The Hongwu Case

[Hongwu era, Ming Dynasty, history, anti-corruption, ordinary people, Zhu Yuanzhang]

In the first year of Hongwu, the Great Ming had just been founded, and everything was waiting to be rebuilt. Yet one seemingly insignificant bribery case stirred the entire imperial bureaucracy, like the beating of a butterfly's wings.

This novel turns its gaze to an era woven from blood and fire. At court, founding ministers Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen maneuver against each other beneath the surface. Below the halls of power, an ordinary man is dragged into a deadly vortex over his wife's status. Case after case reveals hidden struggles for power; trial after trial alters the fates of countless ordinary people.

"Small people, great history." Based on real historical cases, this novel looks at the sweeping anti-corruption campaign of the early Ming through the eyes of common folk. Here are farmers who work from dawn to dusk, officials trembling under harsh laws, and peddlers struggling to survive in the cracks between the powerful. They may be nameless, but they form the bedrock of their age.

Open this book and see how Zhu Yuanzhang uses harsh laws to bring order to a troubled age, and how ordinary people struggle to survive in the meat grinder of power. This is not merely a historical novel about corruption and punishment, but a mournful song about ordinary people's will to live and their tenacity under a harsh regime.