After resting in Shangluo Mountain for a period of time, Chu Zhuangwang led an army out of the mountain to meet Zhang and wanted to unite with him. However, Zhang became suspicious of Chu Zhuangwang and wanted to annex Chu Zhuangwang's army. Chu Zhuangwang had to lead his army into Yunyang Mountains. In order to avoid being wiped out by loyalists and Zhang, he hid the army together.
The imperial court thought that the invading army had been completely annihilated, and ordered the main forces of the provinces to encircle Zhang. Seeing the emptiness of forces in the Central Plains, Chu Zhuangwang led his troops across Henan. At this time, the famine in Henan was serious, but the court kept levying grain from the people. Big landlords colluded with the government by annexing land, and passed on their land tax and taxes to small and medium-sized farmers. Most small landlords without power and influence have gone bankrupt, many small traders, craftsmen and miners have lost their jobs, and some medium-sized landlords have also gone bankrupt. Under this social background, King Chuang has a broad mass base. Every time the insurgents broke through the strongholds of the big landlords, they immediately opened warehouses to help the people and publicized their policies of "suppressing soldiers, helping the people, helping the victims and enriching the people". The poor regarded him as a savior and responded to join the army. In less than ten days, the army has grown to 50 thousand.
At this time, most generals advocated attacking Yunyang City, Nanyang Prefecture and other places, because these places are empty cities, and more are broken city supplies. However, King Chuang is far-sighted. He knew that if he was eager to attack the city, although it was easy, it would attract the attention of the court and disturb the loyalist pursuit, and the rebels might not be able to gain a foothold. The Ming officials guarding this land only wanted to protect themselves. If you hadn't breached his city, he wouldn't want to play. They can only say good things about it, such as how good their political achievements are, how stable their places are, and so on. They don't care anyway. Because reporting to the court, the court will send officers and men. Officers and men often harass the people and blackmail the local government, which will become a heavy burden for the local government, so they don't want officers and men to come over and do anything. Chu Zhuangwang felt that it was the best policy to rush into Henan and call on the hungry to join the army and strengthen the army.
So the rebels basically walked around the city after passing through several cities, but in fact the king's judgment was right. Sun Tzu's Art of War says, "The Tao is different, the army does not attack, the city does not attack, and the land does not dispute." However, in a month's time, the strength of the army has greatly increased to100000. At this time, Song made suggestions, invited two effective counselors to vote, and presented "Eighteen Martial Arts Artifacts", which means "Li Chuang" for everyone. The appeal of the invading army expanded rapidly, and other rebel leaders came to vote in succession. At this time, Yan Li put forward the slogan of "all fields are tax-free" and spread the slogan of "welcome the king and don't accept grain" to people all over the country. The rebels were warmly supported by the people, and the troops immediately grew to hundreds of thousands.
Subsequently, the insurgents defeated Yongning and killed Wang Wan 'an, defeated Luo Yang and killed the Axe King, and helped the poor with the wealth of the Axe King. When the two princes were killed, Chongzhen, who had been kept in the dark, began to wake up and mobilized all his troops to suppress them. However, the rebels are no longer pursued and beaten as before. Now the soldiers are strong in Ma Zhuang and powerful, while the generals of the Ming army want to preserve their strength and have their own selfish interests. The insurgents attacked Kaifeng three times and defeated Fu, Zuo Liangyu and Sun Chuanting successively. The Ming dynasty could not be conquered again. Rebels immediately galloped the Central Plains, captured Xi 'an, established Dashun, and named Yongchang.