Why did Zhu Yuanzhang take revenge and destroy the Guo family?Uncover the mystery of the fall of Guo

Speaking of Guo Zixing, the leader of the Red Turban Army at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, I believe that friends who have a little involvement in the history of the Ming Dynasty will be no stranger. As the father-in-law of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, it was under his promotion and help that Zhu Yuanzhang changed from a poor monk who begged for food to become the marshal of the Red Turban Army, and finally conquered the southeast and unified the world, creating the last great unified dynasty ruled by the Han people in ancient China.

But why did the Guo Zixing family, which was so prominent at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, collapse early before Zhu Yuanzhang founded the country?Who is the one who deliberately killed Guo Zixing's descendants?Today, we will reveal how the Guo Zixing family collapsed step by step.

Guo Zixing, a native of Dingyuan, Haozhou, Anhui Province (now Dingyuan County, Anhui). In the vigorous Red Turban Army uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Guo Zixing saw an opportunity, and he recruited troops to fight against the Yuan. In the first month of the twelfth year of Yuan Zhizheng (1352), Guo Zixing and Sun Deya, Yu, Cao, and Pan captured Haozhou, and established a local separatist force subordinate to the Red Turban Army system based on Haozhou City.

The image of Guo Zixing in film and television dramas.

Guo Zixing's cronies are mainly his three sons and his brother-in-law Zhang Tianyou. His eldest son, Guo Dashe, was killed at the beginning of the uprising, and his second son Guo Tianxu, third sons Guo Tianjue and Zhang Tianyou were the main generals in the army. At that time, in the city of Haozhou, the five leaders of Guo Zixing, Sun Deya, Yu, Cao, and Pan all called themselves "marshals of moderation", and each led troops and horses and did not belong to each other.

As the saying goes, "one mountain cannot accommodate two tigers", and after a long time, there will inevitably be some friction between these five marshals. However, Guo Zixing himself, as well as Guo Tianxu, Guo Tianjue and Zhang Tianyou, were all mediocre in their qualifications, and did not gain the upper hand in the struggle with the other five leaders.

But this situation changes completely with the arrival of a person. In the leap month of this year, a poor monk named Zhu Chongba came to the city of Haozhou to join the rebels, but the guards at that time mistakenly thought he was a spy of the Yuan army and almost killed him. Fortunately, someone informed Guo Zixing in time, and Guo Zixing personally rode to the city gate to rescue Zhu Chongba and received him under the account for his own use.

The ruins of Huangjue Temple, where Zhu Yuanzhang once became a monk.

Everyone knows the story later, this young man named Zhu Chongba is not only dignified, but also brave and strategic, Guo Zixing admires him very much, promotes him to his own personal soldier, and marries his adopted daughter Ma to him. Guo Zixing obviously took a fancy to the ability of this 25-year-old young man, and expected him to become a great weapon in the future, so he accepted him as his son-in-law to work for himself.

Since then, Zhu Chongba, a poor boy, can be said to have turned over as a salted fish, and he was out of control. At this time, he had become the "Zhu Gongzi" of the Marshal's Mansion, and the local name of "Zhu Chongba" was obviously not in line with his identity, so he changed his name to Zhu Yuanzhang, which was taken from the meaning of "the sharp weapon to destroy the Yuan Dynasty", and was ready to follow Guo Zixing to do a big job.

Guo Zixing's "honeymoon period" with Zhu Yuanzhang did not last long, and it was obvious that Guo Zixing found that his ability as a fast son-in-law seemed to be too outstanding, and his wife, brother and two sons were obviously not his opponents. He knew very well in his heart that although Zhu Yuanzhang was now subservient to him on the surface, once he had his own power one day, this son-in-law would definitely not succumb to him. As the saying goes, "Is Jin Lin a thing in the pool", once Zhu Yuanzhang breaks free from the shackles and his wings are plump, will he have a good end?

For Zhu Yuanzhang, who is eloquent, although Guo Zixing is the leader of the rebel army, he can quickly grow up with his back to this big tree. But he also knows very well that Guo Zixing is narrow-minded and short-sighted, and he can't become a climate. And Haozhou City is not Guo Zixing's family, the other four people have their own ghosts and calculate each other, so if Zhu Yuanzhang wants to get ahead and become bigger and stronger, he must mediate among these people and have a good relationship with all parties as much as possible, rather than relying on Guo Zixing alone.

The image of Zhu Yuanzhang monk in film and television dramas.

A discerning person can see through this at a glance. But after all, Zhu Yuanzhang later became the founding emperor of the Ming Empire, and the grievances and grievances with Guo Zixing became "imperial family affairs".

In September of that year, Zhao Junyong and Peng Da, the leaders of another rebel army, suffered a defeat in Xuzhou, and led the remnants to Haozhou City, which was even more crowded and lively. Soon something happened in the lively Haozhou, and Guo Zixing was "kidnapped"!

It turned out that Zhao Junyong and Peng Da started the army early and had old qualifications, and the five marshals in Haozhou City were not united, so these two people came from behind and gained the upper hand and became the de facto commanders of Haozhou City. And Guo Zixing and Peng Da got closer, which offended Zhao Junyong.

So with the support of Zhao Junyong, Sun Deya, who had always been at odds with Guo Zixing, sent a team of men and horses to catch Guo Zixing on the street, beat him and put him into the cellar. At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang was recruiting troops in other places, and he immediately returned to Haozhou after hearing the news. But when he came to Guo's mansion non-stop, the people of the Guo family suspected him and did not talk to him, which is recorded in the "Ming Taizu Record":

Nai Chi to the Guo family, but see women. Ask where are his sons? The woman was suspicious. Shang (Zhu Yuanzhang) said: "Am I an outsider, but suspect me?" It is difficult to get rid of the public (Guo Zixing) now. "But the women tell the truth.

The image of Zhu Yuanzhang and Guo Zixing's adopted daughter Ma in film and television dramas.

The only reasonable explanation is that Guo Zixing was already at odds with Zhu Yuanzhang at that time, and even suspected that he was colluding with Zhao Junyong, Sun Deya and others, and this is no secret in the Guo family, even women know it. It can be seen that the contradiction between this pair of sons-in-law is already on the surface.

Later, Zhu Yuanzhang designed and led people to break into Sun Deya's house and risked death to rescue Guo Zixing. After this battle, Sun Deya and Guo Zixing completely broke up and became mortal enemies, and the relationship between Zhu Yuanzhang and Guo Zixing was not eased.

Guo Zixing's narrow-minded, impulsive and irritable personality led to his inability to live long. Later, Guo Zixing and Zhu Yuanzhang successively captured Chuzhou and Hezhou, and Guo Zixing himself was stationed in Chuzhou and sent Zhu Yuanzhang to guard Hezhou. At this time, Sun Deya, who was originally stationed in Haozhou, asked to come to Zhu Yuanzhang, who was stationed in Hezhou, because of a shortage of food.

Although he knew that Sun Deya was his father-in-law's nemesis, Zhu Yuanzhang still accepted Sun Deya's troops and allowed them to enter the city to eat (you can think about why Zhu Yuanzhang did this). Guo Zixing was very angry when he heard about this, and immediately led his troops to Hezhou City.

Schematic map of the location of Chuzhou and Hezhou.

At this time, the city of Hezhou was tense, and the situation was very tense, and the slightest carelessness would cause a firefight. Zhu Yuanzhang thought twice, in order to avoid a fight between the two armies, so he said to Sun Deya:

"The two armies are united in one city, and now all the armies will set out, and the public should stay behind, and order the army to go first."

So he ordered someone to tie up Sun Deya and kill him. When the news reached outside the city, Sun Deya's younger brother immediately tied up Zhu Yuanzhang and took him hostage. In the end, Zhu Yuanzhang's henchman Xu Da and others stood up for Zhu Yuanzhang and forced Guo Zixing to release Sun Deya, and Zhu Yuanzhang was able to return to the city safely.

After this incident, seeing that his sworn enemy was escaping under his nose, his great revenge could not be avenged, and the narrow-minded Guo Zixing was depressed all day long, and he closed his door at home and did not see outsiders. Soon Guo Zixing died of illness at the age of 53.

The image of Guo Zixing and Zhu Yuanzhang in film and television dramas.

After Guo Zixing's death, no one can suppress Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Yuanzhang has become the de facto leader of the original Guo Zixing, and the "Guo Jiajun" has gradually become the "Zhu Jiajun" since then, and Guo Zixing's two sons and wife and brother have lost their support, and their future has become dangerous.

In February of the fifteenth year of Yuan Zhizheng (1355), Liu Futong, the leader of the Red Turban Army in the north, established Han Lin'er, the son of Han Shantong, as the emperor and established the "Dragon and Phoenix" regime. In March, Guo Zixing fell ill and died. After Guo Zixing's death, Chu and Erzhou lost their coaches. As a nominally branch of the Red Turban Army system, this army received a letter of appointment from the Longfeng regime: Guo Tianxu was appointed Marshal Du, Zhang Tianyou was appointed as the right deputy marshal, and Zhu Yuanzhang was appointed as the left deputy marshal.

In this way, Guo Zixing's second son Guo Tianxu became the nominal leader of the Red Turban Army, Guo Zixing's brother-in-law Zhang Tianyou became the second in command, and Zhu Yuanzhang only ranked third (Guo Zixing's youngest son Guo Tianjue was not awarded an official position because he was a minor).

For such an arrangement, Zhu Yuanzhang was naturally very angry, and the "Records of Ming Taizu" recorded that Zhu Yuanzhang was very angry when he saw this letter of appointment, and said something like "The eldest husband would rather be controlled by others". But Zhu Yuanzhang is Zhu Yuanzhang after all, he knows that such a letter of appointment cannot change his position in the army, and at this time, he is weak and needs the support of the Longfeng regime in the north, so he can only endure it.

Coins minted after the establishment of the Dragon and Phoenix regime.

But this matter was clearly seen by Guo Zixing's second wife Zhang. As a woman, she can't control the fate of the Guo family, but he knows that this "Guo Family Army" will sooner or later become the "Zhu Family Army" and obey Zhu Yuanzhang's orders, so she is very smart to marry her and Guo Zixing's biological daughter Guo to Zhu Yuanzhang as a concubine, in order to protect herself and her daughter. This Guo family is the future Concubine Guo Hui, who was deeply loved by Zhu Yuanzhang and gave birth to 3 sons and 2 daughters for the Zhu family.

According to the "Record", only six months after Guo Zixing's death, his descendants Guo Tianxu and Zhang Tianyou died in battle, which is too strange. You must know that it was 14 years after Zhu Yuanzhang unified the southeast region and became the emperor, but Guo Zixing's descendants received a box lunch so early and withdrew from the stage of history early, which inevitably makes people wonder: How did Zhang Tianyou and Guo Tianxu die!?

To answer this question, we must first understand the situation at the time. After Guo Zixing's death, the grain in He and Chuzhou was already very tight, and Zhu Yuanzhang had to solve the problem of grain and grass for the army. At this time, the towns in the south of the Yangtze River were the land of fish and rice, and there was plenty of grain and grass, so Zhu Yuanzhang decided to cross the river and attack Taiping (now Dangtu, Anhui), Wuhu and even Jiqing (now Nanjing) on the south bank of the Yangtze River.

But the question is, Zhu Yuanzhang's army is all the army, and there is no navy, how can he cross the Yangtze River? Coincidentally, it happened that at this time, a naval division from Chaohu Lake led the army to vote, which solved Zhu Yuanzhang's urgent need. This naval army is also a righteous army that believes in the White Lotus Sect, led by Li Pusheng and others, and the submission of the Chaohu naval army makes Zhu Yuanzhang have a strong naval army and have the ability to cross the river to fight.

Since ancient times, the Yangtze River has been separated from the north and south.

On the second day of June in the fifteenth year of Yuan Zhizheng (1355), Zhu Yuanzhang commanded the navy to cross the river and capture the quarry rock in the south of the Yangtze River, and then moved westward to continue to capture the important town of Taiping, which was an important town in the south of the Yangtze River, and since then has gained a firm foothold on the south bank of the Yangtze River and opened the prelude to the unification of the south of the Yangtze River.

After the capture of Taiping, Zhu Yuanzhang changed the "Taiping Road" to the "Taiping Mansion" and appointed himself as the "Generalissimo of the Taiping Rejuvenation Wing", and at the same time set up a complete set of administrative teams to firmly control the military and political power of this army.

Seeing that Zhu Yuanzhang successively captured Quarshiji, Taiping and other places, directly threatening Jiqing, the Yuan army guarding Jiqing could not sit still. Youcheng Alu Ash sent two armies to encircle and suppress Zhu Yuanzhang. blocked the waterway all the way, cutting off Zhu Yuanzhang's passage back to Jiangbei; On the other hand, Chen Yexian led tens of thousands of troops to besiege Taiping by land.

The ancient city wall of Taiping Mansion in Dangtu County, Anhui Province today.

This Chen Yexian is not the ** army of the Yuan Dynasty, but the righteous army, but this "righteous army" is just the opposite of Zhu Yuanzhang's righteous army. It was this person who decided the fate of Guo Zixing's descendants.

In the Battle of Taiping, Zhu Yuanzhang defeated the Yuan army and captured Chen Yexian, the leader of the Yuan army. At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang urgently needed to expand his strength, and Chen Yexian was not a real ** army, Zhu Yuanzhang hoped to be able to incorporate this rebel army for his own use, so he personally loosened the tie to Chen Yexian, and knew that he was reasonable, moved with emotion, and successfully persuaded the leader of the rebel army. The two made a bloody alliance and became brothers, and agreed to join forces to celebrate together.

At this point, the strength of Zhu Yuanzhang's army has increased greatly. At this time, there were four groups of men under him:

The first group is Zhu Yuanzhang's own group of people, who are the most loyal to Zhu Yuanzhang and belong to the backbone;

The second group is Guo Zixing's old department, led by Zhang Tianyou and Guo Tianxu, and this group is inseparable from Zhu Yuanzhang;

The third group is the Chaohu sailors who returned to Shun before crossing the river, this group has not yet been completely loyal to Zhu Yuanzhang, and people are moved;

The fourth group is Chen Yexian's righteous army, which has just been forced to surrender, and this group of surrender is completely forced to rebel at any time.

Although these four armies were nominally subordinate to Zhu Yuanzhang, in fact they were each under their own control and had different opinions, and Zhu Yuanzhang was ambitious and wanted to do a great job, so he would not tolerate this situation, so a plan to eliminate dissidents, eradicate internal troubles, and unify power began to be implemented under his careful planning.

The ruins of the Ming Palace in Nanjing.

He first cleaned up the Chaohu Water Army. After capturing Quarry Rock, Li Pusheng, the leader of the Chaohu Water Army, saw that Zhu Yuanzhang had won the victory with his own water army, but he sent people under the fence, and was very dissatisfied, so he pretended to invite Zhu Yuanzhang to drink on his boat, wanting to take the opportunity to kill him. Zhu Yuanzhang was so shrewd that he couldn't go to his illness, and soon found an opportunity to seize Li Pusheng and throw him into the Yangtze River. In this way, only a small part of the Chaohu Water Army fled, and the vast majority of the rest surrendered to Zhu Yuanzhang.

The second was Chen Yexian's troops. Zhu Yuanzhang knew that Chen Yexian did not sincerely submit to him, so he began to test him. In July of that year, Zhu Yuanzhang held Chen Yexian and his wife and children hostage in Taiping, and ordered Zhang Tianyou to lead Chen Yexian's troops to attack Jiqing. Chen Yexian secretly instructed the troops not to fight, but the result can be imagined, Zhang Tianyou returned defeated and almost died. In this regard, there is the following record in the "Actual Record":

"(Zhu Yuanzhang) ordered Marshal Zhang Tianyou to lead the troops and the former troops of the Emperor to march to Jiqing, attack Fuke and return."

Banqiao on the Banqiao River in present-day Nanjing.

Speaking of Guo Zixing's old department, after the capture of Taiping, Zhu Yuanzhang established a set of administrative teams by himself, thus snubbing Zhang Tianyou, Guo Tianxu and others. Zhang and Guo saw that Taiping was no longer a place to stay, so they left Taiping and stationed troops alone in Liyang and Jurong. In other words, since crossing the river, Guo Jiajun has set up his own door.

In this way, Zhu Yuanzhang, Chen Yexian, and Zhang Tianyou have formed a joint encirclement of Jiqing from the east, west and south, and the battle of Jiqing is about to start. At this time, Chen Yexian was not idle, he had been secretly communicating with the Yuan army in Jiqing, and even invited the leader of the Yuan army to Banqiao, and then wrote a letter to Zhu Yuanzhang, pretending that he had captured the leader of the enemy army alive, and asked Zhu Yuanzhang to come to the army to surrender, but Zhu Yuanzhang was not fooled and told him to set off immediately, but he did not actually leave. Seeing that the time was ripe, Zhu Yuanzhang began to implement his plan of "borrowing a knife to kill".

In September of this year, Zhu Yuanzhang once again ordered to attack Jiqing, and he ordered Zhang Tianyou and Guo Tianxu to attack the east gate of Jiqing from the east; Ling Chen also attacked the south gate of Jiqing from Banqiao first. Zhu Yuanzhang's arrangement is really very clever, what about being clever?

He knew that Chen Yexian had different intentions, secretly communicated with the Yuan army, and was eager to exterminate Zhu Yuanzhang to show his merits, but he still arranged for Chen Yexian to attack Jiqing with Zhang Tianyou and Guo Tianxu in two ways. The problem is that Chen Yexian's collusion with the Yuan army is classified in the army, and Zhu Yuanzhang did not tell Zhang Tianyou and Guo Tianxu, who were completely kept in the dark.

The garrison situation of Zhu Yuanzhang's troops before attacking Jiqing.

Therefore, this attack on Jiqing seems to be a two-way southeast attack, but in fact, it is a sheep into the tiger's mouth, which is very dangerous. As you can imagine, Chen Yexian really rebelled, and joined forces with the Yuan army to turn against each other, killing Zhang Tianyou and Guo Tianxu. It is recorded in the "Actual Record" as follows:

(Zhu Yuanzhang) ordered Marshal Zhang Tianyou to lead his troops to attack Jiqing. Jihai, Tianqi and others went to Fangshan, broke through the camp of Zuodana Zhili, and left. Chen Wei rebelled first, joined forces with Yuan Fushou to refuse, and fought on the Qinhuai water. Our division was defeated, and Zhang Tianyou and Marshal Guo were both killed in battle. Marshal Guo, the son of Zixing".

Guo (Tianxu) and Zhang (Tianhu) two marshals supervised the troops from Guantang through Tong (Tong) Mountain, attacking the east gate of Jiankang (Jiqing), Chen also first arrived at Jiankang from Banqiao to attack the south gate, from Yin to noon, the city held on. also invited Marshal Guo to drink and kill him first; Capture Marshal Zhang and dedicate him to Fushou and kill him. The army was defeated, and the subordinate governor Zhao Jizu jumped on his horse and fled, and he also chased after him alone. was also killed by Yanmen Meng Wanhu first.

The image of Zhu Yuanzhang in film and television dramas.

Zhu Yuanzhang's killing of Guo Zixing's descendants has not stopped. As mentioned earlier, Guo Zixing also has a minor youngest son, Guo Tianjue. As the saying goes, "cutting grass must be rooted", Zhu Yuanzhang is ruthless and meticulous, of course he will not let go of this Guo family's only seedling.

After Zhang Tianyu and Guo Tianxu "died in battle" and Zhu Yuanzhang captured Jiqing, the Longfeng regime re-appointed personnel and promoted Zhu Yuanzhang to "Jiangnan and other places in the province of Zhongshu Pingzhang", with Guo Tianjue as the "right cheng". According to the system of the Yuan Dynasty, "Youcheng" was a provincial official who was one level lower than "Pingzhang". That is to say, theoretically speaking, Guo Tianjue's status is second only to Zhu Yuanzhang and is the second-in-command of this army, of course, this is only "theoretical".

In fact, this paper appointment is like a piece of waste paper, as mentioned above, after the death of Zhang Tianyou and Guo Tianxu, the original Guo Jiajun has become the Zhu Jiajun, this army can be said to be completely obedient to Zhu Yuanzhang, Guo Tianjue does not have any military power in his hands, and is completely a puppet.

But for Zhu Yuanzhang, Guo Tianjue has always been a scourge, and he must get rid of it as soon as possible. In July of the eighteenth year of Yuan Zhizheng (1358), Zhu Yuanzhang was about to personally lead his troops south to fight, and he was worried that the "second-in-command" in the army would take advantage of his trip to the base camp to plot misdeeds, so he killed Guo Tianjue for the crime of "rebellion".

The image of Guo Zixing's son in film and television dramas.

There is no record of this matter in the "Actual Record", but there is the following record in the "Ming Xingye Ji":

In July, the right Cheng Guo Tianjue plotted rebellion and was executed.

Young (Guo Tianjue) conspired with a group of small people and ambushed the crime.

In this regard, the records in the "History of the Ming Dynasty" of the Qing Dynasty are relatively fair, and the "History of the Ming Dynasty: The Biography of Guo Zixing" has the following records:

Tianjue was derelict in his duties and resentful, and he couldn't fight Taizu for a long time and was killed.

In this way, the last bit of blood of the Guo family was also cut down by Zhu Yuanzhang, and since then, the Guo family has been broken, and the once prominent Guo family has disappeared and disappeared. If Guo Zixing has a spirit in the sky, and sees his descendants being killed step by step by the "Chenglong Quick Son-in-law" who pulled him up, I don't know how he will feel!

Ironically, in addition to his adopted daughter Ma, Guo Zixing's biological daughter Guo gave birth to three sons and two sons for Zhu Yuanzhang, and in the blood of Zhu Yuanzhang's dragon sons and grandsons, there will always be the genes of his father-in-law Guo Zixing. Although the Guo family has cut off the incense, the genes of the Guo family have been passed on forever.

The image of Guo Huifei in film and television dramas.

This article does not intend to criticize Zhu Yuanzhang's ingratitude and ruthlessness, as the so-called "one will make ten thousand bones dry", since ancient times, the victors have climbed step by step on other people's corpses, and Zhu Yuanzhang is naturally no exception. If he had been kind-hearted and timid, he would probably not have been able to achieve great achievements later.

What do you think of Zhu Yuanzhang's ungrateful and exterminating behavior? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area to discuss!

"Reading history wisely, knowing the past and learning from the present", I am a history lover who focuses on the study of Ming history. It's not easy to create, if you like it, pay attention to it, and welcome everyone to learn the history of the Ming Dynasty and inherit the traditional culture with me.