Hongwu's Will: The Rebellious Vassal Lord

In the twenty-fifth year of Hongwu, Zhu Jingtong transmigrates into the body of an impoverished member of a collateral branch of the imperial clan. He unexpectedly binds himself to a Public Sentiment System, which lets him trade influence over the people for superior seeds, a powerful army, and marvelous inventions. Seeing people forced to eat their own children, and recalling the horrors of the Three Massacres under the Jiajing Emperor and the Ten Days of Yangzhou, he vows to cut off the roots of the Ming Dynasty’s tragedies. While secretly plotting, he unexpectedly runs into Zhu Yuanzhang in disguise. In desperation, he holds him at knifepoint and invites him to “join forces.” Zhu Yuanzhang initially intends to surround and eliminate him, but is shaken by Zhu Jingtong’s talents, from controlling water and diverting silt to establishing a cabinet system. He also finds the young man uncannily like his grandson, who died young. As a frail strategist, a hot-tempered general, and a valiant daughter of a military family join them, Zhu Jingtong is preparing to rise up when an astonishing turn of events arrives: “We request that the Crown Prince ascend the throne.”