In the twenty-fifth year of Hongwu, Crown Prince Zhu Biao dies of illness.
That same day, an ordinary man from the future wakes up in the Eastern Palace.
He has become Zhu Yunwen.
The Jianwen Emperor, who ruled for only four years in the history books before Prince of Yan Zhu Di captured Nanjing and he vanished in the flames.
He knows what lies ahead:
Zhu Yuanzhang will die.
The princes will rebel.
The Jingnan Campaign will begin.
The Jinchuan Gate will open.
And he will lose everything.
But when he truly finds himself in the Ming dynasty at the end of Hongwu’s reign, he realizes that the “Jingnan Campaign” in the history books was never as simple as “the attempt to curb the princes failed.”
This is an empire held together by bloodshed and suspicion:
The princes command armies of their own, while the northern troops recognize only Prince of Yan.
Civil officials fight over power, and the nobles each have their own designs.
The Embroidered Uniform Guard lurks in the shadows, and the whole realm lives beneath the gaze of the Hongwu Emperor.
And he is only a fifteen-year-old boy.
No System.
No firearms to overwhelm his enemies.
No Industrial Revolution.
And no one truly on his side.
The only thing he has
is the knowledge that he is going to lose.
So he must start in the Eastern Palace and learn, one step at a time:
How to be a royal grandson.
How to be an emperor.
How to be a ruler who can survive.
But once he finally takes the throne, he gradually realizes:
He is becoming more and more like Zhu Yuanzhang.
And more and more like Zhu Di.
“The realm wasn’t lost to Prince of Yan.”
“It was lost to time.”
