First Prince of Ming Dynasty

  Chapter 16 Poyang Lake Water Battle

  On the sixth day of July, Zhu Yuanzhang personally led a navy of 200,000 troops to rescue Hongdu. Arrived at Hukou, Jiangxi on the 16th.

Firstly, troops were sent to guard Jingjiangkou (now south of Susong, Anhui), and another army was stationed at Nanhuzui (northwest of Hukou, Jiangxi today) to cut off Chen Youliang's return route; and troops were sent to guard Wuyangdu (now east of Nanchang County, Jiangxi) to prevent Chen Jun He escaped; Zhu Yuanzhang personally led the navy to enter Poyang Lake from Songmen (now Changnan, Jiangxi), forming a trend of closing the door and beating dogs.

  When Chen Youliang heard that Zhu Yuanzhang's army came to help, he withdrew the siege of Hongdu and headed east to Poyang Lake to fight. An unprecedentedly fierce and unusual life-and-death battle began on the surface of Poyang Lake.

   On the 20th, the two armies met on the surface of Kanglang Mountain (in today's Poyang Lake, Jiangxi). At that time, the giant ships of the Chen army were arranged in formation, spread out for dozens of miles, "looking at it like a mountain", and the momentum was overwhelming. Zhu Yuanzhang divided his ships into 20 teams, each equipped with large and small artillery. , firecrackers, rockets, fire thorns, large and small muskets, magic arrows and crossbows, and ordered each team to fire firearms first when approaching enemy ships, then use bows and crossbows next, and then use short weapons to fight when approaching enemy ships.

  The next day, the two sides fought fiercely. General Xu Da of the Zhu Army took the lead and led the fleet to attack bravely, defeating the forward of Chen Jun, killing 1,500 enemies and capturing a giant ship.

  Yu Tonghai took advantage of the wind and fired cannons, burning more than 20 ships of Chen Jun, and many of Chen Jun were killed and drowned.

   But Zhu Jun also suffered a lot of casualties, especially Zhu Yuanzhang's ship was stranded and besieged, which was almost unexpected.

  The battle is stalemate. From morning to dusk, the two sides called for money to withdraw their troops, and the battle came to an end. Both sides suffered casualties, regardless of the outcome.

   On the 22nd, Zhu Yuanzhang personally led the navy to battle. However, the Chen ship was huge, and the Zhu warship was too small to attack, and suffered setbacks one after another. At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang adopted the suggestion of his subordinate Guo Xing in time and decided to use fire to attack the enemy.

  At dusk, a northeasterly wind blew on the lake. Zhu Yuanzhang chose brave soldiers to drive 7 fishing boats. The boats were filled with gunpowder and firewood, and they approached the enemy ships.

  For a while, the flames soared, and the lake was completely red. In a flash, hundreds of giant ships of the Chen army were burned down. More than half of the Chen army was killed or injured.

  Zhu Yuanzhang swung his army to take advantage of the momentum and launched a fierce attack, and killed more than 2,000 enemies.

   On the 23rd, the two sides clashed again. Chen Youliang saw that Zhu Yuanzhang's flagship launched a fierce attack. Zhu Yuanzhang had just moved to another ship, but the original ship was smashed by Chen Jun.

   On the 24th, Yu Tonghai and others led 6 warships to break into Chen Jun's fleet, galloping bravely, like a dragon swimming, as if entering an uninhabited territory. Zhu Jun's morale was greatly boosted and he launched a fierce attack.

  Finally, Chen Jun was defeated and retreated, and the abandoned flags, drums, weapons and battles floated to cover the lake. Chen Youliang had no choice but to gather the remnants and turn to defense, not daring to fight any more. That night, Zhu Yuanzhang took advantage of the victory to enter Zuoli (now northwest of Duchang, Jiangxi) to control the upper reaches of the river, and Chen Youliang also surrendered Zhuji (now south of Xingzi, Jiangxi).

  The two armies held each other for 3 days, and the Chen army was defeated repeatedly, and the situation became more and more unfavorable. The two generals Chen Youliang saw that the situation was over, so they surrendered to Zhu Yuanzhang. The morale of the Chen army was shaken and its strength was further weakened.

  Chen Youliang was angry and annoyed, and ordered to kill all the captured prisoners to vent his anger. But Zhu Yuanzhang did the opposite, returned all the captives, mourned the dead and healed the wounded, disintegrating the morale of the Chen army, which won the hearts of the people.

  Chen's army was disintegrated internally, and morale was even lower. Zhu Yuanzhang judged that Chen's army might break through and retreat into the Yangtze River, so he moved his army to the mouth of the lake, set up wooden fences on the north and south banks of the Yangtze River, set up large boats and fire rafts in the river, and sent troops to capture Qizhou and Xingguo, control the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and block the enemy's return. Waiting to annihilate the enemy.

  After more than a month of confrontation, Chen Youliang was trapped in the lake, his army rations were exhausted, and he was exhausted, so he put all his eggs in one basket and risked his life to break through.

  On August 26, they broke out from Nanhuzui, trying to enter the Yangtze River and return to Wuchang.

When they reached Hukou in Jiangxi Province, Zhu Jun attacked from all sides with boats and fire rafts. Chen Jun was unable to advance and went back to the Jingjiang River. He was blocked by Fu Youde's ambush again. It was defeated and more than 50,000 people surrendered.

  The water battle lasted 37 days from July 20 to August 26. Its length, scale, input of troops, ships and intensity of battle were all unprecedented.

  The decisive battle ended with Zhu Yuanzhang's complete victory. This battle was regarded as the largest water battle in the medieval world.

   Created a famous battle example in the history of Chinese water warfare in which fewer people win more, which laid the foundation for the unification of the south of the Yangtze River, and created extremely favorable conditions for the subsequent Northern Expedition and the destruction of the Yuan Dynasty and the unification of the whole country.

   It is rumored that Zhu Yuanzhang and Chen Youliang were after the battle of Longwan. On the second day, I visited a monastery privately. The host saw that his face was not kind and his aura was very strong, so he wanted to dispel him and asked for his name. Zhu Yuanzhang wrote a poem on the wall of the temple and left with a big laugh. The monk was surprised when he read the poem, only to see:

   Killing all the millions of soldiers in the south of the Yangtze River, the sword at the waist is still bloody. The mountain monk didn't know the hero, so he just asked for his name.

  (end of this chapter)