Zu Ti is a famous patriotic general in Chinese history, and allusions such as "smelling the chicken dancing" and "hitting the middle stream" are all about Zu Ti. In 313, Emperor Huan of Jin ascended the throne, and with Sima Rui as his attendant, Zuo Chengxiang (左丞相), and Dadu (大都) as the military governor of eastern Shaanxi, he ordered him to lead an army to Luoyang to serve the king. At that time, Sima Rui was exploring Jiangnan and had no intention of going north. Zu Dijin said: "The rebellion in the Jin Dynasty was not that the emperor had no way and the people rebelled, but that the king of the clan fought for power and killed each other, giving Yi Di an opportunity to take advantage of it." Now the people of the Northland are devastated and have the will to fight back. If the great king can order the master to be sent out and let Zu Ti and others be the commanders, Jiangbei Haojie will surely respond to the wind, and the fallen people will also rejoice. In this way, perhaps the shame of the snow country can be declared. "
Although Sima Rui did not want to go north, he was also inconvenient to openly oppose, so he appointed Zu Ti as the general of Fenwei and the assassin of Yuzhou, but only allocated a thousand people grain and three thousand pieces of cloth, allowing him to recruit his own soldiers and build his own weapons.
Sima Rui's negative attitude did not shake Zu Ti's determination to go north. Zu Ti led more than a hundred clan clans that followed him south, and resolutely crossed the river north from Jingkou. These hundred or so men were all his troops. The northbound ship traveled to the middle of the river, and Zu Ti slapped the ship's rafters hard, vowing to sweep away the Central Plains. After crossing the river, Zu Di was temporarily stationed in Huaiyin, smelting iron, forging weapons, and recruiting more than 2,000 soldiers from the displaced people. At that time, Yanyu had a strong zhang ping and Fan Ya, occupying the city of Chen, gathering docks to protect themselves, and having thousands of soldiers, but nominally submitting to Sima Rui and accepting the official positions he conferred. Later, Zu Di successively pacified Zhang Ping and Fan Ya, expanding his territory and troops. Finally, he gained a foothold in Yuzhou and opened up the passage of the Northern Expedition.
Zu Ti recruited soldiers in Yuzhou, gathered the surrounding Dock Forts and beggar troops, and developed agricultural production and built weapons. Within a few years, Zu Ti had an army of tens of thousands of people and strong combat effectiveness. Zu Ti won successive battles with Shi Le and Shi Hu, and his territory approached the Yellow River. He even forced Shi Le to order his subordinates not to take the initiative to engage in military friction with Zu Ti's army. However, the army that Zu Di personally pulled up to fight against the invaders eventually participated in the rebellion and was suppressed.
Just when Zu Ti's Northern Expedition army was like a bamboo, there was a great tendency to cross the Yellow River in the north. A news from the court of the Eastern Jin Dynasty made Zu Di angry, and soon after he was depressed. This news is that the contradiction between the powerful minister Wang Dun and the Jinyuan Emperor Sima Rui is sharp, to the point of sword tension. Wang Dun was originally afraid of Zu Ti, so he did not dare to rebel. After Zu Di's death, Wang Dun sent troops to attack the Eastern Jin capital Jiankang, which is known as the Wang Dun Rebellion.
After Zu Ti's death, his brother Zu Yue took over the command of Shuai Yin and replaced Zu Ti in leading the Northern Expedition. However, Zu Yue's talent was not good, and he had no way to control it, and he could not resist the attack of Later Zhao Shile, so he gradually lost the results of Zu Ti's Northern Expedition. Later, when quelling the rebellion of Wang Dun, Zu Yue led the Northern Expeditionary Army created by Zu Ti himself to participate in the quelling of the rebellion. He was later promoted to general of Zhenxi for his merits.
In 325, after the death of Sima Shao, the Emperor of Jinming, the five-year-old Sima Yan succeeded to the throne as Emperor Cheng of Jin. Guo's uncle Yu Liang was in charge of the imperial government. Yu Liang changed the policy of Wang Daoyou Rong's family, implemented a strict criminal law system, and introduced a series of measures to strengthen the centralization of power. Later, Yu Liang killed Sima Zong, the king of Nandon, and other clansmen, thus greatly losing the hearts of the people. He also insisted on recruiting the exiled marshal Su Jun into Beijing, hoping to deprive Su Jun of his military power, which eventually caused Su Jun's rebellion. When Su Jun rebelled, Zu Yue was already dissatisfied with Yu Liang, so in 327 AD, he sent 20,000 troops from Liyang to cross the river and attack Jianjian with Su Jun.
After the fall of Jiankang, Xi Jian, Wen Jiao, Tao Kan, Yu Liang and others formed a coalition to fight against Su Jun's ancestral covenant, and it finally took two years to quell su Jun's rebellion. Zu Yue, who rebelled with Su Jun, was repeatedly defeated by the rebel army, and the Northern Expeditionary Army formed by the Zu Ti he led was gradually depleted in successive battles. Zu Yue had no choice but to lead the remaining men to flee north and defect to Later Zhao. Later, Zhao Shile looked down on Zu Yue and never received him, and soon after found an excuse to kill him and exterminate the clan.