As already mentioned, the Mongol garrisons were unable to cope with these risings.  But how was it that the Mongol rule did not collapse until some forty years later?  The Mongols parried the risings by raising loans from the rich and using the money to recruit volunteers to fight the rebels.  The state revenues would not have sufficed for these payments, and the item was not one that could be included in the military budget.  What was of much more importance was that the gentry themselves recruited volunteers and fought the rebels on their own account, without the authority or the support of the government.  Thus it was the Chinese gentry, in their fear of being killed by the insurgents, who fought them and so bolstered up the Mongol rule.

In 1351 the dykes along the Yellow River burst.  The dykes had to be reconstructed and further measures of conservancy undertaken.  To this end the government impressed 170,000 men.  Following this action, great new revolts broke out.  Everywhere in Honan, Kiangsu, and Shantung, the regions from which the labourers were summoned, revolutionary groups were formed, some of them amounting to 100,000 men.  Some groups had a religious tinge; others declared their intention to restore the emperors of the Sung dynasty.  Before long great parts of central China were wrested from the hands of the government.  The government recognized the menace to its existence, but resorted to contradictory measures.  In 1352 southern Chinese were permitted to take over certain official positions.  In this way it was hoped to gain the full support of the gentry, who had a certain interest in combating the rebel movements.  On the other hand, the government tightened up its nationality laws.  All the old segregation laws were brought back into force, with the result that in a few years the aim of the rebels became no longer merely the expulsion of the rich but also the expulsion of the Mongols:  a social movement thus became a national one.  A second element contributed to the change in the character of the popular rising.  The rebels captured many towns.  Some of these towns refused to fight and negotiated terms of submission.  In these cases the rebels did not murder the whole of the gentry, but took some of them into their service.  The gentry did not agree to this out of sympathy with the rebels, but simply in order to save their own lives.  Once they had taken the step, however, they could not go back; they had no alternative but to remain on the side of the rebels.

In 1352 Kuo Tzu-hsing rose in southern Honan.  Kuo was the son of a wandering soothsayer and a blind beggar-woman.  He had success; his group gained control of a considerable region round his home.  There was no longer any serious resistance from the Mongols, for at this time the whole of eastern China was in full revolt.  In 1353 Kuo was joined by a man named Chu Yuean-chang, the son of a small peasant, probably a tenant farmer.  Chu’s parents