As mentioned in the previous article, Emperor Yuan Shun fled again and again, and there was no escape, his health deteriorated, and his combat against the Ming army also lost soldiers.
After that, the Yuan army also took advantage of the Ming army to return to the division to retake Shangdu, but the Shiming army only retreated slightly to reorganize the front. It is not so much that the Yuan army recaptured Shangdu, but rather that the Ming army took the initiative to withdraw from Shangdu in order to readjust the front. Therefore, until his death, Emperor Shun remained in Yingchang and was unable to return to the once-prosperous Shangdu and Dadu.
Emperor Yuanshun
In the third year of Hongwu (1370), also on April 28 of the 30th year of the Yuan Dynasty, Emperor Yuan Shun finally died of illness at the age of 51. In the first month of the thirtieth year before his death, Emperor Shun had decided to recall Tamerlane and ordered emissaries to carry his edict to the Timur army in Gansu, hoping to regroup the scattered forces.
The Ming army also found out the combat intentions of the Yuan army from the counterattack of the Yuan army in the second year of Hongwu (1369), and the Western Route Army led by Xu Da and Feng Sheng sent troops to Gansu, directly pounding the west to prevent timur from returning to the east; and Li Wenzhong led the Eastern Route Army out of Beiping and marched upward through wild fox ridge, not only attacking the heartland of the Yuan army, but also avoiding the Yuan army on the yingchang and Shangdu lines moving westward.
The Western Route Army first launched the Battle of Shen'eryu. In order to capture the northwestern important town of Lanzhou, Timur sent troops to attack Dingxi and Tun Army Lane Yu. Xu Da led his troops to garrison Shen Eryu, where the two sides confronted each other and constantly invested troops. At first, the Timurid army had a slight advantage, suppressing the Ming army at the mouth of the Shen'eryu Valley and unable to advance. However, the Expansion Timurid Army did not have a solid rear, and the military was prone to floating. The two sides held each other in Shen'eryu for more than a month, and the hearts of Timur's army began to waver, and their positions were chaotic.
Xu Da was so experienced that he saw that the Yuan army had changed, and immediately attacked with all his might. As a result, Shen Eryu fought a battle in which the Northern Yuan was defeated, and Tamerlane only took a few of his guards to flee north, trying to avoid Helin in Lingbei Province. On the bank of the Yellow River, there was a danger of the Yellow River in front of it, and there were pursuing soldiers in the back, and Timur was almost cornered, so he had to risk holding a driftwood and go down into the water, cross the Yellow River, and flee to Helin. According to the ming army's war reports, Shen Eryu captured more than 60,000 Northern Yuan soldiers, and the main Han forces under Timur's tent were almost exhausted in this battle.
Li Wenzhong
Let's talk about Li Wenzhong's Eastern Route Army. Compared with the great battle between the Western Route Army and Timur, the Eastern Route Army faced much less resistance. The number of troops under the direct command of Emperor Shun was not large, and the old troops of Tamerlane deployed in northern Shanxi suffered heavy losses in the counter-offensive of Hongwu II (1369), making it difficult to pose a threat to the Ming army.
Even so, Li Wenzhong was still very cautious and careful, not impatient, and slowly advanced. After the Eastern Route Army left Yongguan, it entered Chahan's brain in February, and then engaged the Yuan army around Shangdu repeatedly, sweeping away the Yuan forces around Shangdu and completely annihilating the living forces of the Yuan army in this area. After May, the area from Shangdu to Hongluo Mountain was retaken by the Ming army.
According to the Ming Shilu, Li Wenzhong attacked Kaiping, or Yuan Shangdu, on May 9. By May 13, the Ming army had captured a Mongol knight on its way to Yingchang. Under interrogation, the Mongol knight claimed to be an envoy of the Northern Yuan Dynasty and confessed to the Ming army, "On April 28, Emperor Shun died, and I came from Yingchang to report to various places for mourning. After repeated interrogations and confirmation that the intelligence was correct, Li Wenzhong ordered his troops to raid Yingchang day and night, defeating the last bit of resistance of the Yuan army on May 15 and encircling Yingchang City.
The next day, the city of Yingchang was destroyed, and Li Ba la, the son of the crown prince Ai Youzhi Li Dala, was captured and sent to Beiping. Only Ai Youzhi Li Dala led dozens of people to break out, and Li Wenzhong could not catch up.
At this point, the Northern Yuan's power in the Yingchang area collapsed. The Shun Emperor's dynasty, which lasted for nearly 40 years, also came to an end completely. After that, Ai Youzhi Lidara was proclaimed emperor in northern Mobei, with the era name Xuanguang, which was for Emperor Zhaozong, and the history of the Northern Yuan opened a new page.
The next article talks about the ascension of Emperor Zhaozong of Yuan.