The third day of the third month, in the eleventh year of the Hongwu reign.
Night lay dark as ink. Candlelight flickered in the Crown Princess’s chambers in the Eastern Palace, and the air was thick with the scent of medicine.
A young woman lay on an intricately carved wooden bed, her face pale as paper and her breathing so faint it was almost inaudible. Beside the bed, a middle-aged woman clutched her hand tightly, tears streaming down her face.
“Your Highness… please wake up…” Nanny Qian’s voice was choked with sobs.
The woman on the bed did not respond. She had been unconscious for three full days. The imperial physicians had taken turns examining her pulse, but each had only shaken his head and sighed.
The eleventh year of the Hongwu reign was a special one for the Great Ming.
The founding hero Chang Yuchun had died two years earlier. His daughter Chang Shi had been married into the Eastern Palace for seven years. She should have been living in splendor as the Crown Princess, but after childbirth her health had deteriorated, and she had been ill for a long time. Now, at last, her strength was spent.
According to the historical records, Chang Shi died of this illness at just twenty-four.
Her husband, Zhu Biao, would follow in her footsteps more than twenty years later, dying young at the age of thirty-seven.
The tragedy of the Great Ming began at this very moment.
And yet, the wheels of fate had begun to turn.
Just as everyone believed Chang Shi was beyond saving
her eyes suddenly flew open.
