In August, Zhu Yuanzhang issued a proclamation to denounce Zhang Shicheng. In November of the same year, Hangzhou and Huzhou surrendered to Zhu Yuanzhang, and Pingjiang became an isolated city. So Zhu Yuanzhang surrounded Pingjiang with heavy troops and launched the Battle of Pingjiang.
At the beginning of the Battle of Pingjiang, Zhu Yuanzhang built a wall to surround the city and built a three-story wooden tower higher than the city wall. He attacked the city with crossbows and fire guns, and also set up Xiangyang artillery to bombard the city day and night. Zhang Shicheng defended Pingjiang to the death. After the food was exhausted, he used rats and dead grass as food; after the arrows were exhausted, he used roof tiles as ammunition. Until the eighth day of September in the twenty-seventh year of Zheng (1367), Zhu Yuanzhang led his army to attack Pingjiang City, and Zhang Shicheng launched street fighting to resist. Finally, Zhang Shicheng was captured and sent to Yingtian. When Zhu Yuanzhang asked him, he ignored him; when Li Shanchang asked him, he cursed him. Helpless, Zhu Yuanzhang had no choice but to order his guards to beat Zhang Shicheng to death with random sticks, and Soochow was destroyed.
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The third battle was against the Yuan Dynasty. After Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated Zhang Shicheng, he immediately ordered Xu Da Chang Yuchun to lead his army in the Northern Expedition. In 1368, he attacked Tongzhou, the eastern gateway of Yuan Dynasty. Xu Dal ordered Guo Ying to ambush along the road with a thousand men to lure the main force of the Yuan army out of the city, and finally annihilated the main force stationed in the city and captured Tongzhou. On the night when the Ming army captured Tongzhou, Emperor Yuan Shun evacuated Dadu in a hurry. Later, the Ming army sent sentries to the city of Yandu. No enemy soldiers were found, and there were no flags on the city. It was suspected that there was an ambush. The Ming army waited in the wild for five days, but no Yuan army came out of the city to fight. Xu Da had no choice but to make engineering decisions. Xu Da divided his troops into three groups: left, center and right to march towards Dadu. The Ming army finally came to Dadu. There are 11 city gates in Dadu, which have always been guarded by "Qiexue" from the Yuan army. However, at this time, the "Qiexue" army had left with Emperor Shun of the Yuan Dynasty, leaving only some old and weak soldiers. The Ming army entered the city from the trench of Qihua Gate in Dadu and successfully captured Dadu.
The fall of Dadu declared the demise of the Yuan Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang changed Dadu to Beiping in order to pacify the north. Zhu Yuanzhang relied on these three tough battles to secure his position in the empire.
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