In the twelfth lunar month of the thirty-eighth year of Wanli, there was heavy snowfall in Beijing. In the cold courtyard of the East Palace, a baby was born—Zhu Youjian, the fifth son of Crown Prince Zhu Changluo.
The moment he was born, his fate was determined: pure Yin fate, Gu Chen's fate, Jie Sha's palace, which was the "Sacrifice of the Ming Dynasty" written in cinnabar in the secret files of the Qintian Prison.
From the moment he was chosen, his biological mother was silenced, his father regarded him as a stranger, and his brother gave him the throne as a hot potato. Seventeen years later, he ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor, with the reign name Chongzhen. He inherited a dynasty riddled with holes.
For seventeen years he lived without food, wore patched dragon robes, and slept only two hours a day. He eliminated Wei Zhongxian, liquidated the eunuchs, and trusted Yuan Chonghuan, Lu Xiangsheng, Sun Chuanting and other loyal ministers and generals. But he didn't know that every effort he made was pulled in the worst direction by the invisible web - the civil servants and aristocratic families who guarded the "Secret Code of Blood Sacrifice" were cutting off his right and left arms step by step, pushing him into the abyss of being alone.
On March 19, the 17th year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng captured Beijing. Zhu Youjian climbed to Meishan Mountain and hanged himself under the old locust tree. Before his death, he bit his finger and wrote a blood edict on his clothes:
"Let the thieves split my corpse, but don't hurt any of the people."
He was not the king of a subjugated country, but he was born in an era of subjugated country and became a sacrifice abandoned by heaven.
Heaven abandoned him, the ministers abandoned him, and the country abandoned him. But the people have not forgotten.
