Even the peasant uprisings at the end of the Yuan Dynasty also had the shadow of Taoism.

The peasant uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty refers to the armed struggle of the peasants of the Yuan Dynasty in China to revolt and overthrow the Yuan feudal dynasty from the 11th to the 27th year of the reign of Emperor Shun of the Yuan Dynasty (1351-1367). Zhu Yuanzhang took advantage of the fact that the Yuan army was tired of dealing with the Red Turban Army in the north and had no time to look south, and adopted a series of effective measures to gradually develop and grow. Adopting the strategy of first the west and then the east, and first the strong and then the weak, in the course of specific operations, we made steady progress, concentrated superior forces, first pruned branches and leaves, and then shook their fundamentals, thus leveling the heroes and unifying the south of the Yangtze River, and laying a solid material and military foundation for the northward march to destroy the Yuan.

After Emperor Wuzong (1308-1311), Emperor Lirenzong (1312-1320), Emperor Yingzong (1321-1323), and Emperor Taiding (1324-1328), the politics of the Yuan Dynasty became increasingly decadent. In the twenty-five years from the first year of Wuzong to the Great Emperor (1308) to the first year of Emperor Shun's reign (1333), eight emperors were changed. As a result of the struggle for the throne, the Mongol aristocracy fought against each other for a long time, often turning into civil wars. For example, the "change of the southern slope" during the reign of Yuan Yingzong, the "change of the celestial calendar" during the reign of Wenzong, etc. By this time, the military and political power of the country had been transferred to the powerful Mongol ministers. In the later part of the Yuan Dynasty, land was highly concentrated, and the Mongol aristocracy had completely become feudal landlords, each occupying a large amount of land. Emperor Taiding of Yuan also had Timur before his accession to the throne, he had dedicated 7,000 hectares of land to the imperial court, and when Emperor Yuan Shun, the land that Princess Nulun married was transferred by the imperial court to the minister Boyan also had 5,000 hectares. There is still so much land to be consecrated and allocated, and the actual amount of land occupied is certainly much higher. The emperor of the Yuan Dynasty in order to entrap the Mongol princes. As soon as he ascended the throne, he gave them gold, silver, and land. During the reign of Yuan Shizu, the government gave the minister no more than 100 hectares of land once, and later increased to 1,000 hectares and 10,000 hectares. In the past, most of the fields were in the north, but later they turned to most of the areas in the south of the Yangtze River, such as Suzhou. The Mongol aristocracy exploited the land they had seized from the peasants and leased them to the peasants on harsh terms. During the reign of Yuan Wuzong, "Jinxing" asked for 1,230 hectares of land, and collected 500,000 stones of rent every year, with an average of 4 stones per mu. Such harsh exploitation. It is inevitable that the peasants will be killed. The family of the king of Huainan also occupied the land in Yangzhou, and often sent people to the townships to "collect debts and rents, drive the peasants, and plunder the wheat crops". Yuan Wenzong time. The minister Yan Timur asked the emperor to lease the official fields around Suzhou to his brother and son-in-law. They then sublet it to the peasants. The trend of annexation by Han landlords is increasing day by day. There are a total of 450 landed tax households in Chong'an County, Fujian. 6,000 stone of grain, of which 50 are 5,000 stone of grain, accounting for one-ninth of the county's taxpayers. and possessed five-sixths of the land. In the Jiangnan area, in addition to collecting rent from tenants, landlords also arbitrarily collected silk materials from tenants, extorted additional grain, and even forced tenants to serve on their behalf. Some landlords also use methods such as flying and sending to evade the errand service, and the phenomenon of uneven service is very serious, and the result is that "everyone harvests millions of grains, and the small people have nothing to hide"]. In the northern region, due to the uneven servitude, it is also "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

In the supreme ruling circles, extravagance and corruption have become the norm. The Mongolian royal family and the government of the Yuan Dynasty used most of the fat and ointment collected every year for uncontrolled annual gifts and "doing Buddhist things". During the reign of Wu Zong, the government earned 2.8 million ingots a year, but he used up more than 8.2 million ingots in less than a year after he took the throne. After his accession to the throne, Emperor Renzong spent 20 million ingots, most of which was used to reward the Mongol nobles. During the reign of Emperor Wu Zong, the expenditure on religious activities such as worshipping gods and repairing monasteries was as high as two-thirds of the government's total revenue. According to the statistics of the Xuanhui Institute in the fourth year of Renzong Yanyou (1317), only one item of the Buddha's diet was provided, and the common noodles were 439,500 catties, 79,000 catties of oil, 27,300 catties of honey, and the sheep were slaughtered to 10,000 heads every day. After Yingzong, the emperors were even more greedy for money and goods, and plundered tirelessly. Under such circumstances, the finances were often scarce, so that "the imperial court did not have a day's reserves". The rulers of the Yuan Dynasty had to make up for the deficit by increasing taxes and issuing paper money indiscriminately, and the exploitation of the people became more and more serious.

In addition, because of the indiscriminate rewards, the state treasury could not make ends meet, so it had to use banknotes (used to stabilize the price of the currency, that is, the people could take the banknotes to exchange the same amount of gold, silver, copper and other standard currencies with the same amount of full value, and the stability of the currency value could not be guaranteed without the banknotes), resulting in a rapid decline in the value of the currency, resulting in serious inflation.

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, corruption and exploitation became more and more serious. The government sells official positions and bribes public banks. There are no surprises in the tricks of the officials. "The beginning of the visit said to see the money, nothing in vain to say to spend money, every festival said to chase the festival money, birthday money, in charge of things and ask for regular money, send welcome money, hook chase said to send money, talk about official money. Find more money and say that you can get it, in addition to the beauty of Texas, it is said that it is a good place, and it is said that it is a good cave to make up for the job", and even the officials who visit the government and clean government are also "to the state and county, each with the treasury to check the money and call the silver, and the same city road". By the time of Emperor Yuan Shun (Yuan Huizong), all corruption had reached its extreme, and the dominance of Mongolian nobles and lamas, the corruption of officials, and the arbitrariness of landlords were increasing day by day. The Mongolian royal family, headed by Emperor Shun, was also "scandalous and filthy, and it was heard outside". The rule of the Yuan dynasty was already on the path of collapse.

In parallel with the brutal corruption and exploitation, there have been serious natural disasters one after another. In the first year of Yuantong (1333), it rained heavily in Gyeonggi, and more than 400,000 people were hungry. In the second year, Jiangsu and Zhejiang were plagued, and the hungry people were as many as 590,000, and in the third year of the Yuan (later) year (1337), Jiangsu and Zhejiang were plagued again, and more than 400,000 hungry people were hungry. In the fourth year of Zhizheng (1344), the Yellow River was duel three times, and the hungry people were everywhere. Under the persecution of natural and man-made disasters, the peasants left the land in droves, and armed uprisings broke out one after another.

In the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, the government repeatedly ordered landlords to reduce rents, and this prohibition was later abolished. In the second year of Yuanrenzong's reign (1315), he ordered to "verify the acres of land" in Lianghuai and Jiangnan, but the landlords bought off the government and hid the fields, and the officials wanted to take advantage of this to "make more contributions", so the sand-alkali land cultivated by the peasants in the Lianghuai area was also used as cooked land. "Harsh and troubled", the people are unbearable, at this time. It aroused the struggle of peasants in Jiangxi and other places against the increase in rents in the fields.

As early as the second year of Taiding (1325), the uprising of Zhao Chouguo and Guo Bodhisattva in Xizhou, Henan Province put forward the slogan of "Maitreya Buddha should have the world", which opened the prelude to the peasant uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. In the third year of Emperor Shun (1337), there was an uprising of Zhu Guangqing and Nie Xiuqing in Guangdong, called "the birth of Dingguang Buddha". In the same year, there was an uprising in Henan Banghu, Banghu burned incense to gather people, and the rebels "raised the small flag of Maitreya". In the fourth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1338), Monk Peng and Zhou Ziwang revolted in Yuanzhou, and more than 5,000 peasants rebelled. "The vests are all written with Buddha characters". At the beginning of the day. Small-scale uprisings and riots have spread throughout the country, and there have been more than 300 uprisings in the Jingnan area alone. [8] Most of the peasants who staged the uprising were Han Chinese and Nan Chinese, so the Mongol rulers were even more hostile to Han and Nan people. Yuan Prime Minister Boyan and others once put forward the idea of killing the Han people surnamed Zhang, Wang, Liu, Li, and Zhao, and at the same time reiterated that the Han people were not allowed to carry weapons. Do not hold an inch. And the northerners beat the southerners and did not allow them to return the report. Implementation of these bans. It also ignited the flames of rebellion. All sorts of folk songs of rebellion against the Mongol rulers spread everywhere. Liu Futong called for "the poor in the south of the Yangtze River, and the rich across the north". At that time, someone said: "Taerbai, the northerners are the main and the south is the guest." Tale Red. Nanren come to be the masters". He also said: "The rain line of the sky, the people are resentful, and in the Central Plains, things will change." These folk songs strongly reflected the increasingly intensified national and class contradictions at that time, and the Red Turban Army uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty was the general outbreak of national contradictions and class contradictions, but more importantly, class contradictions. "Mo Dao Shiren has one eye, instigating the Yellow River to rebel in the world", this is a folk song that was widely popular in the Yellow River disaster area in the tenth year of Zhizheng (1350). In the eleventh year of Emperor Shun (1351), the world turned against him because of the instigation of the Yellow River. In this year, the government of the Yuan Dynasty ordered a total of 150,000 peasants from the 13th Road, including Shangshu Jialufa Bianliang and Daimyo, to repair the Yellow River, and at the same time sent troops along the Yellow River to suppress it. It was these peasants who served on the construction site of the Yellow River that lit the fuse of the Red Turban Army uprising. After the outbreak of the Red Turban Uprising, for a while, "the poor were like returning home from chaos", and within a few months, the banner of the uprising was raised everywhere between the Yellow River and the Yangtze River.

The Red Turban Army uprising that broke out in the eleventh year of Zhizheng (1351) was mainly divided into two branches, one from Yingzhou, led by Liu Futong, and the other from Qi and Huang, and the leaders were Xu Shouhui and Peng Yingyu (that is, Peng Monk). In May of the same year, Liu Futong led the peasant army to capture Yingzhou. For a long time, Liu Futong used the White Lotus Sect to organize the peasants to carry out an anti-Yuan struggle. He initially pushed Han Shantong as the leader in Yongnian, calling Han the eighth grandson of Huizong of the Song Dynasty, "the people of He, Huai, Xiang, and Shaanxi, and they obey it." Unexpectedly, the incident was leaked, Han Shantong was arrested, and his son Han Lin'er fled to Wu'an, and Futong came to Yingzhou, captured Zhu Gao, and opened a warehouse in Zhu Gao to help the poor, "hundreds of thousands of servants". Later, it successively occupied Nasan, Jinyang, Chosan, Runing, Xiju, Gwangju and other places. In August, Xu Shouhui and Peng Yingyu captured Qizhou. Peng Yingyu is the "son of Zhuang Min's family" in Yuanzhou, who has been a monk since he was a child, and treats people with clear springs, and the people of Yuanzhou are "like gods". He used the White Lotus Cult to organize peasant uprisings for a long time. In the fourth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1338), the uprising failed, and he fled to Huaixi, and the Huaimin "fought for refuge". At this point, Peng Yingyu pushed the cloth seller Xu Shouhui as the leader, in Qi and Huang uprisings, Jianyuan Zhiping, the country name Tianwan, and soon occupied Wuchang, Anlu, Chuyang, Jiangzhou, Raozhou. These two peasant armies were wrapped in red scarves at their heads, called the Red Turban Army or the Red Army, and they both believed in Maitreya Buddha and burned incense to gather people, also known as the "incense army". In addition, the Red Army also took the Red Army as its name, including Xiaoxian Sesame Li, Nanyang Buwangsan, Jingfan Menghaima, and Haozhou Guo Zixing, and the peasants of "Lianghuai, Feng, Pei, Xu, Ru, Jing, and Han" all rose up to respond. The basic masses of the Red Turban Army were poor peasants. Ye Ziqi, a literati at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, said that at that time, "the characters were uneven between the rich and the poor, and they were happy and chaotic". Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang also said that in the Haozhou area, "there are more than 10,000 people who abandon agriculture and tend to be fierce." The fundamental reason why the peasants rose up to resist the Yuan was the inequality between the rich and the poor in society at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and the class contradictions intensified. But the brutal national oppression of the Mongol rulers was also an important reason. In the fourteenth year of Zhizheng (1354), Emperor Yuan Shun listened to the slander of the traitorous ministers, and dismissed the "army of one million and scattered for a while", and many people joined the Red Turban Army, and Liu Futong's momentum was growing day by day. In the fifteenth year of Zhizheng (1355), Liu Futong supported Han Lin'er to be the emperor in Bozhou, changed the Yuan Dragon and Phoenix, and the country was called the Great Song Dynasty, and was known as the "King of Xiaoming" in history. The Red Turban Army in all parts of the Central Plains accepted the leadership of the Great Song Dynasty. In the seventeenth year of Zhizheng (1357), Liu Futong divided his troops into three ways to attack the Yuan. Led by Mao Gui, the eastern route swept away the Yuan army in Shandong, Hebei and other places, and reached Liulin and Zaozhuang, which was only more than 100 miles away from the capital. The Mongol nobles in Dadu (present-day Beijing, China) suggested fleeing north. However, the Red Turban Army encountered resistance from Yuan Dynasty reinforcements in central Hebei and withdrew to Shandong. The middle route is led by Mr. Guan, Potou Pan and others. Attack Jiangzhou, enter Baoding Road, turn through Datong, and go straight to the north. In December of the 18th year of Zhizheng (1358), this rebel army captured Shangdu (near present-day Duolun, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region), burned down the Mengyuan Palace, which was "rich across Saibei", and immediately moved to various parts of Liaodong, and invaded Goryeo (present-day Korea) twice. Led by Li Xixi and Bai Buxin, the western route was from Jingzhou and Fancheng to attack Chang'an (now Xi'an, Shaanxi). Li Xixi entered Sichuan. The rest of the army captured Gansu, Ningxia and other places. At the same time as the three-way march. Liu Futong also captured Bianliang and took Bianliang as the capital, so he "built a palace and Yi Zhengshuo." Bashu, Jingchu, Jianghuai, Qilu, Liaohai. west to Gansu. Where the soldiers rise, they are connected". As the Red Turban Army said: "Thinking of the people, I have been trapped in Hu for a long time." Advocating righteousness and raising troops, restoring the Central Plains, surpassing Qilu in the east, sending letters to Qin in the west, passing through Fujian and Guangzhou in the south, and reaching Youyan in the north, all of them are attached, such as the anointing of the hungry, and the medicine stone of the sick", the anti-Yuan struggle of the Red Turban Army has reached a climax so far. The Red Turban Army headed by Mao Gui won the hearts of the people in Shandong and other places, and some people distributed the food and clothing they had obtained to the poor, and all those who were plundered without guilt were returned. "He also set up 360 tuntians in Laizhou, each of which was 30 miles away, and built 100 carts to transport grain reserves, and the officials and the people only took 20 of the land." It also set up "Binxing Academy" to recruit talents. In order to remove the threat of the Red Turban Army, the government of the Yuan Dynasty ordered that all Han people should be hunted down and killed, and that "all the Mongols and Semu who were relocated abroad were recalled to the Beijing Division". Later, when he saw that the Han landlords were also hostile to the Red Turban Army, they announced that they would be exempted from the boundaries between the southerners and the northerners, and those who raised troops to suppress the Red Turban Army would be given a reward of 10,000 households, 1,000 households, and 100 households. The government of the Yuan Dynasty also gave Fang Guozhen, Zhang Shicheng dragon clothes, and imperial wine, gave them official titles, and bribed them to serve the Mongol rulers. Fang Guozhen and Zhang Shicheng accepted the official title of the Yuan Dynasty and turned to the Red Turban Army as enemies. In the twelfth year of Zhizheng (1352), Chakhan Timur, Li Siqi and others raised troops to attack the Red Turban Army. In the same year, Badulu also "recruited Xiangyang officials and local tyrants to avoid soldiers" and went north to attack Haozhou. Answer: Badulu's army was annihilated by Liu Futong in the sixteenth year of Zhizheng (1356), but Chakhan Timur received strong support from the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty, and the army flourished. In the eighteenth year of Zhizheng (1358), Chakhan Timur divided the towns of Guanshan, Jingzhou, Heluo, and Jianghuai with his troops, and became the most vicious enemy of the Red Turban Army with heavy troops in Taihang Mountain. In the course of the peasant uprising, some of the Han landlord class remained loyal to the Mengyuan and resolutely made enemies of the peasants. They are to be "loyal to their country." Others do not want to be the slaves of the Mongols, so they form villages to protect themselves and wait for changes. A small number of people also joined the peasant army, because there were still sharp ethnic contradictions between the Han landlords and the Mongol rulers, and some were forced by the might of the peasant army. The Red Turban Army led by Liu Futong gradually found itself in an unfavorable situation. The three armies of the Northern Expedition were not precisely arranged in advance, and the military orders were not unified and lacked contact with each other. The armies of Mr. Guan, Potou Pan and Li Xixi were always mobile and fighting in various places, with no consolidated base areas, and the front was victorious, and the rear was attacked by the enemy. In the nineteenth year of Zhizheng (1359), Chakhan Timur captured Bianliang, and Han Lin'er and Liu Futong withdrew their troops to Anfeng. At this time, Mao Gui, who was stationed in Shandong, was killed by his subordinate Zhao Junyong, and Chakhan Timur took the opportunity to enter Shandong, and the cities in Shandong were also occupied by Chakhan Timur. As soon as Shandong was lost, Anfeng's screen domain was removed. In the twenty-third year of Zhizheng (1363), Zhang Shicheng besieged Anfeng, the city was broken, and Liu Futong was killed and died. Although the Red Turban Army led by Liu Futong and Han Lin'er failed, in the anti-Yuan struggle, hundreds of battles in the past 13 years and hundreds of battles dealt a fatal blow to the Mongolian nobles and bureaucratic landlords, and had fundamentally destroyed the rule of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty.

At the same time as the uprising of the Red Turban Army, there was the uprising of Zhejiang Dongfang Guozhen in the eighth year of Zhizheng (1348) and Zhang Shicheng of Taizhou in the thirteenth year of Zhizheng (1353). Fang Guozhen was born as a tenant farmer, and legend has it that he fled to sea for killing a landlord who collected rent. Zhang Shicheng was engaged in transporting salt by boat, and because he sold salt to rich families, "the rich family did not give value", so he led the people to raise troops. The anti-Yuan struggles they led contained the military strength of the Yuan Dynasty and strengthened the momentum of the Red Turban Army. When the Red Turban Army was developing in all directions with the momentum of burning the plains, the Mengyuan government sent the Imperial Doctor to suppress it without spending any time. He also did not spend 300,000 Mongolian troops stationed in Shahe, trying to extinguish the Red Turban Army led by Liu Futong in one fell swoop, but because of the prestige of the Red Turban Army, the Yuan army terrorized at night and fled with all the military equipment. The government of the Yuan Dynasty sent Prime Minister Totoku to lead an army to attack Xuzhou Zhima Li, and the Yuan army gathered in Xuzhou. This gave the two main forces of the Red Turban Army a chance to develop.

In the twelfth year of Zhizheng (1352), the Red Turban Army led by Xu Shouhui and Peng Yingyu captured Hangzhou. In Hangzhou and other places, they were strictly disciplined, did not commit adultery or kill, and only registered the names of those who belonged to them in the household register, which won the support of the people, and the number of people soon increased to one million. The Red Chinese Army led by Xu Shouhui suffered many bloody battles, and many areas were regained, and Peng Yingyu was also killed in the battle[21]. Later, Xu Shouhui sent his troops to capture Ming Yuzhen, and parts of Sichuan and Yunnan were also controlled by the Red Turban Army. In the twentieth year of the reign (1360). Xu Shouhui was killed by his subordinate Chen Youliang. Chen Youliang became the emperor and the country was called the Great Han. Ming Yuzhen disobeyed Chen Youliang's leadership, and soon became self-reliant in Chongqing, Sichuan, with the national name Daxia. Xu Shouhui's own ability is average. But the generals of the department are very strong. Among them, Fu Youde is a legendary general. Later, he followed Zhu Yuanzhang's general Feng Shenghua Yuan, swept the desert with 5,000 troops, and won seven battles in a row. It's legendary. Another general, Ding Puchu, sacrificed his life in the water battle of Poyang Lake and died heroically. There is also a general who is invincible Zhao Desheng with two swords, and died in the defense of Hongdu. Xu's greatest achievement is the discovery and promotion of Chen Youliang, who wrote a glorious stroke in Chinese history. These commanders and generals, or Zhu Yuanzhang as enemies, inspired his aspirations, or with Zhu Yuanzhang as monarchs and ministers, expanded their strength, all made meritorious contributions to the establishment of the Ming Dynasty.

When the Red Turban Army was engaged in a hard struggle with the main force of the Yuan Army, Zhu Yuanzhang began to stand out and gradually developed his own strength.

Zhu Yuanzhang, a native of Zhongli (now Fengyang, Anhui), formerly known as Zhu Chongba, was born in a poor peasant family, herded sheep for the landlord when he was a child, worked as a monk, and participated in the Red Turban Army led by Guo Zixing in Haozhou in the twelfth year (1352). In the fourteenth year of Zheng (1354), he was ordered to settle far in the south, recruit 3,000 strong men from Donkey Pai Village, and attack the Yuan army in Hengjian Mountain at night, collect 20,000 elite soldiers, and then enter and occupy Chuzhou. In the fifteenth year of Zhizheng (1355), Zhu Yuanzhang marched into Heyang and crossed the river to capture Taiping, Lishui, Liyang and other places. At this time, Han Lin'er was proclaimed emperor in Bozhou, and he accepted Han Lin'er's official position and title, and the army was wrapped in a red scarf, also known as the Xiang Army]. Zhu Yuanzhang was strict in military discipline, and knew people well, scribes such as Feng Guosheng and Li Shanchang all gave advice to him, and Chang Yuchun and Hu Dahai, who were brave and good at fighting, also came to him. In the sixteenth year of Zhizheng (1356), Zhu Yuanzhang occupied Jiqing Road (now Nanjing, Jiangsu), changed his name to Yingtian, and became a powerful armed force within the Red Turban Army. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth year of Zhizheng (1356-1359), Zhu Yuanzhang used Jinling as his base and continued to expand his power outward. At this time, Han Lin'er and Liu Futong were in the north, Xu Shouhui in the west, and Zhang Shicheng in the east. In the seventeenth year of Zhizheng (1357), Zhu Yuanzhang sent Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, and Hu Dahai to capture Ningguo, Huizhou, Chizhou and other places respectively, and personally led troops to conquer Wuzhou in the second year. In the 19th year of Zheng (1359), he continued to conquer Quzhou, Chuzhou, southern Anhui and the southeastern part of eastern Zhejiang, and these areas were controlled by Zhu Yuanzhang after that. In the twentieth year of Zhizheng (1360), Zhu Yuanzhang sent to the landlords and literati Liu Ji, Song Lian, Ye Chen, Zhang Yi and others in eastern Zhejiang, especially Liu Ji and Song Lian played a significant role in Zhu Yuanzhang's pioneering career. From then on, Zhu Yuanzhang further gained the support of the landlord class in the southeast and consolidated his rule over the region. Zhu Yuanzhang also paid attention to the work of resuming agricultural production. In the eighteenth year of Zhizheng (1358), he took Kang Maocai as the envoy of the capital water camp, built embankments in various places, built water conservancy, prevented drought and flood, and operated farmland. It also set up a management militia of 10,000 households, imitating the meaning of the ancient army in agriculture, selecting strong peasants, so that they "plough when they are farming, and practice when they are idle", and they have repeatedly exempted the fields from taxation. He also accepted Zhu Sheng's suggestion to "build a high wall, accumulate grain, and slow down the king"]. These measures had some effect, and in the areas under his rule, the peasants lived relatively peacefully, and there was an ample supply of military rations. When Zhu Yuanzhang occupied eastern Zhejiang and other places, the Red Turban Army led by Han Lin'er and Liu Futong was attacked by the Yuan army and landlord forces such as Chakhan Timur, and Xu Shouhui killed Chen Youliang for his general. Although Chen You's strength is strong, he is "centrifugal soldiers" and "inconsistent government decrees", and Ming Yuzhen is only in a corner of Sichuan. Zhang Tucheng, who occupied Suzhou, and Fang Guozhen, who was in Qingyuan in eastern Zhejiang, had long been attached to the Yuan Dynasty. In the areas under their jurisdiction, they only know how to occupy the land, enslave the tenants, corrupt pleasures, and do not care about the people's suffering, so they do not have the support of the people. This situation is extremely conducive to Zhu Yuanzhang's development. In the twentieth year of Zhizheng (1360), Chen Youliang led the army to capture Taiping, went straight to Jinling, and was defeated by Zhu Yuanzhang at Jiangdong Bridge. Zhu Yuanzhang led the army to counterattack and conquered Raozhou, Anqing, Hongdu and other places. In the twenty-third year of Zhizheng (1363), Chen Youliang and Zhu Yuanzhang fought at Poyang Lake, and after 36 days of bloody battles, Chen Youliang was killed by an arrow, and the whole army was defeated. The following year, his son Chen Li surrendered, and thus Zhu Yuanzhang removed the greatest threat from the West. In the twenty-fourth year of Zhizheng (1364), Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed himself King of Wu. In the twenty-fifth year of Zhizheng (1365), Zhu Yuanzhang turned his troops to Zhang Shicheng in Suzhou. He adopted the military deployment of "frying his elbows", sending generals to capture Gaoyou, Huai'an and other places that had been controlled by Zhang Shicheng for a long time, and on the other hand, he went east to Huzhou, Jiaxing and Hangzhou, annihilated the main force of Zhang Shicheng's army, and then entered the siege of Suzhou. In September of the twenty-seventh year of Zhizheng (1367, the first year of Wu), the city of Suzhou was broken, Zhang Tucheng was captured and hanged to death, and the three Wu were pacified. According to Fang Guozhen, who was in the area of Shouqingyuan, Wenzhou and Taizhou, he also sent envoys to surrender. In the same year, he sent generals to capture Guangdong and Fujian, and Zhu Yuanzhang already possessed the southeastern half of the wall. During the attack on Zhang Shicheng, Zhu Yuanzhang had openly scolded the White Lotus Sect as "witchcraft" in his writings, saying that the Red Turban Army "burned the city, killed the soldiers, poisoned the living beings, and acted for no reason." In the winter of the twenty-sixth year of Zhizheng (1366), he sent people to kill Han Lin'er in Guabu, at which time Zhu Yuanzhang had obviously become an agent of the landlord class and the ruler of the new feudal regime. Zhu Yuanzhang not only defeated the various separatist forces in the south of the Yangtze River, but also actively prepared to go north to attack the Yuan. At this time, the Mongol rulers were even more corrupt and degenerate, Emperor Yuan Shun trusted the lamas and monks, and the palace coups continued to occur, and the military strength was also weakened, and only the landlord armed forces who relied on the expansion of Timur and Polo Timur supported the endgame. Expanding Timur to guard Henan, Li Luo Timur to guard Datong, Li Siqi, Zhang Liangbi and others to guard the pass, they fought with each other for many years, plundered and slaughtered everywhere, and brought deep suffering to the people. In the twenty-seventh year of Zhizheng (1367, the first year of Wu), Zhu Yuanzhang decided to go on a northern expedition. In a document drafted by Song Lian and others denouncing the Yuan Dynasty, the slogan of "expelling Hulu, restoring China, establishing Chen Ji, and relieving the people" was proposed. In the text, he reproached Timur, Li Siqi and others for "using fake yuan names for personal gain, and holding the public to be the king", pointing out that the mutual annexation of these people is a great harm to the people. At the same time, he also pointed out that although the Mongols and Semu are not Han Chinese, as long as they are "willing to be subjects", they are treated the same as the Han people. It shows Zhu Yuanzhang's more enlightened ethnic policy. The Northern Expeditionary Army, led by Xu Da, Chang Yuchun and others, successively defeated the armies of Kuangkuo Timur, Li Siqi, and Zhang Sidao in Shandong, Bianliang, Tongguan and other places. In July of the twenty-eighth year of Zheng (1368, the first year of Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty), Xu Dahui would be in Linqing, connecting Dezhou, Tongzhou and other cities, and Emperor Yuan Shun led the concubines, princes and some Mongolian ministers to flee north from the capital. In August, the Northern Expeditionary Army entered and occupied Dadu, ending the Yuan Dynasty's rule in the country. In this year, Zhu Yuanzhang had established the Ming Dynasty and changed the Yuan Hongwu to the Ming Taizu. After that, Zhu Yuanzhang spent nearly 20 years to eliminate other peasant armies, defeat the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty (Northern Yuan), and complete the unification of China. The vigorous peasant uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty ended. (To be continued......)