Ming Dynasty: from Failed Student to Chief Minister of the Cabinet

Shen Mo took the county examination three times before becoming a scholar. Others said he was not good at studying, but he did not argue. The family was so poor that they only had one cow, so his father sold it to make ends meet; his childhood sweetheart's fiancée gave him the dowry money and said, "Just don't forget me if you pass the exam." He entered the examination room with the ingot of silver in hand, and was almost arrested for cheating - the person who saved him was the teacher who later changed his life. From revising books in the Hanlin Academy to sitting on the bench in Nanjing, from issuing edicts to refuting edicts during affairs to clearing up the backlog of cases in the prefecture, from being a minister presiding over reforms to being the governor of the three sides to fight off the Tatars... In his life, he has been promoted and demoted, and he has been prosperous and almost lost his head. Some people called him a wallflower, some said he was an old fox. Only he knew that this officialdom was like walking on thin ice, and if he didn't learn how to bend down, he would have been broken long ago. His political opponent who had been fighting with him for twenty years said before he died: "I obey you, but I will join you next time we meet." In his later years, the emperor asked him: "You are the only civil and military man in the dynasty who dares to tell the truth. Are you not afraid of death?" His wife, who was a butcher's daughter, silently packed her luggage every time he was in trouble: "What are you afraid of? In the worst case, she will come back and sell pork." When he entered the cabinet at the age of sixty-three, he returned to his hometown and stood at the gate of the county government office where he had failed for a long time. In the ups and downs of this life, he has never failed anyone. ——Except for the old scalper who was sold.