Xu Hongru (?-1622), also known as Xu Yong, was the leader of the peasant uprising in Shandong at the end of the Ming Dynasty, a native of Xu Street in Juye County, and later moved to Yuncheng. In his early years, he participated in the White Lotus Sect. During the Ming Qi period (1621-1627), he initiated and led the Caozhou Peasant Uprising, which opened the prelude to the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty.

When Xu Hongru was young, he was in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the society was dark and the politics were corrupt. The White Lotus Sect divided into the "Wenxiang Sect" and established a secret religious center in the area of Zhizhuang, Luanzhou, Jingdong. Luanzhou leather worker Wang Sen claimed to be the master of the "Smelling Fragrance Sect", and Xu Hongru was Wang Sen's disciple. The White Lotus Cult spread throughout Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, and Sichuan provinces, and developed rapidly, and soon became one of the largest secret religious organizations in the country at that time. In the twenty-fourth year of Wanli, Wang Sen was imprisoned for the betrayal of his disciples, and the secret religion was divided into two branches, one led by Xu Hongru and active in Shandong, and the other led by Wang Sen's son Wang Haoxian and his other disciple Yu Hongzhi, who operated in Kaiyi and Jingzhou in Hebei.

At the end of Wanli, land annexation became more and more serious, taxes and forced labor continued to increase, and social contradictions became increasingly intensified. He organized the masses with the teachings of the White Lotus Sect and gathered thousands of people. He was promoted as the head of the sect by the believers of Shandong, North and South Zhili, Henan, Shanxi and other provinces, and agreed that all places would revolt in August of the second year of the Apocalypse (1622).

In the second year of the Apocalypse (1622), Xu Hongru, Wang Haoxian, Yu Hongzhi and others made an appointment to revolt at the same time in Jingzhou, Jizhou, Hebei, and Yuncheng, Shandong on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Due to poor cooperation, Xu Hongru decided to lead the people to revolt alone in advance. In the early morning of 11 May, the White Lotus cultists in the area of Caozhou Prefecture, together with the peasants and ordinary people who could not bear the oppression, gathered in Liujiatun in Yuncheng. The soldiers of the uprising took the red scarf as their headscarf, held a big knife and a spear, first sent troops to surround Weijiazhuang, and then attacked Liangjialou, occupying four villages one after another.

But in the spring of the year, he was denounced, and many key cadres were arrested. Xu Hongru then rebelled in advance in Xujiazhuang in May. The rebel army occupied Yuncheng, the area of Liangjialou at the junction of Juye, supported Xu Hongru as Emperor Fulie of Zhongxing, established the name of Mahayana Xingsheng, established official positions, and established political power. The rebels wrapped red scarves on their heads, with more than 10,000 people, and successively captured Yuncheng, Juye and other places. At the same time, other leaders of the White Lotus Sect, such as Shen Zhi, Xia Zhongjin, Zhang Khan Bai, Hou Wu, Zhou Nian'an, and Meng Xianhan, also captured Teng County, Zou County, Yi County (southeast of Zaozhuang) and other county towns and Xia Town, the main road of Caoyun, and attacked Yanzhou, Qufu, Tancheng and other places, and soon controlled the vast area on both sides of the canal in Shandong, intercepted Caoyun, and repeatedly inflicted heavy losses on the official army.

After Xu Hongru's uprising, he proclaimed himself Emperor Fulie of Zhongxing, changed the year name to the first year of Dacheng Xingsheng, named Chen Canyu as the right prime minister, and named his younger brother Xu Heyu as the king of heroes. In order to alleviate the worries of the soldiers, Xu Hongru placed the families of the rebel army in Shuibo Liangshan, the base of the peasant uprising at the end of the Song Dynasty.

In the early morning of May 13 in the second year of the Apocalypse (1622), Xu Hongru led the army to attack Yuncheng. The rebels quickly occupied Yuncheng and launched an attack on Juye, and the sharp edge was invincible. Wherever the rebels went, they opened warehouses to release grain and relieve the people, and the peasants and people "avenged their fathers, and their wives and husbands hated". In just a few days, the rebel army had grown to tens of thousands of people, and the bureaucrats and landlords everywhere were terrified and fled one after another.

At the beginning of June, Xu Hongru marched eastward, crossed the canal, conquered Zou County, and signed a letter to sentence Zheng Yijie to flee with his family. Then, the righteous army waved to Teng County, and Yao Zhiyin, the magistrate of the county, fled, and the prestige of the righteous army was greatly boosted, and the team grew to hundreds of thousands.

Zou and Teng counties are adjacent to Jining in the north and Xuzhou in the south, which is an important part of the canal and the key point of the economic lifeline of the rulers of the Ming Dynasty. The loss of Zou Teng's second county was a great threat to the Ming Dynasty. When the imperial court learned of this, it exclaimed, "This place is bad, and the country's road to advance and retreat is exhausted" urgently ordered Zhao Yan, the governor of Shandong, to be the commander-in-chief, and at the same time to use Yang Zhaoji, a native of Yizhou and a former general soldier of Datong, who had retired and returned home, as the commander-in-chief of Shandong, to suppress Xu Hongru's rebel army and try to recover Zou County. Meng Chengguang, the sixty-sixth grandson of Mencius, also led the village warriors to assist the official army in attacking the city, but was repelled by the righteous army. The rebels broke through Meng's mansion and killed Meng Chengguang and his eldest son Meng Hongluo.

At that time, due to the Manchurian ruler's attempt to enter the customs, the Liaodong War dragged on the Ming rulers and was unable to send troops to encircle and suppress Xu Hongru, which objectively provided favorable conditions for Xu Hongru's righteous army struggle. Xu Hongru took this opportunity to take Zou County as the center, with a longer time and more troops to hold this city, and based on this city, sent troops to attack Yanzhou, Qufu, west to attack Juye, and also expedition to Peixian, Rizhao and Tancheng, Hengge Canal, galloping across the vast area of southern Lunan.

In order to extinguish the raging flames of Xu Hongru's uprising, the Ming government ordered Yang Guosheng and Liao Dong, the capital of Shandong, to recruit soldiers, gather village warriors, step up training, and dispatch officers and soldiers to assist in the suppression of the rebels. Due to the joint siege of several lines of officers and troops, the expeditionary rebels were defeated by officers and soldiers, and the county seat of Yuncheng was also recaptured by officers and soldiers, and the march was blocked, and the situation was extremely unfavorable to the rebels. At this time, Xu Hongru responded to the battle calmly, calmly analyzed, looked at the overall situation, actively looked for fighters, and encouraged the soldiers to lift their spirits and move forward.

On June 30, the combined army of Yang Guosheng and Liao Dong, the capital of Shandong, attacked Zou County, the enemy was outnumbered, and the situation of the righteous army in the city was in crisis. Yang Guosheng and Liao Dong couldn't resist it, and they relieved the siege of Zou County. In July, after reconnaissance, Xu Hongru decided to use troops flexibly, avoid the real and attack the false, go straight to Xia Town, an important ferry port of the canal, seize the throat of the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal, cut off the passage of the imperial court to transport grain and wages, and intercepted 40 official grain ships in Pengjiakou, in order to concentrate troops to meet the official army, Xu Hongru ordered the righteous army to attack fiercely, and Kong Wenli, the county governor of Qufu, held the city according to the city, and attacked the city for several months. At this time, Shandong Si Yang Guosheng's reinforcements arrived, Xu Hongru decided to give up the siege plan, on the one hand, he feinted to attack Qufu, but the main force copied the official military camp, killing Yang Guosheng to the ground, the enemy general Zhang Bang was killed, and the righteous army harvested a large number of grain, grass and weapons.

At the same time, peasant uprisings in response to Xu Hongru surged across the country, with Yu Hongzhi revolting in Baijiatun on the border of Wuyi and Jingzhou in July; In September, Kang Fufu of Ze County led the crowd to revolt; Li Enxian of Gushi County, Runing Prefecture, Henan Province, rebelled in solidarity with Xu Hongru, and the White Lotus Sects in Sichuan also revolted in response to Xu Hongru. For a time, the flames of the uprising burned all over the sky, and it had the potential to sweep the whole country, shaking the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

Xu Hongru's uprising was huge, and its activities spread across half of Shandong, dealing a serious blow to the rulers of the Ming Dynasty. However, after Xu Hongru won a series of victories, he did not adopt a mobile and flexible struggle strategy and took the opportunity to expand the results of the battle. When the enemy is strong and we are weak, we have instead adopted a passive combat method of sticking to one city and one pool. In September, after Xu Hongru failed in his attack on Yanzhou, he still held on to Zou County, fought hard with the enemy, and the rebel army was besieged for three months. In November, the city ran out of ammunition and food. Xu Hongru and hundreds of other rebels, including Gao Shangbin, Ouyang De, and Xu Daoqing, still stubbornly insisted on fighting, determined to live and die with the city.

Due to the lack of preparation for the uprising, and the Ming court sent a large army to attack together, in July, the friendly armies failed successively, and Yuncheng and Juye were lost.

There were traitors in the rebel army, and the governor of the prince, the marquis, and the general soldier Wei Qi tied up Xu Hongru and opened the city gate to surrender to the Ming army.

Under the unfavorable conditions of the situation, Xu Hongru and others still stuck to Zou County and Teng County to contend with the officials and troops. The Ming army mobilized a large number of officers and troops from Shandong, Beizhili and other places to surround Xu Hongru's army in Teng County. On November 21, Xu Hongru, his father Xu Dongming, his mother Fu Shi and 18 important subordinates were escorted to Beijing and generously surrendered.

After the main force of the rebel army was defeated, some of the soldiers turned to Juye, Yuncheng, and were surrounded by the Ming army in the area of Wu'an, Yuncheng, and the righteous army fought bloodily and refused to surrender.

The Xu Hongru uprising lasted more than 190 days, covering half of Shandong Province, and although it failed in the end, it ignited the fire of the peasant struggle at the end of the Ming Dynasty and sounded the death knell of the Ming Dynasty. Less than seven years later, the Li Zicheng uprising, which swept the country, broke out.