I am Zhu Qizhen, the sixth and eighth emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
He ascended the throne twice in his life and changed his identity four times: emperor, captive, prisoner, and emperor.
The history books accuse me of ruining half a million elite soldiers in the capital, and I am a foolish king who ruined the destiny of the Ming Dynasty; they accuse me of unjustly killing Yu Qian, destroying the Great Wall, and being a tyrant who does not distinguish between loyalties and traitors; they accuse me of reviving the king's ancestral hall, favoring traitors, and being a hopeless fool.
I recognize all of this.
But history books don't know how to write it. One year when I was a prisoner in the Saibei grassland, there was a woman in the capital who sold all her jewelry to collect the ransom. Her right leg became lame on her knees and her left eye went blind from crying, just begging me to come back alive.
I don't know how to write history books. On the day I returned to Beijing, my brother Zhu Qiyu held my hand respectfully and locked me into the Nangong Palace. The keyhole was filled with lead, the courtyard wall was heightened, and the trees were cut down, leaving only a small hole to pass out the rotten rice and cold dishes. This lasted for seven years.
During those seven years, she was the one who was blind and lame, eating rotten rice and drinking cold wind with me, exchanging needles and threads for scraps of silver, giving me a mouthful of hot rice, and warming my cold bed all night long.
It was also during those seven years that I completely understood: the throne was never destined by fate, but was built with human lives, blood, and forbearance.
On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month of the eighth year of Jingtai, it was a snowy night.
Shi Heng, Xu Youzhen, and Cao Jixiang broke open the gate of the Nangong Palace, knelt down and shouted, respectfully requesting the Emperor to be restored to his throne.
I stepped into the Fengtian Hall, sat on the dragon chair that I had not seen for seven years, and thunder exploded in the Forbidden City.
Three days later, I personally signed Yu Qian's execution order.
When I put pen to paper, my hand is as steady as a rock.
When Yu Qian died, the world cried out for injustice. I didn't go to witness the execution, and I don't regret it at all.
I abolished the title of Emperor Zhu Qiyu and gave him the posthumous title "". One month later, he died violently in Xiyuan and was even admitted to the imperial mausoleum.
