Chapter 9: The Inevitable Final Battle

  After Zhu Yuanzhang defeated Zhang Shicheng, he put his main energy on dealing with Xu Shouhui, but he knew that his real opponent was not the superficial Xu Shouhui, but the huge shadow behind him - Chen Youliang.

  During this period, Zhu Yuanzhang made two decisions that ultimately led to his victory in the war. The first decision was to build high walls, accumulate grain and delay claiming the throne. This decision allowed him to avoid drawing attention from others, while other peasant uprising leaders became arrogant with imperial ambitions, using tiger skins as banners and trying to feed thousands of people with only a few pounds of rice. Meanwhile, Zhu Yuanzhang took full advantage of time to continuously develop his own strength.

  Another decision was to choose between Chen Youliang and Zhang Shicheng, at that time everyone generally believed that Zhang Shicheng was weaker, hoping to deal with him first, and use the occupied Jiangsu and Zhejiang territories to expand his own power, and then have a decisive battle with Chen Youliang. It can be said that this decision is correct from any angle, but Zhu Yuanzhang showed his genius strategic vision at this time.

  In actual decision-making, it is difficult to be unaffected by the opinions of others, especially the majority. When many people speak with one voice, many will follow the crowd and even change their original views. Zhu Yuanzhang used his wisdom to tell people that truth often stands on the side of a minority.

  Zhu Yuanzhang said to his strategists, "Your views are reasonable, but you haven't seen the key to the problem. Zhang Shicheng's characteristic is that he is narrow-minded, and Chen Youliang's characteristic is that he is arrogant. Being narrow-minded means lacking foresight, and being arrogant means liking to provoke trouble. If I attack Chen Youliang, Zhang Shicheng will certainly not rescue him, but if I attack Zhang Shicheng, Chen Youliang will definitely mobilize the national army to rescue him, and I will have to fight on two fronts, which would be difficult to deal with."

  Fantastic! Truly fantastic!

  Such insight, if this man cannot conquer the world, who can?