The Ming Dynasty's Last Flame: Hongwu's Hegemony Subdues the Late Han

On the tenth day of the intercalary fifth month in the thirty-first year of Hongwu, the Nanjing Imperial Palace was steeped in the deathly air of medicine that could no longer save its patient. Seventy-one-year-old Zhu Yuanzhang lay on the imperial bed, his cloudy gaze fixed on the brocade canopy. "Chongba..." In his confusion, he seemed to hear Ma Xiuying calling him, the woman who always wore a gentle smile. "Father..." It was Biao, the crown prince he had placed his greatest hopes in, who had died far too young. The emperor's life flashed before his eyes, from a beggar monk in Haozhou to the supreme ruler of Yingtian Prefecture... "How hard can it be... to be an emperor?" His withered fingers suddenly clenched the brocade quilt, then fell limp and released it. Just as his consciousness was about to sink completely into darkness, a voice devoid of emotion rang beside his ear: "Zhu Yuanzhang, you have one chance to make a choice."