A childhood playmate, a comrade-in-arms who grew up, the cornerstone of the founding of the country, and a lifelong guardian.
Xu Da and Zhu Yuanzhang, Fengyang's two brothers: when he was a child, he guarded his immaturity; When he went to war, he guarded his dreams; When the nation was founded, he guarded his great deeds; He guarded his land when he was on the edge;
Even after his death, on the golden mountain of Jinling City, Xu Da still guarded Zhu Yuanzhang's tomb, following the purple micro star, as if continuing their story in the distant sea of stars.
Their stories are so wonderful and their feelings are so deep, but they have left an age-old problem in the field of history: Is Zhu Yuanzhang responsible for Xu Da's death?
The world is chaotic, and the young man grows up at the beginning of the year
The era of the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties was the darkest era of the Central Plains Continent, and it was the era when the Central Plains Continent needed to accumulate thick and thin. The ninety-seven years of rule of the Yuan Dynasty brought terrible disasters to the Central Plains, and the people's lives were trampled on: the accumulation of corruption, layers of exploitative bureaucracy, became a lingering mountain on the heads of the people.
The world has suffered for a long time, and the people need leaders to stand up against tyranny and exploitation. And in a village in Fengyang County, Anhui Province, a group of young people conform to public opinion and their lofty aspirations.
Three young people who have known each other since childhood followed the local rebel army led by Guo Zixing to capture Haozhou and began the first step of their great cause. There are our protagonists, Xu Da and Zhu Yuanzhang.
Xu Da has been diligent in learning martial arts since childhood, and is also good at observing speech and thinking about his own situation, so he not only honed his skills, but also has a strong ability to deal with people, and more importantly, Xu Da has his own special opinions, which will be very helpful to his bloody career in the future.
Zhu Yuanzhang said that he was "quiet and inky at this time", praised Xu Da for being calm, simple in his work, and his manners and cultivation were quite generalish, and he trusted him very much, and regarded Xu Da and Tang He as his right and left arms for his achievements.
Under Guo Zixing's account, the composition of the army is complex, and Guo Zixing's southern Juyi army is also constantly contradictory, Zhu Yuanzhang thinks that Haozhou is not a place to stay for a long time, if his career needs to go further, then there must be a broader world to develop.
So Zhu Yuanzhang left Guo Zixing with his close followers Xu Da, Tang He and others, went south to capture Chuzhou, set up camp here, and tried to develop in another way, and then captured Hezhou.
As a military general and heavy minister under Zhu Yuanzhang, Xu Da took the lead in these rushing battles, shared happiness and hardship with the Shi clan, and governed the army strictly, so he was even more appreciated and valued by Zhu Yuanzhang.
Soon after, Guo Zixing clashed with Sun Deya, and the latter was detained. Zhu Yuanzhang went alone to rescue Sun Deya, but he was caught by Sun's subordinates and wanted to kill him to honor Sun Deya.
When Xu Da heard the news, he also went to the place where Zhu Yuanzhang was being held and offered to let himself be a hostage and release Zhu Yuanzhang. This life-and-death friendship touched Zhu Yuanzhang, and after this matter subsided, the relationship between the two became even closer.
Leveling the southern collaborators, hegemony began to flourish
In the south at that time, the internal situation of the rebel army was complicated, the appearance was disjointed, and skirmishes were constant. At this time, only the continuous development of its own strength is the fundamental way to solve this dilemma.
Hezhou was too small, and Zhu Yuanzhang made a plan to capture Nanjing, using Nanjing as a base, not only to expand the size of the army, but also to have a place to train the water army.
At that time, Nanjing, the famous work Jiqing Road, was in the hands of the Yuan army. Xu Da was the vanguard, first captured the county capital around Anhui, expanded the army, and then joined forces with Tang He, advancing by land and water, and soon broke through Nanjing, and Xu Da made outstanding military achievements in this battle.
In July of the same year, Zhu Yuanzhang changed Qinglu to Yingtianfu, established himself as the Duke of Wu, and made Xu Da a privy councillor, treating Xu Da as the head of his civil and military officials and commanding the whole army.
With his own base, Zhu Yuanzhang quickly solved the logistical problem, but still faced a very serious military problem, Chen Youcheng, Zhang Shicheng, and the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty army, facing the emerging Zhu Yuanzhang, all regarded Zhu Yuanzhang as a thorn in his eyes.
Xu Da was entrusted with important tasks at this time: first, Xu Da led the army to Jingkou, eliminated the Yuan army, and stationed in Jingkou with Chang Yuchun and others. During this period, Xu Da ordered the army under his command to strictly enforce military discipline and not to enter the city to burn, kill and loot like other rebel armies.
Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang's army gained a great reputation in Jiangnan and other places, and people expected to welcome the arrival of Zhu Yuanzhang's army as soon as possible. Zhu Yuanzhang therefore trusted Xu Da's ability to lead troops even more, believing that Xu Da was a talent with both civility and military skills.
The people's hearts were stabilized, but external disasters in the base area continued: first, Zhang Shicheng attacked and Zhang Shicheng led his army to attack Jingkou. Xu Da guarded this place, waiting for work, laid out an empty city plan, lured Zhang Shicheng to go deeper, and set up ambushes on both sides, cavalry behind him, and encircling Chen Jun.
This defeat eliminated Chen Bu's arrogance, and Xu Da also defended Zhang Shicheng's repeated counterattacks. Within a few months, Zhang Shicheng's troops suffered heavy losses and fled at night, and Xu Da led his army to counterattack, capturing Xuancheng, Yixing, Changshu and other places one after another, consolidating the newly established Wu regime.
Zhu Yuanzhang took this as a base, and after two years of development, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang and other places were fully taken over. And Xu Da is the founder of these battle merits, and is Zhu Yuanzhang's most effective vanguard.
After Zhang Shicheng attacked, Chen Youshu, who had just seized power, was also restless, and he first targeted Zhu Yuanzhang. Chen Youliang's troops divided into three routes, attacking Chizhou all the way and Hongdu all the way, while Chen Youcheng led an army of 600,000 people to direct Yingtianfu through Poyang Lake.
Chen Youshu claimed that the first battle was a decisive battle, and the first battle was determined by life and death, intending to take Zhu Yuanzhang's army in one fell swoop. Xu Da commanded the whole army at this time, and through his own schemes, first eliminated the opponent's main general Zhao Pusheng, and then released false information, so that Chen Youcheng's army repeatedly rushed, and finally Xu Da captured Chizhou, beheaded more than 10,000, and angered Chen Youcheng.
Chen Youcheng then contacted another loser, Zhang Shicheng, to attack Zhu Yuanzhang's army again. Xu Da took advantage of the void to attack Chen Youcheng's rear city, attacked Anqing, broke the incident and Chen Youcheng fled west, suspending the attack; After that, he broke Chen Youcheng's army in Jiangzhou.
Time came to the battle of Poyang Lake, a mighty army of 600,000 people, rampant on the lake, huge sails covering the sky. Xu Da did not say anything afraid, personally led the forward army, with one for ten, separated and killed the enemy, and deterred the enemy army.
After that, he commanded the army to fight, Chen Youliang's morale weakened, Chen Youcheng was unfortunately killed by an arrow on the ship, and the Ming army won a great victory and achieved an absolute position and advantage in the south.
After the Battle of Poyang Lake, Xu Da led his army to clean up the remnants of Chen Youcheng, and after dozens of battles, he eliminated most of the enemy army and cleared the south, and Zhu Yuanzhang also established himself as the king of Wu, appointing Xu Da as Zuo Xiangguo, ranking first among the hundred officials, indicating that Zhu Yuanzhang still trusted Xu Da very much.
In Zhu Yuanzhang's heart, Xu Da is not only a sharp weapon to break the formation and kill the enemy, but also a needle to maintain the order of hundreds of officials, which is an affirmation of friendship, but also a desire for the world - if you want to achieve things, you must first sharpen your weapon, and Xu Da is a sharp weapon in Zhu Yuanzhang's hands.
Stepping flat Zhang Shicheng, Northern Expedition Central Plains plan
After Chen Youcheng's death, Zhang Shicheng and his remnants were ready to move again. After the second defeat, Zhang Shicheng chose to join forces with the Yuan army to attack Zhu Yuanzhang, and in the northern region of the Yuan army's base, Zhang Shicheng used Shandong as a base and quickly attacked the weak area where Zhu Yuanzhang was stationed, and achieved certain results.
At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang sent Xu Da to attack the Huaidong region first, occupying some strongholds in Zhejiang and Shandong, and then Xu Da attacked the western Zhejiang region, occupying Jiaxing, Hangzhou and other important economic towns, and finally Xu Da and Chang Yuchun jointly attacked Pingjiang, besieging Zhang Shicheng in the city, and Zhang refused to surrender.
Xu Da fiercely attacked the city, supplemented by the ladder rushing car, and soon entered the city and annihilated Zhang Shicheng's department. As always, Xu Da ordered the army to strictly abide by military rules after entering the city and not to infringe on the people, a move appreciated by Zhu Yuanzhang.
The era of the division of the south was coming to an end, and Zhu Yuanzhang's next goal was to realize the lofty ideal he set as a child: to eliminate the Yuan Dynasty.
At that time, the Yuan Dynasty occupied the northern provinces, and the main army was distributed in Shandong, Hebei, Henan and other places. Zhu Yuanzhang first punished the people and issued an article condemning the corruption of the Yuan Dynasty's officialdom and oppression of the people.
On the other hand, with Xu Da as the general and Chang Yuchun as the deputy general, he led an army of nearly 300,000 and attacked Shandong first. In the first two months of November 1637, Xu Da conquered most of Shandong, the Yuan army was defeated, the army was not obedient, and the people heard that Zhu Yuanzhang's army had arrived.
After the victory of the first step of the Northern Expedition, Zhu Yuanzhang officially established the state in the first month of 1638, with the state name of Ming, and Xu Da was canonized as the right chancellor of Zhongshu and crown prince.
After a brief period of joy, Xu Da led his army to quickly clear the Yuan army in Shanxi, Shaanxi and other places near the Yellow River. In July of the same year, except for Dadu, the rest of the northern part had been captured by Xu Da using his military talents and military discipline.
Unable to withstand military pressure and popular counterattacks, Yuanchengfu was forced to abandon the capital and flee back to the grassland, where 97 years of rule collapsed at this moment, and this was Zhu Yuanzhang's dream, and the weapon in his hand, Xu Da, personally destroyed the Yuan Dynasty.
After that, Xu Da continued to lead the northern war, on the one hand, he knew the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty, on the other hand, he continued to go north, completely eliminating the remnants of the old Yuan court, and successively captured Shaanxi, Lingbei and other places.
In addition, Xu Da learned the lessons of the Song Dynasty, he focused on the construction of the northern military cause, not only in the Great Wall Tuntian, to solve the needs of the combination of soldiers and civilians, but also carried out decades-long military training, so that the northern army has been tempered and supplemented, so Xu Da is also known as the "Great Wall of Daming" to commemorate his contribution to the north.
A generation of generals, fate fell Ziwei Mountain
The poor generation of generals with both cultural relics also had to face the final judgment of fate, and could not escape the torment of illness. During the preparation for the war in Beiping, Xu Da unfortunately suffered from back sores, and it was difficult to sit and sleep, and his life was very inconvenient. As his condition worsened, Xu Da returned to Nanjing the following year and accompanied Zhu Yuanzhang on his last journey.
But before a whole spring had passed, Xu Da's illness worsened, and a generation of generals who fought in the South and the North, and a generation of handsome talents who were both civil and martial, unfortunately died at the age of only fifty-four, and the whole country was shocked.
Zhu Yuanzhang also stopped dynasty for several months, full of sorrow, watching his brother who had come all the way to die so early, his heart was sad, and he was buried next to his mausoleum, only hoping that he could still accompany Xu Da after his death.
However, the death of Xu Da in history is quite controversial, some people think that Zhu Yuanzhang was worried that Xu Da was too strong in the north, heard that Xu Da was ill and immediately recalled, and even after the spring banquet, Xu Da was rewarded with roasted goose at night, and Xu Da was suffering from back sores and could not use meat, which would aggravate the condition and worsen the wound.
It is reported that after Xu Da received the "reward", he cried and finished eating the roasted goose, and his back sores worsened in the middle of the night, and he died soon after.
So did Zhu Yuanzhang do this? The author thinks no.
On the one hand, Xu Da has been successful in his life, although he has a lot of martial arts, but he has also accumulated a set of rules for dealing with people in many years of conquest, and the deep appreciation of Zhu Yuanzhang, Xu Da can achieve high merit without exceeding the boundary, and the outside can also not make personal friends, almost with Lan Yu, Li Shanchang and others are only shallow friends, impartial.
On the other hand, Zhu Yuanzhang also had absolute trust in Xu Da, almost regarded Xu Da as his own family, and in the dynasty, let Xu Da serve as his assistant to the crown prince, and outside the dynasty, ordered Xu Da to control all the military power of the army, and occasionally failed without asking Xu Da.
At the same time, Xu Da's military discipline and love for the people as a son are exactly what Zhu Yuanzhang wants his courtiers to do, and Xu Da has set a good example, so as to tell the people that the Yuan Dynasty has been oppressed for a long time, and Zhu Yuanzhang's Ming army is here to bring a better life.
Such a meritorious general and best friend, how could Zhu Yuanzhang bear to get rid of it?
Xu Da is a martial general with outstanding combat achievements, but this conceals his meticulous thinking as a handsome talent, and being at the top of a hundred officials requires a unique way to survive.
Be cautious, love the people, think. Who doesn't want to have the dream of both cultural relics? Who wouldn't want such a protective friend?