the Qin commander. Commanding this team, Zhu Yuanzhang marched eastward, and attacked the Yuan army camp in Hengjian Mountain in Dingyuan by night, and Marshal Miao Tycoon surrendered. Zhu Yuanzhang selected 20,000 strong Han people from the surrendered army to join his own team and went south to Chuzhou. [48]

On the way south to Chuzhou, Dingyuan celebrity Li Shanchang asked to see. Li Shanchang and Zhu Yuanzhang hit it off at first sight, and Li Shanchang used Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, as an example to persuade Zhu Yuanzhang: As long as he follows Liu Bang's good knowledge and does not kill people indiscriminately, he will soon be able to calm the world. Zhu Yuanzhang thought it was very reasonable, so he left Li Shanchang as the shogunate secretary, and instructed Li Shanchang to coordinate the relationship between the generals and create a great cause together. [48-49]

Zhu Yuanzhang soon captured Chuzhou, and his nephew Zhu Wenzheng and brother-in-law Li Zhen brought their nephew Bao'er (later named Li Wenzhong) to take refuge. From them, Zhu Yuanzhang learned that the second brother, third brother, and sister had all died. At that time, there was also Mu Ying, an orphan in Dingyuan, so Zhu Yuanzhang adopted these three children as adopted sons and changed his surname to Zhu. Later, Zhu Yuanzhang adopted more than 20 sons. [50] When Zhu Yuanzhang attacked Chuzhou, Guo Zixing was squeezed out by Zhao Junyong, Sun Deya and others, so not long after Zhu Yuanzhang captured Chuzhou City, Guo Zixing also came to Chuzhou. Zhu Yuanzhang immediately handed over the military power, the team of 30,000 people, the discipline was strict, the army was neat, and Guo Zixing was very happy to see it.

In the fifteenth year of Zhizheng (1355), Zhu Yuanzhang conquered Hexian in one fell swoop. Guo Zixing immediately appointed Zhu Yuanzhang as the chief military officer to guard Hezhou. [52] Once, when Zhu Yuanzhang went out, he saw a child crying, Zhu Yuanzhang asked him why he was crying, and replied that he was waiting for his father. Zhu Yuanzhang inquired carefully and learned that the child's father and mother were in the barracks, and the father raised horses in the camp, and the mother and father did not dare to recognize each other, so they had to be called brother and sister. Zhu Yuanzhang realized that there was a problem with the military discipline of the troops, and after they broke through the city, they disturbed the people and made trouble, and abducted women, and if this continued, the troops would lose the support of the people. So, Zhu Yuanzhang summoned the generals, affirmed discipline, and ordered the return of the husband's wife in the army, so that many separated couples in the city could be reunited. This matter was widely praised, and Zhu Yuanzhang won the hearts of the people. [53-54]

In the middle of this year, Guo Zixing died of illness, and Han Lin'er, the king of Xiaoming, appointed Guo Zixing's son Guo Tianxu as the marshal of the capital, his wife and brother Zhang Tianyou as the right deputy marshal, and Zhu Yuanzhang as the left deputy marshal. Nominally, Marshal Du is the master of the army, and the status of the right deputy marshal is also higher than that of the left deputy marshal. However, the armies of Chuzhou and Hezhou were mostly recruited and incorporated by Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhu Yuanzhang was braver and more resourceful than Guo Tianxu and Zhang Tianyou, and he had talents under him. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang actually became the coach of this team. Zhu Yuanzhang was unwilling to be subject to King Xiaoming, but considering the strong power of the Han and Song dynasties, he could use his power to order the army with the dragon and phoenix era. [55-56]

Zhu Yuanzhang was stationed in western Zhejiang for six years[57] and pursued the strategy of "building high walls, accumulating grain, and slowly becoming king" proposed by Zhu Sheng, a strategist in Huizhou,[58] and rapidly and secretly expanding his own strength, these three strategies were the guiding ideology of Zhu Yuanzhang in the early stage of development.

Capture Yingtian

After Zhu Yuanzhang was stationed in Hezhou for several months, the food supply became a problem. Opposite Hezhou, Taiping and Wuhu, which are close to the south bank of the Yangtze River, are rich in rice, but there are no ships. At this time, it happened that the Chaohu water army of the two Red Turban Army came to join him, and Zhu Yuanzhang personally handled the merger. In July, more than 1,000 warships of the Chaohu Navy broke through the blockade of the Yuan army and arrived in Hezhou. Zhu Yuanzhang's infantry army boarded the ships of the Chaohu Naval Army and crossed the Yangtze River from Hezhou to the east.