403.A New Front Forged by the Goryeo Army.
The Day Yangzhou Was Returned.
A New Front Forged by the Goryeo Army.
Zhang Shicheng appeared, to the end, as a man who delayed his movements.
His command tent was always quiet.
His answers never changed.
"I understand."
"When the time comes, I will move."
"The current front is unfavorable."
These phrases resembled silence itself.
Neither Yun Dam nor Park Seong-jin—nor even Jin Yuliang—could easily read his intentions.
But Yi In-jung did not give up.
Again and again, he traveled between Yangzhou and Zhang Shicheng's main camp.
He knelt before Zhang Shicheng.
He remained seated through drinking tables.
Even his silence became a tool of persuasion.
"General."
"If you move now, this war will not end as Zhu Yuanzhang's world."
Zhang Shicheng poured tea without speaking.
Each time Yi In-jung approached from a different angle,
he always arrived at the same request.
"We will return Yangzhou."
"In exchange, attack Yingtiān from the east."
Zhang Shicheng's eyes wavered briefly.
"Why would you return Yangzhou?"
Yi In-jung answered calmly.
"To make you move."
Returning Yangzhou meant accepting the loss of a major military stronghold.
It was the Goryeo army's only base.
There was an arsenal there.
Defensive lines had been built.
Supplies were abundant.
It was prepared to endure a long siege.
It was also a transportation nexus linking the north and south of the Yangtze.
A choke point between Jiangnan and Jiangbei.
To hand over Yangzhou was a heavy decision for Goryeo.
But Yun Dam said,
"Wars are not won with land."
"They are won with the hearts of men."
"If Zhang Shicheng moves, Zhu Yuanzhang will be pressured from both sides."
In the end, Jin Yuliang, Yi In-jung, and the Goryeo army returned Yangzhou to Zhang Shicheng.
That day, the gates of Yangzhou opened.
Zhang Shicheng's banners were raised.
Everyone remained silent.
Yangzhou became Zhang Shicheng's once more.
And several days later, Zhang Shicheng made his decision.
His army finally moved.
The flow had grown clear—
if Zhu Yuanzhang defeated Jin Yuliang, he would become the sole ruler of Jiangnan.
First, the cavalry raced toward Yingtiān.
Then the infantry and engineering units followed.
Last came the supply wagons in a long procession.
It looked like a massive mountain that had stood still for years
finally beginning to move.
Zhang Shicheng ascended the walls of Yangzhou and bowed toward Yi In-jung.
"You were right."
It was the first acknowledgment ever to emerge
from a man whose heart had long been sealed shut.
Yi In-jung turned his head and quietly closed his eyes.
At last, the front is complete.
Zhang Shicheng's forces pressed Yingtiān from the east.
From the north, Jin Yuliang's reorganized main force descended once more toward the Yangtze.
At the forefront, the Goryeo army blocked and intercepted enemy attacks.
For the first time, Zhu Yuanzhang came under true double pressure.
He shouted furiously at his advisors.
"Why is Zhang Shicheng moving?!"
"Goryeo returned Yangzhou and changed his mind."
No one in Zhu Yuanzhang's camp could easily answer that.
Nor could they understand why Goryeo would surrender its only stronghold.
Rumors of Zhang Shicheng's eastern advance shook all of Jiangnan.
Merchants hoped the blockade would loosen.
Naval commanders envisioned cutting supply routes from both sides of the Yangtze.
Regional warlords, seeing balance restored, began to side with Jin Yuliang again.
The direction of the war wavered once more.
Zhu Yuanzhang's unstoppable advance came to a sudden halt.
The entire front trembled, as if settling into balance.
At the center of it stood Park Seong-jin and the Goryeo army.
"The day Yangzhou was returned, history began to move again."
That day surpassed the name of a diplomatic event.
It was the opening prelude to the great battle of Poyang Lake,
where fate would be overturned.
The counteroffensive began at Nanchang.
Too easily lost during retreat, Nanchang was a key position
connected to the southern reaches of Poyang Lake.
It was the spring of the 23rd year of Zhizheng (1363).
To respond to Zhang Shicheng's massive force advancing from the southeast,
Zhu Yuanzhang detached his main army from Yingtiān (Nanjing)
and marched southeast.
The one who seized that opening was Jin Yuliang.
He launched a colossal fleet along the Yangtze.
Hundreds of large warships moved.
Thousands of medium and small maneuvering vessels followed.
The force was said to number six hundred thousand.
Like a vast tide, it surged toward Hongdu (Nanchang).
If Nanchang fell, all of Jiangxi and Huguang would fall with it.
Zhu Yuanzhang entrusted its defense to his nephew Zhu Wenzheng
and to Deng Yu, a fierce general and core pillar of the Ming army.
Yet Zhu Yuanzhang viewed this battle differently.
This was not the Jin Yuliang of past encounters.
First, Zhang Shicheng's westward advance tied down Zhu Yuanzhang's main force.
He could no longer freely redeploy troops from Yingtiān.
Second, the Goryeo vanguard shattered Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes and ears.
After Park Seong-jin's annihilation of enemy scouts,
Zhu Wenzheng and Deng Yu struggled to obtain terrain and troop intelligence.
Third, Jin Yuliang's army had been completely reorganized.
A taxation system was in place.
Training had structure.
Military farms had spread.
The tactical integration of large, medium, and small fleets was complete.
Everything had transformed into an army moving toward victory.
The effects of all three fronts converged at Nanchang.
When Jin Yuliang's vast armada arrived before the city,
Deng Yu saw the sight from the riverbank.
"…This is impossible."
"So many ships."
The fleet nearly covered the Yangtze itself.
Zhu Wenzheng, Defender of Nanchang.
Why did Zhu Wenzheng become the absolute heart of Zhu Yuanzhang's power?
In the fourth year of Zhizheng (1344), the lands of Huaibei collapsed.
Drought struck.
Locust swarms followed.
Epidemics came.
All three calamities arrived at once.
It was not fertile Jiangnan land.
Nor a prosperous trading city.
It was merely poor countryside.
That year, the Zhu family lost three members.
Their father, Zhu Wusi.
Their mother, Madam Chen.
Their eldest brother, Zhu Zhongsi.
The funerals were bare.
Straw was spread over clods of earth as they wailed.
Left behind were the family of the second brother, Zhu Zhongliu,
and the youngest, Zhu Zhongba—
the future Zhu Yuanzhang.
Zhu Zhongsi had two children.
But the household grain stores were empty.
Madam Wang could no longer find a way to survive together.
"We must save the children."
"Please forgive me."
She took the frail children by the hand and returned to her natal home.
But that household had already been destroyed by disaster.
In the end, she became a wandering beggar,
carrying the two children on her back.
No one knew that one of those children
would one day defend Nanchang as Zhu Wenzheng.
Years passed.
Zhu Zhongba joined the Red Turban Army.
He married Ma, the adopted daughter of Guo Zixing.
He became a commander.
He changed his name to Zhu Yuanzhang.
It was then that Madam Wang heard in a market near Nanchang:
"They say the Red Turban commander Zhu Yuanzhang is from Huaibei."
Unable to believe it, she nevertheless sent someone to confirm.
At last, a young general in black armor approached her.
"Sister-in-law."
"It truly is me."
"I am Zhongba."
Zhu Yuanzhang collapsed and wept.
He had endured believing that all were dead—
himself, his sister-in-law, the children.
But Madam Wang soon fell ill.
Zhu Yuanzhang cared for her as if she were his own mother.
On her deathbed, she clasped his hand and said:
"Please protect the bloodline Zhongsi left behind."
Zhu Yuanzhang nodded through tears of blood.
That promise would later become the seed of a tragedy
that tore at his heart.
The child who endured those harsh years—Zhu Wenzheng.
Zhu Yuanzhang gave him the finest teachers.
He taught him letters.
He taught him martial skill.
He taught him tactics.
Even when granting office, he asked:
"What do you want?"
"There is much I can give."
But Zhu Wenzheng bowed his head and said:
"When Uncle completes his great enterprise,
my wealth and honor will naturally follow."
"If I accept office now,
I fear people will doubt Uncle."
Hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang laughed for days.
From then on, he thought privately:
"When I gain the realm,
I will pass it to Wenzheng."
Before the birth of his eldest son, Zhu Biao,
he truly considered Zhu Wenzheng as heir.
In 1361, Zhu Yuanzhang established the Grand Commandery.
He placed not a veteran general nor an elder statesman there,
but his nephew Zhu Wenzheng.
He was granted authority over all internal and external forces.
Within the Ming army,
no naval, infantry, or cavalry commander
enjoyed Zhu Yuanzhang's trust more than Zhu Wenzheng.
He was, in name and fact, the second-in-command.
In 1363, Zhu Wenzheng defended Nanchang with forty thousand men.
It was not merely strategically important land.
It was where Madam Wang and the children of his youth had scattered.
Where Zhu Yuanzhang's life had once been severed—
and where family had been found again.
For Zhu Wenzheng, it was a land buried with memory.
For Zhu Yuanzhang, it was where agony and hope crossed.
Thus Zhu Yuanzhang feared the fall of Nanchang
as one would fear the collapse of a beloved kin.