In the late Yuan Dynasty, the ruling class dominated by Mongolian nobles plundered and enslaved all ethnic groups, especially the Han nationality. They frantically annexed land and turned large areas of fertile land into pastures. For example, Minister Bo Yan acquired 20,000 hectares of land. The big landlords widely occupy the land and "drive the tenants" (Zhao Tianlin said in the five-year drama of the Yuan Dynasty: "The rich households in the south of the Yangtze River widely occupy the agricultural land and drive the tenants, and have the right to seal the monarch without the title, and the right to seal the government without the title"). Farmers lost their land and became slaves. The government levies exorbitant taxes with various names, and the national tax revenue has increased by 20 times compared with the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty.

The rulers of the Yuan Dynasty were extravagant, collecting folk treasures and beautiful women everywhere, and offering a pill to the Buddha every day. The government can't make ends meet, and the money is distributed indiscriminately, which brings disaster to the country and the people. In addition, the Yellow River has been in disrepair for a long time and has broken its mouth many times. The people's lives are really difficult. There have been refugees "the dead are full of roads, and the living are close to ghosts" (see Bird Yang Hao's "Returning to the fields and mourning for refugees": Alas for the refugees, "the dead are full of roads, and the living are close to ghosts." The tragic situation of "). The fire of resistance was kindled in the hearts of the people. There is a social ballad, "Don't treat me badly if you fight three wars a day" ("At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the people were tortured, and the people in Taiwan Province and Wenzhou set up flag camps, saying: the sky is high and the emperor is far away, but there are few people. How about calling three times a day instead of staying? Fangjia Town in Huangyan caused chaos in Jianghuai, and red scarves were everywhere. See Qing Sun's Dream of Spring Festival in Chengze (Volume 34).

The extreme sharpening of class contradictions and ethnic contradictions at the end of Yuan Dynasty finally led to the peasant uprising at the end of Yuan Dynasty. The uprising was large in scale and lasted for a long time. The peasant uprising army with the Red Scarf Army as the main force dealt a heavy blow to the rule of the Yuan Dynasty in the whole country, creating conditions for Zhu Yuanzhang to finally overthrow the Yuan Dynasty.

In May of the fourth year of Zheng Zheng (1344), the Yellow River flooded, and Baimaodi and Jindi were located in the north (now northeast of Lankao, Henan). Counties along the Yangtze River were hit by floods, droughts and plagues, and more than half of the people in the disaster areas died. After the Yellow River burst its banks, Shandong saltworks were destroyed, which seriously affected the national treasury revenue of the Yuan government. In April of the 11th year, Shun Di appointed Jia Lu as the minister of the Ministry of Industry and the head of the river defense, forcing 65,438+0.50 million migrant workers to dig a new river for 280 miles, so that the Yellow River flowed eastward and merged with the Huaihe River into the sea. Time was short, and the officials who supervised the river digging took the opportunity to deduct the "food money" of the river workers. The river workers were hungry and cold, and the masses were furious. By the end of 1 1, Yuan Shundi decided to change the paper money law (see paper money) and issue paper money indiscriminately, causing inflation, and soaring prices caused inflation. Finally, it is "all barter". I'm afraid I can't do the money accumulated by public and private. "Talking" and "changing money" further intensified the social contradictions at the end of the Yuan Dynasty.

After Jia Lu's talk, Han, the leader of the Northern School, and his brother decided to seize this opportunity to launch an armed uprising. While stepping up the propaganda of "Maitreya is born" and "Ming Wang is born", they spread the folk song "One-eyed Stone Man stirs up the Yellow River against the world", secretly chiseling out a one-eyed stone man and burying him in the river near Huanglinggang, which is about to be excavated. After the one-eyed stone man was dug up, the river workers were amazed, and the news came out, and the fire of resistance suddenly ignited in the north and south of the Yangtze River.

Yingzhou, Liu Futong (now Fuyang, Anhui) was born in Yongnian, Hebei, Korea. The two men have been secretly preaching in the northern region, and the time is ripe for the stone man to dig out. At the beginning of May of the 11th year, Han He gathered 3,000 people in Yingzhou Yingshang, killed black cows and white horses, and vowed to tell heaven and earth to prepare for an uprising. Liu Futong claimed that Han was the grandson of VIII and should be the master of China, and claimed to be the descendant of the famous Southern Song Dynasty, as a supplement. Han issued a proclamation, playing "three thousand warriors, reaching the land of secluded swallows; Dragonfly's Ninth Five-Year Plan reopened the banner of "Dasong Day", which showed the determination to overthrow the Yuan Dynasty and restore Dasong. The uprising was besieged by the government because of leaking the news in advance, and Han died. His wife Yang and his son fled to Wu 'an (now Xuzhou, Jiangsu). After the breakthrough, Liu Futong organized an uprising. Conquer Yingzhou (now Fuyang, Anhui) in one fell swoop. Because the insurgents are wrapped in red scarves, they are called "Red Scarf Army". The insurgents are mostly white lotus believers who burn incense and worship Buddha, so they are also called Xiang Army. After the Red Scarf Army occupied Yingzhou, Yuan Ting sent the Privy Council to lead Azujun and various Han armies to suppress and was defeated by the Red Scarf Army. Then, the Red Scarf Army occupied Bozhou (now Anhui), Xiangcheng (now south of Xiangcheng, Henan) and Zhugao (now north of Gushi, Henan). In September, there were more than 100,000 people in Keruning (now Runan, Henan), Kexi (now Xixian, Henan) and Gwangju (now Huangchuan, Henan).

"More than 100,000 people, Yuan Bing can't resist." At that time, there was a poem circulating in the society: "howard the duck killed injustice, injustice killed injustice, injustice killed injustice, and injustice killed injustice, so as to achieve peace. (See: The Record of Dropping Out of Farming in Nancun, Volume 28. After describing the incident that Jiangyin's "popular" father and son organized an uprising army to cooperate with the official army to fight against the dead of the Red Scarf Army, and that Hangzhou Hu recruited "evil teenagers" to make a scene in the Heavenly Palace in the name of "wholeheartedly protecting the country and killing the Red Scarf Army", he quoted this poem and explained it. Wherever the Red Scarf Army went, it opened up a warehouse to help the poor peasants and won the support of the people. The masses joined the Red Scarf Army one after another, and the team quickly expanded to several hundred thousand people.

Under the influence of the Red Scarf Army, farmers all over the country responded in succession. Xu Shouhui of Qishui (now Xishui, Hubei), Sesame Danni of Xiaoxian (now Anhui), Wangbu of Nanyang (now Henan), Haima of Fan Jingmeng and Guo Zixing of Haozhou (now Fengyang, Anhui) have a large number of people.

In order to overthrow the reactionary rule of the Yuan Dynasty, the insurgents put forward that "Ming" should be used to fight "dark" ("Ming" refers to the rebels; The slogan "darkness" refers to the rule of the Yuan Dynasty, encouraging the masses to rebel against the feudal government. The Northern Red Scarf Army took the initiative from the 15th year of Zheng Zheng (1355). In February, Liu Futong welcomed Han Liner to Bozhou (now Anhui), established Han Liner as "Wang Xiaoming", the title of "Dasong" and the title of "Dragon and Phoenix", and established the revolutionary regime of the Northern Red Scarf Army. Liu Futong was appointed Minister of the Privy Council and soon became Prime Minister.