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Chapter 330 Two Rivals That Caused Zhu Di Headaches

[Zhu Di started a rebellion and almost lost his life at the hands of a weak scholar. Who was this scholar? Historical trivia and historical figures]

He was originally an inconspicuous scholar, but with his wisdom, he took on the important task of defending the city, which almost saved Prince of Yan Zhu Di's life under the iron gate. He was given the title of "Iron City" by the people.

So, what happened between him and Zhu Di? In this video, we will learn how Tie Xuan, a weak scholar, made Zhu Di, a veteran of many battles, suffer.

After the death of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, his grandson Zhu Yunwen succeeded to the throne and became Emperor Jianwen. As soon as he ascended the throne, he took a series of measures to reduce the power of the vassal states. As a result, Zhu Yuanzhang's fourth son, Prince of Yan Zhu Di, rebelled in 1399 and launched the famous Jingnan Campaign in history.

Finally, after four years of war, Zhu Di succeeded in usurping the throne and became the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Although Zhu Di won the battle, he almost lost his life at the hands of a scholar named Tie Xuan.

For Zhu Di, who was always good at fighting, this was a great humiliation.

Tie Xuan was from Dengzhou, Henan today. He was appointed to the imperial court because of his excellent knowledge of classics and history. In his early years, he was highly regarded by Zhu Yuanzhang. After Zhu Yunwen ascended to the throne, he appointed him as a councilor of Shandong.

In the same year, Emperor Jianwen ordered Li Jinglong to lead an army of 50 to attack Zhu Di. Tie Xuan was a logistics officer responsible for supervising the transportation of food and grass.

However, Li Jinglong was too disappointing. Despite his absolute superiority in military strength, he was defeated at Baigou River and could only lead the remaining troops to retreat to Jinan City. However, Zhu Di's troops became more and more courageous as the battle went on, pursuing him all the way.

At this time, Tie Xuan was transporting food and grass for Li Jinglong in other places. As a supply officer, the front-line battles had nothing to do with him, and he would not take responsibility for Li Jinglong's defeat.

However, when he learned that Jinan was facing a crisis, he immediately set out to provide support and gathered the scattered soldiers along the way.

At that time, a soldier asked Tie Xuan: "Li Jinglong, a military commander, was defeated and threw away his armor. How can you, a civilian official, resist Zhu Di's brave cavalry?"

Tie Xuan said, "As an official appointed by the imperial court in Shandong, how can I allow the Yan bandits to do what they want? Now that Jinan is in trouble, we must defend it with our lives." As a civil servant, he was able to be so iron-willed.

However, some people may think that no matter how strong Tie Xuan is, he is still a weak scholar. What can he do in the face of Zhu Di, who has been fighting for years? But unlike other civil servants, he is not just a paper talker. He will make Zhu Di suffer in the near future.

After the victory at Baigou River, Prince of Yan Zhu Di went southwards, and officials fled wherever he passed. An official named Gao Wei did not want to be with him, and met Tie Xuan on the way.

After the two men confirmed their eye contact, they took firm steps to embark on the journey to defend Jinan. But the embarrassing thing was that when they arrived in Jinan, they found out that Li Jinglong had disappeared without a trace.

After questioning, it was learned that after Li Jinglong retreated to Jinan City, he was ready to use the remaining 10 troops to fight another battle with Zhu Di who was chasing him. As a result, as soon as the battle started, Li Jinglong abandoned the large army and left Jinan, and the 10 troops suffered heavy losses.

The general defending the city at this time was Sheng Yong, who was buried by Li Jinglong.

He and Tie Xuan will work together to create miracles. Zhu Di originally thought that he could take over Jinan City smoothly, but he did not expect Tie Xuan to close the city gates. There is a saying in history books that "Yan Wang is good at making plans". Zhu Di often used strategies and sneak attacks in previous battles.

But this time, facing Jinan, which was full of remnants of soldiers and had previously defeated Li Jinglong's army, whose morale was high, he decided to launch a head-on attack.

As a result, Tie Xuan and Sheng Yong repeatedly repelled Zhu Di's attacks through firm belief and proper defensive strategies. Zhu Di's three-month fierce attack not only gained nothing, but also consumed a large number of troops and horses, so he had to order a suspension of the attack.

Many warriors in history have won by taking advantage of terrain. So Zhu Di surveyed the surrounding area and finally prepared to break the dike and release water to destroy Jinan. Tie Xuan came up with a plan of feigning surrender in times of crisis.

He first used a trick to make the soldiers on the city wall cry loudly, creating a panic in the city, and then sent people to Zhu Di's camp to pretend to surrender. Zhu Di really believed it. The ancient city walls were very thick, and it took more than ten meters to pass through the city gate.

Tie Xuan took advantage of this and installed an iron door at the top of the middle of the aisle, which would be immediately lowered as soon as Zhu Di passed through, trapping him in the city.

Zhu Di had believed it to be true, and this method would definitely work, but the iron gate fell a little too early and hit the horse's head, and Zhu Di was thrown out of the iron gate, which saved his life. After this disaster, Zhu Di returned to the military camp and hated Tie Xuan so much that he decided to directly use artillery to blow up Jinan City.

Just as Zhu Di was about to order the artillery to fire, Tie Xuan came up with another trick.

The scene in front of him shocked him: a portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang was hung on the city wall, and there were several wooden signs erected next to it, all of which read "Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty". Why was Zhu Di afraid of this move?

Because the reason for his rebellion was to play the "edge ball" left by Zhu Yuanzhang, claiming that there were treacherous ministers around Zhu Yunwen, and he was helping his nephew to eliminate the evil people in accordance with the instructions left by Zhu Yuanzhang.

However, if he bombarded Zhu Yuanzhang's tablet at this time, not only would he be branded as disrespectful to his father, but he would also go against the reason of "clearing the court" and openly admit that he was a traitor who rebelled.

This became a talisman for the city of Jinan. Zhu Di was helpless in the face of Tie Xuan's dirty tricks and could only prepare to withdraw his troops back to the camp.

But what surprised him even more was that Tie Xuan and Sheng Yong actually had a backup plan. When Zhu Di's troops turned around to withdraw, they suddenly led their troops out of Jinan City. Zhu Di did not expect the other side to take the initiative to attack and was caught off guard.

Tie Xuan and Sheng Yong were indeed ruthless enough to chase Zhu Di hundreds of miles away and recapture Dezhou. Since then, Tie Xuan has been known as the "Iron City".

The victory of the Jinan Defense War can be said to have restored the confidence of the Nanjing court, which undoubtedly has a very important significance. Emperor Jianwen finally made a correct appointment, appointing Tie Xuan as the Minister of War, and Sheng Yong took over Li Jinglong's position as commander-in-chief.

Zhu Di did not lose confidence because of the defeat. He believed that Tie Xuan and Sheng Yong lacked martial ethics and that he suffered a great loss because of his carelessness. Moreover, he did not take Sheng Yong, who had become the commander, seriously at all.

However, in the subsequent battles, Sheng Yong became Zhu Di's most formidable enemy, and a disastrous defeat was imminent. So, what was the story between Zhu Di and Sheng Yong?

[A humble person in the Ming Dynasty who almost killed the future Ming emperor Sheng Yong]

He was the most feared opponent of Prince of Yan Zhu Di. He rose from a small character who fled in fear to become the main commander against Zhu Di and almost annihilated the elite division of the Yan army.

In this video, we will learn how Sheng Yong, who was always looked down upon by Zhu Di during the Jingnan Campaign, became his strongest enemy.

In the last video, we talked about how Zhu Di suffered his first defeat when he attacked Jinan during the Jingnan Campaign. He was defeated successively by the scholar Tie Xuan and the unknown Sheng Yong.

Sheng Yong later succeeded Li Jinglong as the commander-in-chief of the rebellion against Zhu Di. Although Zhu Di encountered a great setback in Jinan and almost fell into Tie Xuan's false surrender plan, his confidence in the rebellion was not affected, and he even regarded Sheng Yong, who had just become the commander-in-chief, as an unknown person.

It is not without reason that Zhu Di looked down on Sheng Yong. Historical records do not have detailed records of Sheng Yong's origin and place of origin. Before the Battle of Jinan, he did not have any outstanding military achievements.

For example, in 1399, Emperor Jianwen sent veteran general Geng Bingwen to fight Zhu Di in Zhending, and Sheng Yong was a member of Geng Bingwen's army at the time. However, Geng Bingwen was badly defeated by Zhu Di in this battle, and more than 3 of his troops were annihilated. Later, Emperor Jianwen, on the advice of his ministers, asked Li Jinglong to replace Geng Bingwen.

In 1400, Li Jinglong led more than 50 troops to fight Zhu Di at Baigou River, and Sheng Yong followed as a military officer. Unfortunately, Li Jinglong suffered a disastrous defeat despite his absolute numerical advantage, so he led the remaining troops to flee to Jinan. Therefore, in Zhu Di's eyes, Sheng Yong became an insignificant fleeing rat.

However, Sheng Yong continued to learn during the retreat and made a very detailed analysis of Zhu Di's military tactics. This is how he and Tie Xuan defeated Zhu Di in the Battle of Jinan.

In fact, Sheng Yong himself knew that the victory in the Jinan Defense War was partly due to Zhu Di's underestimation of the enemy. If he had confronted Zhu Di's cavalry head-on, his chances of winning would have been slim.

As expected, as soon as Zhu Di returned to the military camp, he reorganized his troops and decided to take the initiative and strike first.

He was unstoppable all the way, successively conquering Cangzhou, Dezhou and other places, and approaching Jinan. After receiving the battle report, Emperor Jianwen began to formulate a strategic plan and chose Dongchang as the most advantageous place for the decisive battle. Emperor Jianwen deliberately arranged for his soldiers to retreat in an orderly manner and lure Zhu Di to Dongchang.

While chasing all the way, Zhu Di realized that he had fallen into a trap that lured the enemy deep into his territory. However, in his eyes, although Sheng Yong was stronger than Li Jinglong, he was definitely not stronger than the battle-hardened Geng Bingwen. Therefore, he still did not pay enough attention to him and chased him directly to the front of Dongchang City.

Zhu Di originally thought that Sheng Yong would retreat and defend, so he began to prepare for the siege.

But what he didn't expect was that Sheng Yong actually set up a large battle array outside the city and ordered the city gates to be closed, directly cutting off the soldiers' retreat, as if he was going to burn his boats. Sheng Yong was fully prepared for this battle. He didn't want to fight the Yan army to death, but prepared an unexpected gift - artillery.

Zhu Di was a little unsure about this situation, after all, the bombardment of artillery was still very powerful. But he finally decided to use the mobility of the cavalry and fight in close combat while the Southern Army was changing ammunition.

Zhu Di had always used a feint to the east and attacked the west in previous battles, so he did the same this time, as if he didn't have to worry about the enemy knowing the direction of his attack. Sheng Yong had already concentrated his main firepower on the left wing, and as a result, Zhu Di had no effective attack except for the Tian people, and the casualties were very heavy. Therefore, he began to change the direction and raid the central army of the Southern Army. This attack was very effective, and Sheng Yong was beaten and fled.

However, when Zhu Di was chasing, he found that although the enemy was retreating, their numbers were increasing. It turned out that Sheng Yong had already anticipated that Zhu Di would turn to attack the central army, and deliberately defeated him to lead him into an encirclement. When Zhu Di realized that something was wrong, the ambush troops arranged by Sheng Yong had already aimed at them with cannons. After a fierce bombardment, the Yan army's strength had been greatly reduced, and Sheng Yong began to launch a close siege.

When Zhu Di was about to be captured alive, his general Zhu Neng led his troops into the encirclement in time. After a tough fight, and because Zhu Yunwen had ordered that they should not bear the name of killing their uncle, no one dared to chop Zhu Di with a butcher knife, and the two finally broke out of the encirclement. For an opponent as cunning as Zhu Di, the chance to capture him alive was very rare.

His escape was a great pity for the entire Ming Dynasty, and Sheng Yong slapped his thigh in anger.

However, it was not all in vain. Zhang Yu was the first general to make contributions to Zhu Di's rebellion. He first launched the Jingnan Campaign and occupied the nine gates of Beiping, then defeated the veteran Geng Bingwen in the Battle of Zhending, and then defeated Li Jinglong on both wings of the Baigou River. His military exploits were outstanding.

When he heard that Zhu Di was besieged, he also rushed into the encirclement of the Southern Army. However, unlike Zhu Di, Zhang Yu did not have Zhu Yunwen's order not to kill him, and eventually died tragically in the Southern Army.

Afterwards, Sheng Yong and other outstanding generals of the time pursued Zhu Di all the way back to Peking. Zhu Di's elite troops were almost completely annihilated, and more than half of the generals who led the troops were killed or wounded.

So, now that Zhu Di became the emperor, who did he rely on to turn the tide of the war?