I am the prince of the Ming Dynasty, I don't give up

Chapter 596 Nanjing
After Zhu Houcong's manifesto was issued, it quickly spread to the eight southern provinces through various channels, causing a huge sensation within the eight provinces. Scholars rushed to circulate it, and it was in great demand.
Countless aristocratic families who had been preparing for several years led their own regiments to train and respond.
All of a sudden, the eight southern provinces raised the banner of rebellion and declared independence from the Beijing government.
The contradictions that have been suppressed in this country for more than a decade finally broke out publicly today.
Prince Ning led his army to capture the important town of Jiujiang without any effort. They basically surrendered upon hearing the news and did not encounter any decent resistance at all. This made Prince Ning Zhu Chenhao extremely excited.

But then Zhu Houcong also issued a manifesto, and then Ning Wang Zhu Chenhao began to feel that everything was not going well.
The appeal of his status as the Prince of Ning was not as strong as that of Zhu Houcong, the eldest grandson of Emperor Xianzong.
The number of gentry who came to him was decreasing. Not only that, the internal situation was beginning to become unstable. However, after he killed a few people, the situation became much more stable.
The most important thing is that with Zhu Houcong as the backbone, the gentry along the way began to refuse to join the Ning Wang army and refused to provide Ning Wang with food and grass supplies. Facing Ning Wang's threats, they also began to defend themselves in dangerous places, and more and more exchanges of fire occurred.
All this made him feel a sense of crisis. He wanted to lead the army eastward quickly, but various things slowed down the army's advance.

At this time, Zhu Houcong and his entourage had already arrived outside Nanjing. Just as Yan Song had said, there were many gentry who were loyal to Zhu Houcong near Nanjing. They had received the news long ago, and in a short period of time, a hundred thousand troops were gathered near Nanjing, and the number was still increasing.
There were 3 guards stationed in Nanjing at this time. Just when everyone thought that Nanjing would face a fierce battle, the 3 guards faced this situation and escorted more than Royal Group employees in the city out of the city through the Shangyuan Gate to board the ship for evacuation.
Nanjing City is the headquarters of the Royal Group in the south. There are many staff members, including those evacuated from all over Jiangnan. The 3 guards garrison is to ensure that the Royal Group's employees complete the final evacuation.
However, the two sides still exchanged fire, but the exchange of fire ended quickly because the rebel forces that attacked the Guards were defeated in a very short time. This defeat made all the rebels completely lose the desire to attack the Guards, and they watched helplessly as the Guards and the Royal Group withdrew.
It was not because this Guards Army was so elite that it achieved such a result. In this short battle, the Nanjing Garrison of the Guards Army basically did not open fire.

The rebels who launched the attack were immediately targeted by five naval warships on escort missions cruising on the Yangtze River.
The entire evacuation dock was within the range of the navy's guns. There were more than 400 guns on the five navy warships. When the enemy entered the range, they immediately launched artillery fire on the enemy.
The attacking enemy had never seen such a high density of firepower before. They were all stunned and collapsed in a very short time, and no longer mentioned any attack.
Although there were some minor incidents during the process, the political center and the largest city in the south of the Ming Dynasty fell into the hands of the rebels.
Zhu Houcong started to enter the city only after the 30,000 guards had completely evacuated, and he specially chose to enter Nanjing from Jinchuan Gate.
As for why Jinchuan Gate was chosen, it was to get a good start - "In the fourth year of Jianwen, the Yan army arrived at Jinchuan Gate, and Prince Gu Zhu Sui and Li Jinglong opened the gate to let them in, and the capital was lost."

The civil and military officials and nobles in the city were all at the city gate to welcome Zhu Houcong, and Duke Yansheng Kong Wenshao was standing in the front row.
Zhu Houcong was extremely surprised when he looked at the majestic Nanjing City Wall. It was much more majestic than any other city wall he had ever seen. However, such a majestic city wall had never played its due role.
Nanjing Ming City Wall is the largest city wall in China and the largest city wall in the world. The outer city wall is more than 60 kilometers long and encloses an area of ​​more than 230 square kilometers, the largest in world history.

Its city-building technology reached the pinnacle of Chinese city-building history and is a model of East Asian city-building technology. It is a masterpiece of ancient Chinese military defense facilities and city wall construction technology.

是明初朱元璋历时28年，动用全国1部、3卫、5省、37府、162州县，共28万民工，约3.5亿块城砖，在历代城墙的基础上建造而成的。

However, the Nanjing City Wall, which Zhu Yuanzhang spent so much energy and money to build, has never played its due military role.
From Zhu Di's campaign to the Qing army's march south, there was little fighting on the Nanjing city wall.
It was not until nearly 500 years after the Nanjing City Wall was built that it played an important role, that is, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's defense of Tianjing.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's soldiers relied on the Nanjing city walls to fight a brutal three-year defense battle against the Qing army.

During the three years of brutal war, the role of Nanjing City Wall was brought to its extreme. Although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom ended in the fall of Tianjing and its failure, it also had a profound impact on Chinese history.
I wonder what Zhu Yuanzhang would think if he knew this.
Nanjing is "the root of our ancestors and the headquarters of the southeast." Both the city walls and the imperial palace are highly valued by the central government, which often allocates funds for maintenance and renovation.
After entering the city, Zhu Houcong went straight to the imperial palace in Nanjing.

Zhu Houcong was quite familiar with the Nanjing Imperial Palace, because the princely palaces in various parts of the Ming Dynasty were built based on the Nanjing Imperial Palace, which was a smaller version of the Nanjing Imperial Palace.
Zhu Houcong did not stay in the palace for long before he went to Xiaoling Mausoleum to pay homage to Zhu Yuanzhang. This was a necessary political gesture.
Being able to capture Nanjing so easily was beyond everyone's expectations and boosted everyone's morale.
Yan Song even proposed to vigorously publicize this matter, of course, selectively and embellishingly, in order to dispel the myth of the invincibility of the Imperial Guards in the army and dispel the fear of the Southern Army towards the Imperial Guards.
The Ning Wang army was blocked in Anqing. The local guards and militia in Anqing defended the city to the death, refusing to let the Ning Wang army pass. Ning Wang was very anxious, but there was nothing he could do.
However, there was no large-scale conflict between the two armies, and both sides were relatively restrained.
After being blocked in Anqing for a few days, Prince Ning received the news that Nanjing had been "recovered", which made him very angry.
However, at this point, Prince Ning knew that it was hopeless to control Nanjing, so he simply followed the advice of his retainer Liu Yangzheng and led his troops westward, heading straight for Qizhou!
(End of this chapter)