In 1368 AD, the civilian-born Zhu Yuanzhang gradually eliminated competitors such as Chen Youliang and Zhang Shicheng after 15 years of armed struggle, completed the unified integration of southern China, and established its own dynasty. The country name was Ming Dynasty and the year name was Hongwu . History entered the era of the Ming Dynasty empire. In the same year, Zhu Yuanzhang formed a Northern Expedition Army composed of 250,000 elite Ming army and started the military operation of the Northern Expedition. Zhu Yuanzhang took the first general of the Ming Dynasty, Xu Da, as the commander of the Northern Expedition Army, and commanded the military operation of the Northern Expedition Army with full authority. He appointed the Ming Dynasty's first powerful general, Chang Yuchun, as the vanguard, responsible for clearing obstacles to the Northern Expedition Army.
Under the devastating offensive of the Ming army, the once arrogant Mongolian cavalry had no choice but to resist. In just a few months, the Ming army fought from Jinling (Nanjing) to Dadu (Beijing). Yuan Shundi fled Shangdu (Kaiping). The Ming army seized the land south of Great Wall without bloodshed. Ming Empire replaced the Yuan Empire and became the common ruler of the world. Although the remnants of the Northern Yuan Dynasty and the Ming army began a decades of tug-of-war along the Great Wall, it could no longer shake the general trend of the rise of the Ming Empire, and the emerging Ming Empire undoubtedly became the "big brother" in the eastern Eurasian continent.
Shortly after the Ming army captured Dadu, Zhu Yuanzhang began to gradually take over the political legacy of the Yuan Empire. Zhu Yuanzhang successively controlled the Jiangnan and Central Plains and other elite places through military means, and fulfilled the dream that the dynasty of the Song Dynasty had never been fulfilled - recovered the 16 Yanyun prefectures of , and started to develop like the Liaodong ; in the northwest, he restored the Hexi Corridor , and set up the guards of Guanxi; in the southwest, he replaced the Yuan Empire to accept the Chen Dynasty of Vietnam as a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty; at the same time, Zhu Yuanzhang defeated the Fang Guozhen group that occupied the coast of Zhejiang eastern and occupied the separatist armed forces of the Arab merchants occupying southeast Fujian with Quanzhou as the center. The guards of the Penghu Inspection Office of the Yuan Empire surrendered to the Ming army, and Penghu Islands and Taiwan were included in the territory of the Ming Empire. All signs indicate that the Ming Empire rose up with an unquestionable overlord attitude. The drastic changes that took place in the Central Plains naturally affected the surrounding areas. Especially the series of victory of the Ming army on the southeast coast was soon spread to the Ryukyu Islands in the Western Pacific.
At that time, the Ryukyu Islands were in the era of the Zhongshan Kingdom. Because they were located at sea, their productivity was backward, and they were close to . Japanese pirates were deeply plagued by Japanese pirates. Due to their weak military strength and poor national strength, they were unable to effectively resist the Japanese pirates' attacks. The Ryukyu King always wanted to find foreign aid to resist Japanese pirates. The political changes in the Central Plains gave Ryukyu a chance. At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang was building the Ming Dynasty's international order and especially enjoying the feeling of the coming of tribute to all nations. The Ryukyu king sent envoys and brought gifts to Nanjing (the capital of the Ming Empire) to pay tribute, and submitted a letter to submit a tribute. Zhu Yuanzhang happily accepted the request of the Ryukyu king to call him a vassal, and sent envoy Yang Zai to carry an edict to Ryukyu to formally enthrone the Ryukyu king.
edict says: "I am promoted by my subjects and ascended the throne, and I will definitely have the title of the world called the Ming Dynasty and the founding of the Yuan Dynasty. This is to send envoys to the foreign barbarians to tell me the intention. Wherever the envoys arrived, the barbarian chiefs paid tribute. However, Er Liuqiu was located in the southeast of China and was far away from overseas, and had not been reported. I sent envoys to inform you of it, so I knew it. From then on, Ryukyu Kingdom officially became a loyal vassal state of the Ming Empire, and the royal flag of the Ming Dynasty flew over the Ryukyu Islands.
