This depends on the criteria for success, and the successful and unsuccessful Northern Expeditions in history are too many. If we look at the definition of the success of the Northern Expedition, Zongheng feels that there are roughly four people who can achieve it: although Xiang Yu destroyed Qin and eventually lost to Liu Bang, the history books still include Xiang Yu in this era; Liu Yu, before ascending the throne, once went north to conquer Shandong and Guanzhong, and Liu Yu's descendants also planned that the results of the Northern Expedition would end in Yuanjia Caocao; Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan Dynasty from Jiangnan, and Zhu Di's Northern Expedition was more of a cross-border attack on Mongolia; from the south, the National Revolutionary Army of the old warlords in Beiyang was defeated, and on this basis the Republic of China completed formal unification.
In the history of our country, the dynasties in the south of The An Dynasty carried out countless Northern Expeditions: the Shu Han Dynasty in the Three Kingdoms period went out of the Qi Mountains and planned to realize the desire to restore the Han Dynasty and return to the old capital; Yue Fei repeatedly planned to recover the lost land and welcome the Second Saint Dynasty, but so on, but they were unsuccessful. Compared with Zhu Yuanzhang's establishment of the Ming Dynasty, in fact, the success of the Northern Expedition of Xiang Yu and Liu Yu of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was even more rare. Because before the Tang Dynasty, the north had always been the economic center of gravity and fiscal and taxation of the dynasty, whether it was the character of the fierce warrior or the warhorse of the north that was suitable for war, it could crush the south. After the key development of the Tang and Song dynasties, the economic center of gravity shifted to the south, so relatively speaking, the achievements of the Northern Expedition of Xiang Yu, the king of Western Chu, and Liu Yu, the emperor of Song Wu, were even more rare.
Before the Anshi Rebellion of the Tang Dynasty, the north was far stronger than the south in terms of economic strength and military combat effectiveness. Because of differences in population size, sense of crisis, and access to war horses, most of the great unification dynasties in history were the reasons why the north unified the south and few southern regimes unified the whole country. It was very difficult to carry out the Northern Expedition before the Tang and Song Dynasties, and during the Three Kingdoms period, the Shu Han and Wu States also failed to achieve great results in the Northern Expedition many times. Therefore, Xiang Yu and Liu Yu, who achieved the success of the Northern Expedition during this period, were very rare. Xiang Yu, as the overlord of Western Chu, quickly became an ally of the Qin forces. Both Liu Bang and Xiang Yu were southerners, and eventually destroyed the Qin state and fulfilled the oath that "although the three families of Chu died, Qin will be Chu". Although it was eventually Liu Bang who established the Han Dynasty, the main force to destroy Qin was definitely the overlord Xiang Yu, so the Book of Han also specifically included this Western Chu overlord in the imperial benji.
Before the Battle of Shuishui, Qin was defeated, and the unified north fell apart. And the leadership of the Eastern Jin Dynasty Northern Prefecture Army, which had made military achievements, also changed hands to Liu Yu, who had the title of imperial harvester, but Emperor Wu of Song was a ruthless man. Not only was he cruel to his own people (warlords such as the Heng clan and the Eastern Jin Dynasty), but he did achieve very good results in foreign wars. After killing the usurper Heng Xuan's government in control of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Liu Yu began the Northern Expedition, which targeted the rebels in Shandong for Murong Nanyan, Northern Wei, and Later Qin. It can be said that Liu Yu single-handedly selected the major forces of the Northern Dynasty, and through the Northern Expedition Liu Yu destroyed southern Yan, broke the Northern Wei, and died after Qin; recovered Shandong, Henan, Guanzhong, and other places, and restored luoyang and Chang'an; the Warring States at that time were known as "seven parts of the world, and there were four of them", it can be said that the territory of the Southern Dynasty at the peak of the Northern Expedition was more than that of the two Song Dynasties.
After the unsuccessful Northern Expeditions such as Yue Fei of the Two Song Dynasties (of course due to the corruption of the Southern Song Dynasty), the Northern Expedition had achieved results again a thousand years after Liu Yu. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the imperial court was dim and the people were not happy, and various rebel armies continued to appear on the stage of history in this stormy era. Zhu Yuanzhang, the king of Western Wu, gradually became stronger and began thirteen military campaigns against the Yuan Dynasty after basically sweeping jiangnan. Collectively known as the Taizu Northern Expedition, in fact, as early as the 27th year of the Ming Dynasty's founding of the Ming Dynasty, the Wu king Zhu Yuanzhang ordered Xu Da and Chang Yuchun to lead an army of 250,000 north into the Central Plains. This was the earliest Northern Expedition against the Yuan Dynasty, in which the program of "expelling Hu Yu and restoring China" was put forward for the first time. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty was also known as the most righteous dynasty in the country, and since then it has begun the 276-year national history of the Ming Dynasty of "no land, no indemnity, no peace, the son of heaven guarding the door of the country, and the death of the king".
This was also the first and most successful Northern Expedition in China's history, and the Ming Dynasty completed the reverse unification process from south to north by virtue of Jiangnan. In fact, it is not surprising that after a long period of development, Jiangnan has become the economic center of gravity of the whole country. The economic prosperity of the south is already an objective fact, so there was a successful Northern Expedition of the Ming Dynasty from south to north.