The teeth are hard but fall out, and the tongue is soft all the time.

- Wa proverb

In the summer of 1368, alarmist news circulated everywhere in Dadu, the capital of the Great Yuan Dynasty: the Han killed in the south would also see the Mongols and Semu, and all men, women, and children would be beheaded, and their property would be confiscated; The Mongols and Semu people in Jiangnan and the Central Plains have been killed......

Most of the people in the city were panicked and chaotic.

Ali's descendants are divided into two series. Nuhai's eldest son, Sai Azar, became a family of eunuchs for generations. The second son, Salman, was engaged in commerce and trade. The descendants of Amal mainly worked in the government. Arslan's descendants continued to do business in Cow Street.

In the last years of the Great Yuan Dynasty, Hasim, a descendant of Sai Azar, continued to hold the official position handed down from his ancestors, and became the most prominent of Ali's many descendants.

In August, the Northern Expedition led by Xu Da and Chang Yuchun arrived in Tongzhou, outside the capital.

The emperor of the Great Yuan Dynasty at this time was called Er Zhijin Tuhuan Timur.

Tuhuan Timur was the eleventh emperor of the Great Yuan, the fifteenth Great Khan of the Great Mongolia, the fifth grandson of Kublai Khan, and the eldest son of the Yuan Ming Dynasty.

Tuhuan Timur ordered Timur, the king of Huai, not to spend time in prison, and led dozens of Mongolian eunuchs and nobles such as Dorji, Meng Ke and his son, to pack up large bags of valuables, leave the palace and mansion compound in the capital, and take the concubine, prince and princess, and slipped out of the city from Jiande Gate in the vast night, and fled from Juyongguan to the northern capital Kaiping (located in today's Inner Mongolia Zhenglan Banner).

Tuhuan Timur was like a frightened bird along the way, and even the mountain peak collapsed thinking that it was the coming Ming army. After 17 days of non-stop travel, Tuhuan Timur and his entourage finally arrived in Shangdu.

Most of the Semu were merchants and officials. They watched as the Mongol princes and nobles retreated, some fled after them, and most were trapped in the capital.

After much thought, Hasim decided to lead his family to flee to the west. This is because most of the Hui people are concentrated in Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai and Shaanxi in the west. It is also closer to the motherland that the old people say about it, and you can go back to your ancestral country in case of accidents.

Hasim's eldest son, Majid, married a Han daughter-in-law. Although the daughter-in-law has long since converted to Islam, she is reluctant to leave Dadu and her parents.

Majid's family of five had to stay in Dadu.

Hasim took the gold and silver from his family, and the whole family changed into Han clothes, sat in six carriages, and bribed the officers and soldiers guarding the city gate to leave the capital and ran to Taiyuan City in Shanxi in one go.

Although Taiyuan City is still in the hands of the Mongolian army, the large and small shops in Taiyuan that are facing the fall are closed, and there are few pedestrians on the streets, and there is a scene of decay and decline.

Hashim and his servants searched around the city for a long time before they found an open noodle shop on the corner of Willow Lane. He saw a plaque hanging on the door of the store, with four big characters written on it: Wang Ji Noodles.

Hasim called the servant to lift the curtain and entered.

In the blink of an eye, the servant came out dejectedly, and had to ask Hasim to come in and have a look.

Sensing something was wrong, Hasim got out of the car and walked into the store.

The shopkeeper, Wang Jishan, saw that although Hasim was wearing Han clothes, he knew from his appearance that he was a Huihui. He stepped forward and asked, "What do you want to eat?" ”

Hasim looked at the environment of the store, and found no signs that the Semu Hui people wanted to see, and concluded that this was a restaurant owned by a Han Chinese. Perhaps that's what makes things difficult for the servants.

Considering that the whole family had not had a good hot meal for several days in order to travel, Hasim was now hungry. He remembered the teachings of the Scriptures: "It is also permissible to use unclean food in order to live." The Lord will not blame you. For the Lord is forgiving. ”

Hasim had no choice but to sigh helplessly and said: "Boss, please bring 21 bowls of knife-cut noodles, don't put any meat, use rapeseed oil in the pot, you can put more vegetables." ”

Wang Jishan knew this, and immediately ordered the shopkeeper to prepare the meal.

Hasim's family of 21 devoured the knife-cut noodles, and their pale and tired faces gradually flushed. The tiring work of these ten days has made this noble family, which has always been pampered, feel very hard, and life is worse than death.

The Hasim family rested in the city of Taiyuan for two days, and when they heard that the Ming army was heading west, they hurried south to Zezhou (today's Jincheng, Shanxi Province), crossed the Yellow River in Wen County, Henan Province, reached Gongxian, the hometown of the poet Du Fu, and then turned westward, passed through Luoyang and Tongguan, and came to Chang'an City in Guanzhong.

Just when the Hasim family urgently retreated westward, the Ming army was invincible, and in a short period of time, they successively conquered Bianliang, Luoyang, Songzhou (today's Song County), Shaanzhou (today's Shaanxi County), Chenzhou (today's Huaiyang), Ruzhou (today's Linru) in Henan, and took possession of Tongguan in Shaanxi without a fight, basically completing the strategic task of the first stage of the Northern Expedition.

The shields in the east, south, and west directions of Dadu have been opened, and foreign aid has been cut off again, falling into the arc-shaped encirclement of the Ming army.

Gong Bingliang followed Xu Da's army all the way, and he was unstoppable, and was forced to the city walls of Dadu.

On September 14, the Ming army captured Qihuamen and entered the capital.

Gong Bingliang rushed to the front of the team with a big knife in his hand, and when he saw someone who did not look like a Han person, he slashed with a knife, killing countless people.

With the flames of revenge in his eyes, he carried two large knives in his hands, and rushed to the door of a large household with a high wall decorated with grape vine patterns in the style of the Western Regions, and saw a high-nosed, deep-eyed, bearded man and a daughter-in-law wearing a pink scarf with a woman's head and shouted loudly: "Stop, lackey of the Tartars!" ”

The man who turned to him was Majd, the eldest son of al-Hasim. Next to him was his daughter-in-law.

When Majid's daughter-in-law saw that Gong Bingliang was about to kill herself and her husband, she hurriedly shouted, "I'm a Han Chinese. Please be gracious. ”

Gong Bingliang stared at his blood-red eyes and scolded angrily: "A Han woman marries a Semu Hui person, insults my Han style, and will be killed!" ”

Gong Bingliang held the big knife in both hands and slashed at the heads of the Majid couple.

Majid hurriedly pulled out the bearded knife and dagger hanging from his waist for decoration, and wanted to fight Gong Bingliang.

Gong Bingliang and other Ming officers and soldiers swarmed up, slashed and beat indiscriminately, and cut Majid and his wife down in a pool of blood, and soon lost their breath.

Xu Da, the general of the Ming Dynasty, personally ascended the tower of Qihuamen, killed Timur Buhua, the king of the Huai Dynasty of the Clan, and Zhang Kangbo, the right prime minister, and others, and captured 6 Mongolian princes who had no time to escape. He ordered all the books and treasures of the treasury and the palace gate of the Forbidden City to be sealed, and sent officers and soldiers to guard them. It was ordered that the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty should not invade and loot, so that the residents of Dadu could live in peace.

The Hasim family settled on West Street in Chang'an City.

West Street is located in the center of the Chang'an city wall. There are 100,000 Hui people living here. They are mainly the descendants of the Hui people from Central Asia and West Asia who have gone to Chang'an and the Central Plains to do business in the past dynasties.

Hashim stayed in Chang'an for a few days, but felt that this was not a place to stay for long: this Chang'an city had been the capital of the Han people since ancient times. Now that the Han people have gained power again, how can they leave the old ones alone? It is better to go further west, to places that have historically not belonged to the Han Chinese. I'm afraid it's a little safer.

So Hasim ordered a few more wagons to be hired and walked slowly towards the west where the sun was setting.

Eventually, they came to the city of Hezhou (present-day Linxia in Gansu Province) in southern Gansu.

Since ancient times, Hezhou City has been a transportation artery and commodity distribution center between the East and the West. There are a lot of people in the city, especially those who are engaged in business, accounting for almost half of the population of Hezhou. Faces and costumes of different ethnic groups can be seen in the markets, and Chinese, Iranian, Mongolian, Salar, Salur and Tibetan languages can also be heard. The city was dotted with mosques that seemed to be very intimate to him. The city of Hazhou is less like Seoul in the Central Plains and more like Samarkand and Bukhara in Central Asia.

Hasim looked at the familiar city of Hezhou, and his heartbeat settled down slightly.

The Ming army recovered Shandong, Henan, Hebei and other places in the north, especially the Yuan Shun Emperor fled to the north, which made the battlefield of the entire Northern Expedition fundamentally change. The armed groups of landlords trapped in Shaanxi and Shanxi were completely caught in a leaderless situation.

However, the Great Yuan still had 100,000 troops occupying Shangdu, Qinlong, Yunnan, Liaodong, and Sichuan.

Xu Da and others divided their troops into three routes, and successively conquered Taiyuan, Datong and Xuanfu (today's Xuanhua, Hebei Province) and other cities.

Gong Bingliang followed the Ming army into Taiyuan City.

After the troops entered the city, they specially gave the officers and men a day off. Gong Bingliang asked a few fellow villagers from Jiangsu to go shopping on the street. At noon, they were a little hungry, so they walked into a restaurant in Liuxiang that hung "Wang Ji noodles" to eat.

Gong Bingliang said to the shopkeeper: "I heard that the noodles in Taiyuan City are the first in the world, so give us a bowl of knife-cut noodles to taste." ”

The shopkeeper, Wang Jishan, hurriedly invited the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty to take a seat, and said courteously: "Thank you for coming." The knife-cut noodles in our store are the top brand in Taiyuan City. You've eaten one bowl and you're thinking about eating a second bowl. I'll add you the store's specialty side dish of dried tofu, please give you a face. You have made great contributions to the expulsion of the Tartars and the restoration of the Han land. This lunch is even if I, Wang, will treat all the soldiers. ”

Gong Bingliang and the others couldn't help but be happy when they saw that Wang Jishan was sharp and his head was also very smart.

After pacifying Shanxi, the Ming army entered Shaanxi and conquered Fengyuan Road (later changed to Xi'an), Fengxiang, Lanzhou, Lintao, Qingyang, Pingliang, Yan'an and other important towns.

Xu Da's army continued to advance rapidly, annihilating the main elite of the Great Yuan in the eastern part of the city of Lanzhou, forcing the 100,000 officers and soldiers of the Great Yuan Li Siqi to flee to Lintao in Gansu.

Gong Bingliang and others immediately conquered Lintao, and soon approached Hezhou City.

The Semu Hui people in the city of Hezhou panicked, fearing that the Han Chinese would enter the city and massacre and loot property. Many fled with their families into nearby ravines and hills, intending to take a break from the fighting.

After the Ming army broke through the city of Hezhou, they executed the captured generals of the Great and Small Yuans, only strengthened the surveillance of the ordinary Semu Hui people, and did not plunder and massacre, and also pacified the nearby Tubo people, mainly to ensure the safety of the western border and make every effort to deal with the remnants of the Great Yuan in the north.

The Tibetan tribes such as Duogan and Wusizang to the west of Hezhou were attached to the Ming Dynasty.

At this point, Zhu Yuanzhang's Northern Expedition ended with a complete victory. The Northern Expedition fundamentally overthrew the rule of the Great Yuan Dynasty and basically realized the strategic plan drawn up before the war. The Northern Expedition plunged the remnants of the Dayuan army into a chaotic situation, and seized an absolute strategic advantage for Zhu Yuanzhang to finally unify the country.

The Great Yuan Emperor was forced to flee to his former capital in the northern steppes, and although he still held high the banner of the Great Yuan Dynasty, the vast inland areas he had invaded were almost completely abandoned, completely ending the Mongol rule in Han China.

After a long period of rule by the Liao, Jin, and Dayuan empires, the Central Plains once again returned to the hands of the Ming Empire, which was established by the Han Chinese.