I find that the information I can most easily find on the Red Turban rebellion tends to be a little vague. A kind of 1. Yaun Dynasty in charge. 2. ???. 3. Ming Dynasty in charge sequence. Although the social background of the White Lotus society and such is interesting, I'm wondering about how the rebellion worked at a more practical level. The only real battle I found in a (very cursory) search looking for information about the Red Turban rebellion was the Wikipedia article on the Battle of Lake Poyang, between the Da Han and Ming.
Some questions that I wonder about:
Did it start primarily as a kind of guerrilla resistance, ambushing and assassinating Yaun officials but avoiding pitched confrontation with their military forces, or did the Red Turbans pretty rapidly start claiming territory and fighting the Yaun military on the battlefield?
Was the rebellion initiallly unified, but later fractured into factions like the Da Han and Ming, or was it a decentralized movement from the start, all rebel groups claiming the red turban as a symbol but with no coordination between the different factions?
Did the rebels starts with Yaun-dynasty officials defecting and effectively becoming rebel warlords, or did more Red Turban leaders emerge from the lower ranks like charismatic peasant rebels? (The Hongwu Emperor himself was more the latter type, but was he more the rule or exception among Red Turban leaders?)
What was the composition of forces like? Did the Yaun retain a sort of Mongolian-style army, with 10,000 troop Tumens with subdivisions being powers of 10, with an emphasis on cavalry? Or had the Yaun army become something rather different by this time? What about the Red Turban rebels? Were they predominantly foot soldiers with spears and matchlock guns or crossbows, or did they have a similar composition to the Yaun army, or what?
Did the Black Plague affect the heartlands of the Yaun more severely than it affected southern China, leaving them with a depleted logistical base and manpower reserves compared to southern-based rebels?
(N.B. This is a repost, but the original didn't get any replies.)
I'll try to answer the simpler questions.
Yuan's military force was already weak before the big Red Turban rebellion broke. There were instance when the imperial force couldn't take down bandits (which is also term for all rebels), even appeased them with official titles. One famous example was Fang Guozhen, who controlled salt trades in East China. The Yuan considered him a bandit, mounted a resistance to crush him. But then Fang bribed the palace and the Yuan gave him official title.
When the rebellion broke out, the Red Turban mainly concentrated in central and southern China, where the Yuan control wasn't as great as in the north. Then the rebels took over almost all central and southern China from the Yuan. It wasn't a centralized rebellion, though. As we see, there were several warlords competing with each other, example of famous ones like Fang Guozhen, Chen Youliang, Zhang Shicheng, and Zhu Yuanzhang (aka Ming Hongwu Emperor). Zhu Yuanzhang started as subordinates of Han Lin'er, son of Han Shantong who claimed as a descendant of Song emperor. But then he built strong force for himself and found his greatest rivals were Chen's Han and Zhang's Wu.
The rebels had to get support from local gentry and scholars, since they often represented the support of local commoners. The scholars would be crucial to provide advice on military and especially administration stuffs and some propaganda. So the rebels were not just bands of ragtags.
I'm note sure about black death. The Yuan court had plagued with infighting and intrigues for years, they even fired the talented Toqto'a, after he crushed a rebel's force and almost win another siege.