Great Ming: Zhang Juzheng Is My Father, and I Was Wanli's Childhood Companion

Zhang Yunxiu transmigrates into the body of Zhang Juzheng's youngest son. It's the ninth year of the Wanli era, and his conveniently placed father has only one year left to live. The countdown to the Zhang family's confiscation and extermination has begun. Starting a newspaper will be his first move to defy fate.

His eldest brother is sweating buckets under their father's examination. Zhang Yunxiu cuts in to analyze the pros and cons of surveying farmland, putting into plain language the principles of governance Zhang Juzheng won't sum up for years. His father is so impressed that his eyes light up. "This boy is the Zhang family's hope for the future." Then Zhang Yunxiu turns around, swindles fifty taels from his brother, and heads to the palace to ask the Wanli Emperor for sponsorship. The emperor won't give him a penny, but he's obsessed with The Judge Dee Mysteries and keeps demanding new chapters, so he agrees to protect him.

He steals an original painting by Wu Daozi from his father's study and blackmails his fourth brother into helping him sell it: "You don't want that girl Xiang'er from the music house to get taken by someone else, do you?" The brothers scrape together their first capital for the newspaper. At court, the opposition impeaches Zhang Yunxiu, and the Wanli Emperor slams the table and curses them on the spot: "The Grand Secretary is the person I trust most!" Watching the emperor defend his father like a doting parent, Zhang Juzheng thinks of the rebellious son at home, who is forever spouting modern jargon, and suddenly feels that perhaps the Ming dynasty can still be saved.

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