Great Ming: Armed with Modern Values, I Confront the Hongwu Emperor at the Palace Exam

In the eighteenth year of Hongwu, twenty-two-year-old Xia Zhibai storms into the metropolitan examination. Twenty thousand provincial graduates sit for the exam, and it is rumored that the southern candidates have the top three places sewn up. The northern candidates are publicly humiliated, told they are not even worthy of the third rank. Xia Zhibai steps forward. “If I pass, I’ll be the top scholar.”

The whole hall erupts in laughter. He immediately lays down a wager: he’ll stake his life that not one southern candidate will become top scholar.

On the examination paper, he writes not an answer to the question but a “counter-essay”: “The Great Ming does not care for its people. One day, it will perish in a peasant uprising.” When he faces a barrage of attacks after handing in his paper, he leaves them with one line: “If a young man isn’t a little reckless, what kind of young man is he?”

Emperor Hongwu was born a commoner and despised officials who knelt like slaves. Xia Zhibai’s wager was never about his essay, but about having the courage to speak while standing tall.

Outside the examination hall, the other candidates go out together to enjoy themselves. He sits alone by the window of an inn and writes: “How young we were, classmates in our prime, full of youthful spirit, wielding our pens with vigor.”

In this examination, he aims to be more than just the top scholar. He will be the one who pulls the kneeling scholar-officials back to their feet.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.