In 1445, someone gave an ultimatum to the Ming Dynasty government: "Stay in Baofengchang, listen to me, or kill people." Then he declared war on the government: "King Ma of Zhejiang led more than five hundred people and agreed to fight a big battle on a certain day." So what kind of person was so bold as to declare war on the Ming court, which was in full swing? (At this time, the king of the Ming court was Zhu Qizhen of Emperor Mingying.)
Ye Zongliu, a native of Qingyuan, Zhejiang, liked to learn martial arts when he was a teenager, and when he grew up, he once worked as a small official in Lishui, Zhejiang, and later because of the compulsion of life, he had to go into the mountains to make a living from silver mining.
The Ming court began to mine silver in Fujian and other places in Zhejiang from the Hongwu period, and stopped mining during the Orthodox years. And the rulers also forbade private mining. If the residents of Zhejiang, Fujian, and other places violate the law and mine silver on their own, they will be sentenced to capital punishment, and then the families of the offenders who have violated the law will be exiled to a foreign land.
In 1442, Ye Zong stayed in the northwest of present-day Ningde City, Fujian Province, to mine silver, but was hunted down by officers and soldiers, and he organized the miners to resist by force.
In 1444, Ye Zongliu, together with Chen Jianhu and others, was in fu'an, fujian. Killed the Fujian senator (from Sipin) Zhu Yuan, who was pursuing them.
Later, the Ming court announced the resumption of silver mining. Ye Zong was anxious, how could you Qingtian Grand Masters fight with the people for profits, so he openly claimed to be the Great King, and issued a war letter to the official government to fight with the officials and army to decide the ownership of the mining rights of the silver mine.
The governments in Fujian, Zhejiang, and other places adopted a policy of appeasement toward others who secretly mined, but they deeply resented Ye Zongliu, and they applied to Emperor Mingying's Zhu Qizhen to raise troops to encircle and suppress Ye Zongliu.
However, Zhu Qizhen did not agree to send zhejiang officers and soldiers to encircle and suppress them, believing that these mining people were all caused by the unemployment of small people, that they were not guilty, and that they should be re-employed. Because of Zhu Qizhen's resolution, Ye Zongliu did not make a stronger act of resistance.
In 1447, Ye Zongliu led the miners to dig silver mines everywhere, but the income was very small, and even the income was not much to spend, although the emperor did not agree to the siege of Zhejiang officers and soldiers, but the local governments in various places were still hunting him down.
He is born of evil from the side of the guts, and he relies on the mountains to eat the mountains and rely on the water, but now that the mountains are not enough for us to eat, we might as well take them from others.
So he officially declared an uprising, and in a short period of time hundreds of people responded to him, he besieged the current Zhenghe County and the villages around the county seat, and then returned to his hometown qingyuan, recruited troops, and grew the ranks to thousands. In addition, he also recruited Ye Qi, a native of Longquan, Zhejiang, as a godhead to teach soldiers to practice weapons and train military formations.
Ye Zongliu's rebel army captured Jianyang and Jianning (present-day Jian'ou, Fujian) from Pucheng in Fujian, and then occupied an important strategic passage from Jiangxi to Fujian.
At the same time, Deng Maoqi, a native of Jianchang, Fujian, led the peasants to revolt in Shaxian County, and successively laid siege to Shanghang, Tingzhou, Shanguan, And Guangguang in Fujian. Ye Zongliu immediately sent people to unite with Deng Maoqi to form an offensive and defensive alliance.
In August 1448, Emperor Mingyingzong sent Liu Ju, the governor of the left capital, and Zhang Kai, the right deputy capital, to lead a 6,000-strong army to encircle and suppress Deng Maoqi, but because Ye Zongliu controlled the main road from Jiangxi to Fujian and blocked the Ming dynasty army led by Zhang Kai in Shangrao, Jiangxi, Zhang Kai thought that I would not care about what was not in my control, and this Ye Zongliu, the emperor did not ask me to suppress him, then naturally I could not fight him, so I and Ye Zongliu were deadlocked.
But the local officials in Zhejiang and Fujian were anxious, and the rebel army stayed on my territory for one day, and my sins were greater. So they urged Zhang Kai to attack Ye Zongliu, and Zhang Kai had to command 500 people to attack the rebel army.
In this battle, the number of casualties on both sides was comparable. However, because Ye Zongliu was dressed in red to direct the battle during the battle, he was unfortunately killed by the fire of arrows. The son inherited his father's business, and Ye Zongliu's son Ye Xiba was elected as the leader and continued to carry the banner of Ye Zongliu. Fight against the Ming Dynasty. Subsequently, the officers and soldiers once again attacked the rebel army, just as the so-called mourning soldiers would win, and the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were defeated.
In one battle, Ye Zongliu's rebel army effectively cooperated with Deng Maoqi's battle and captured a large number of weapons. He also took advantage of the great victory to attack Pucheng and take Pucheng.
At this time, the rebel army had accumulated tens of thousands of people, and then Yang Xi of Lishui and Tao De'er of Bao Village led thousands of people from their respective uprisings to vote, and the rebel troops were even stronger.
Then the rebel army decided to take Baocun as the base and occupy the capital city of Chuzhou, and strengthen itself with the material resources of Yiwu and the manpower of Songyang.
The strategic objectives were set very well, but there were some mistakes in the process of implementation. The capital city of Chuzhou, surrounded by rebel troops, could not be attacked for a long time. Although fucheng repeatedly rushed to the provincial capital, and the defenders also died in the process of resistance, the rebel army still failed to capture fucheng.
At the same time, Zhang Kai had successfully killed Deng Maoqi, and the remnants of Deng Maoqi were still resisting. The imperial court ordered some people to continue to besiege the remnants of Deng Maoqi, and let Zhang Kai lead his troops to relieve the siege of Chuzhou.
After Zhang Kai led his troops to Jinhua County, Zhejiang Province, he made a lot of bamboo fences, which were shield-like armor that could effectively restrain the enemy's gunners. The rebel army first launched an attack on Zhang Kai's troops with tens of thousands of people, and as a result, more than 300 People were killed by the Mongol and Hui soldiers in Zhang Kai's army who were good at riding and shooting, and then the spearmen in the rebel army were besieged and captured by bamboo fences, which greatly damaged the morale of the rebel army.
The rebels fled into the mountains, stubbornly resisting, Zhang Kai sent the Zhejiang people in the army to enter the mountains with Zhao'an's Yuwen to repeatedly persuade them to surrender, and Tao De'er, one of the leaders of the rebel army, first surrendered, followed by Ye Xiba, Yang Xi, and others who accepted the solicitation. In the end, tens of thousands of rebels were not conquered by the enemy's force, but under the enemy's beckoning, they burned down the cottage and went down the mountain for the people.
The miners' revolt led by Ye Zongliu lost his strong leadership because Ye Zongliu died prematurely in battle. The remaining rebels had no clear political goals. Politically immature and militarily not strong enough, it is impossible to win the battle against the rulers.
The reason why the Ming government was able to suppress this rebel army was not by military means, but by appeasement, which to a certain extent also showed that the Ming army, which had been able to fight a good war for decades, had lost its original combat effectiveness, and the change of Tumu Fort in the same period also reflected this problem.
Do you think that if Ye Zongliu hadn't died in battle so early, would the result still be like this?