Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 73 Yuan Ting’s Response (Seeking Follow-up Reading)
"Great, gather the troops immediately. No, we need to think carefully about it. Our military strength is not superior to that Lu Jin."

When Kang Maocai heard Bao Yu's suggestion, his eyes suddenly lit up.

Kang Maocai was under great pressure during this period. First of all, the injury on his face made him unable to eat or sleep well. After a week, although he could barely speak, Lu Jin was developing steadily, and now he had captured Chao County. The pressure from the court made him extremely irritable.

The day before yesterday, Chao County was captured by Lu Jin. Darughachi Subutai escaped and ran all the way to Heyang, urging him to quickly recover the lost territory and wipe out the rebels.

Kang Maocai certainly knew how to suppress the bandits, but there was no good opportunity to do so, and his troops were too few.

However, Subutai was a Mongolian and he could not offend him, so he did not dare to refuse. He just said that he was making preparations and that two thousand soldiers had just been transferred from Taiping Prefecture on the other side of the river and they would set out immediately after getting ready.

Subutai was very anxious because his family and savings were still in the hands of Liao Yongan. Seeing that Kang Maocai was not in a hurry, he simply ran to Jiangnan for help.

But are there any reinforcements in Jiangnan to deal with Lu Jin? No!

This is also thanks to Fang Guozhen's assist.

Fang Guozhen was a native of Taizhou, Zhejiang. A large number of county annals in Zhejiang Province recorded his deeds, but they were all contradictory. The most credible one, "Cixi County Annals", records that Fang Guozhen may be a descendant of Fang La, the leader of the peasant uprising in the Northern Song Dynasty.

Fang Guozhen is the third of five brothers. His personal fighting power may be the highest among the heroes at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, but he is only considered a leader, not a general.

It is rumored that he can pull a running horse to his knees. He is also a martial arts master and created a set of boxing techniques called "Shrinking Mountain Fist". This boxing technique places great emphasis on the lower body and is suitable for use on a shaking boat.

Qi Jiguang also mentioned in his "New Book of Performance" that during the anti-Japanese war in the southeast, Qi's army should have practiced this kind of boxing.

Fang Guozhen is not an honest man, but his father is an honest tenant.

Once, the five brothers and their father happened to meet the owner of the field. Fang Guozhen's father immediately stood up straight and greeted the owner of the field respectfully.

Fang Guozhen got angry at the time, saying that he was just an ordinary person with some money, not a high-ranking official, so was there any need for him to be so servile?
But his father said, I can only support you five brothers by renting his land, so how can I not be respectful?

Fang Guozhen, however, felt that it was impossible for him to work. Perhaps his father's hard and humble life served as a negative example for him, and he did not want to be a tenant farmer like his father for generations.

So after their father died, the five brothers found an opportunity to invite the landowner to dinner, got him drunk and then killed him.

Afterwards, the five brothers fled to the ends of the earth and embarked on a dark path, smuggling salt!
Because Fang Guozhen was quick-witted, courageous, and ruthless, he quickly became the leader of the underworld in Taizhou.

At that time, there was a salt smuggler named "Cai Luantou" who was competing with Fang Guozhen for business. The two had a fight. Unexpectedly, Cai Luantou had someone above him. This guy did not follow the rules and used official power to suppress Fang Guozhen. He also bribed the government and slandered Fang Guozhen as a traitor.

In a rage, Fang Guozhen killed Cai Luantou's entire family!

"Fuck, you said I was a traitor, right? Then I will rebel for you to see!"

So in November of 1348, the eighth year of Zhizheng, Fang Guozhen took thousands of desperate men and thousands of ships to Dachen Island off the coast of Taizhou, proclaimed himself "King of East Zhejiang", and used Dachen Island as a base to rob passing ships.

To the south, they robbed merchants from Guangdong and Fujian, and to the north, they robbed official ships of the imperial court, becoming the only pirate force at the end of the Yuan Dynasty.

Originally, if you wanted to be the king behind closed doors, the Yuan court would not bother to care about you, but this guy robbed the Yuan court's official ships that transported grain by sea, which made Dadu unbearable.

You fucking stole my food, are you going to let the nobles in Dadu starve?

Then the Yuan court quickly gathered its forces to suppress Fang Guozhen. But the Mongolian navy, haha.
From 1349 to 1351, within three years, the Yuan court and Fang Guozhen fought a total of seven battles. Fang Guozhen won six and was defeated only once. He retreated on his own initiative because he saw the situation was not good, and his main force did not suffer any damage.

Tai Buhua, a famous minister of the Yuan court, and Dong Tuanxiao, the deputy marshal of Zhejiang, were directly beaten by him and became commanders without troops. They were so scared that they swore never to fight a naval battle again.
The left chancellor of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Province, Brotemür, was captured alive by Fang Guozhen, who then released him and asked him to be the middleman to pass on the message to the court that Fang Guozhen wanted to be recruited.
The battle with Bro Timur was just fought in early July this year.

What happened in July 1351?
Liu Futong rebelled.

So the Yuan court quickly gave up Fang Guozhen, who was wanted to be recruited, and started to deal with Liu Futong.

The slogan of Liu Du's Red Army was "Reopening the Song Dynasty". The first reaction of the Yuan court was to quickly hide the descendants of Zhao Song.
At that time, the young emperor of the last year of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Wanpu, the son of Emperor Gong of Song, was still alive. It would be a great disaster if this treasure fell into the hands of the Red Turban Army.

Therefore, the Yuan court immediately exiled Zhao Wanpu to Dunhuang, Gansu and placed him under house arrest, and later simply confiscated his property and silenced him.

Subsequently, the Yuan court dispatched the Seljuq general Heisi, who led 6,000 elite Azov troops who had won the battle of the two capitals, to suppress the rebellion.

As a result, these green-eyed people did nothing when they arrived in Henan. They just robbed the common people every day. Then they encountered the Red Turban Army of more than 100,000 people. They were frightened by the momentum and wet their pants. They shouted "Abu! Abu!" (Run), and collapsed without fighting. In the end, most of them died of diseases in Henan due to acclimatization.

Later, the people of Lianghuai laughed when they mentioned this group of people.

This group of green-eyed Semites were completely defeated by Liu Du’s Red Army in early August.

Then what happened in August 1351?
Xuzhou Sesame Li rebelled.
Zhima Li, Zhao Junyong and eight others captured the city of Xuzhou. Overnight, they had an army of 100,000. Within a few months, they advanced to Pei County in the north; to Mengcheng, Xiacai and Anfeng in the west; and to Xiapi, Suqian, Lingbi, Hongxian, Wuhe, Sizhou and Xuyi in the east.

Xuzhou's Zhima Li had already fought to the border of Anfeng and Haozhou. In the month that Lu Jin occupied Luzhou, they were almost bordering Lu Jin.

In comparison, Lu Jin's piece of land is nothing.

The most crucial thing is that the Xuzhou Red Army completely cut off the Grand Canal from Beijing to Hangzhou.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the grain transported to Dadu was half by canal and half by sea, about 600 million shi per year. The sea transport was ruined by Fang Guozhen's disaster, and now the canal transport has been cut off by Zhima Li.

Do you really want to let the rich and powerful in Dadu starve? !
The Yuan court responded quickly. Dong Tuanxiao, the deputy marshal of eastern Zhejiang who had just been left without a commander by Fang Guozhen last month, was now transferred to the position of general manager of Jining Road and was raising a large army to suppress Sesame Li in Xuzhou.

And to the south of Lu Jin was the Southern Red Turban Army.

Xu Shouhui's troops were centered around Peng Yingyu's Maitreya disciples, with Zou Pusheng from Macheng as the Grand Tutor and Ni Wenjun from Huangpi as the General.

They rebelled in August, occupied the entire Huanggang in September, and repelled the counterattack of the Yuan army. The general Ni Wenjun even captured the son of a Yuan Dynasty vassal king alive.

It is now the end of September. Next month in October, when Lu Jin gets married, Xu Shouhui will proclaim himself emperor and establish a new country in Huanggang, and the name of the country will be the Great Song!

The Yuan court now has no time or energy to deal with the inconspicuous Lu Jin.

He could take advantage of this time to calmly defeat Kang Maocai's troops and then switch to defense on the spot.

After enduring the first wave of suppression from the Yuan court, he should be close to crossing the river.

(End of this chapter)