Set during the Ming dynasty, this story depicts the policies and feudal society of the era: its cruelty, the struggle for political power, and brothers within the same faction turning on one another.
It also tells the story of the Li family and the classic medical tradition, its preservation of healing techniques, and the depth of its culture. Li Shizhen loved medicine from an early age. After his father, Li Yanwen, was held responsible for an incident involving Consort Jiang and Empress Dowager Zhang in the imperial palace, he was forced to leave the palace. He taught the young Li Shizhen, who loved medicine, to stay away from medical practice and study hard instead, since doctors were looked down upon. But Li Shizhen, who had loved medicine since childhood, did not let his father dissuade him. He held fast to his conviction, and as an adult became a physician at the Imperial Medical Institute. Amid palace intrigues, he never wavered in his duty to save lives and heal the sick. He offended Yan Shifan and even the Jiajing Emperor, and fought against counterfeit medicine and superstition. After leaving the Imperial Medical Institute, he used his wisdom and knowledge to write the Compendium of Materia Medica.
