Hua Gao was one of the famous founding generals of the Ming Dynasty. He was a native of Hezhou, Anhui. He was originally a water thief. In the chaotic background of the late Yuan Dynasty, he chose to work under the leadership of Liao Yongzhong, the leader of the Chaohu Uprising Army.
In the fifteenth year of Yuan Zhizheng, that is, in May 1355 AD, Zhu Yuanzhang had already led his troops to conquer Chuzhou, Hezhou and other places for some time. why? Because he had no qualified navy under his command, the Yuan Dynasty navy easily locked up Zhu Yuanzhang's troops and prevented him from crossing the river to develop southward.
What made Zhu Yuanzhang even more anxious was that the grain in Chuzhou, Hezhou and other places could not adequately supply the military. Seeing that the grain reserves were decreasing day by day, Lao Zhu had nothing to do about it.
At this time, Liao Yongzhong, who was far away in Chaohu, heard all this. He felt that Zhu Yuanzhang was a very heroic Mingzhu, and he would have a bright future with him, so he sent Hua Gao and Yu Tonghai to find him. Zhu Yuanzhang expressed his willingness to surrender with his navy.
Zhu Yuanzhang, who was worried that there was no navy to help cross the river, was overjoyed and immediately accepted Liao Yongan , Hua Gao and others, and granted them high positions. Soon after, Zhu Yuanzhang successfully won the battle of crossing the river with the help of this naval force. Huagao performed well in conquering Taiping, Quishi, Jiqing, Zhenjiang, etc., and was named Marshal Qin Huaiyi for his merits.
Immediately afterwards, Hua Gao followed Deng Yu to attack Guangde . This was the most courageous battle in his military career. The Wu army guarding the city was tightly guarded, and Hua Gao sent cavalry to challenge it many times, but the enemy soldiers refused to come out.
In this case, Hua Gao had no choice but to take the next step and lead the soldiers to attack the city. He took the lead and played a very good role in leading the soldiers. After a hard battle, he finally captured this strong city.
After this battle, Huagao followed the large army to capture Changzhou , and assisted Yu Tonghai to defeat the Zhajiang barracks held by Chen Youliang's general Zhao Pusheng. He can be seen in the decisive battle of Poyang Lake, the capture of Wuchang, Huaidong, and the capture of western Zhejiang.
However, for such a general who had experienced hundreds of battles and had many heroic performances, his temperament suddenly changed after the founding of the People's Republic of China. At that time, and Ming Dynasty still had many corner territories that he needed to help recover.
As a result, whenever he heard the order to go out, he would quickly blurt out that he was sick. It was okay once or twice, but in the long run, it made Zhu Yuanzhang feel very angry!
Later, Zhu Yuanzhang asked him to help train the navy, but Hua Gao said that he was old and frail and was no longer skilled enough in the navy to shoulder this task. At that time, almost all the founding generals needed to patrol the borders, but Hua Gao was the only one who was unwilling to take on such a small position.
If Zhu Yuanzhang's temper had been even worse, he could have killed him directly. However, one time, Hua Gao finally took the initiative to go to Guangdong to repair fortifications to avoid being invaded by Japanese pirates and pirates. This made Zhu Yuanzhang finally relieved. For a moment, I thought that the Hua Gao he once said he was familiar with before the founding of the People's Republic of China was finally back.
However, in April of the fourth year of Hongwu , due to the hot local climate, Hua Gao contracted the disease and died. Because someone had impeached him for engaging in self-interest in the past, his annual salary was the smallest among the founding heroes, only six hundred dan. After his death, he could not even afford a grand burial. Zhu Yuanzhang took pity on him and quickly gave him His family gave him an additional three hundred shilumi as a token of relief!
