[Ming Dynasty + Beloved by All + Adorable Toddler + National Fortune + Farming + Political Intrigue + No Goody-Two-Shoes]
In the eighth year of Hongwu, a drought lasted three months, leaving a thousand miles of scorched earth.
Zhu Yuanzhang brought out the Nine Cauldrons of State and personally led his officials in a ceremony to pray for rain.
No water came from the cauldron. Instead, a chubby little baby crawled out.
Fair and rosy-cheeked, with big, dewy eyes, she opened her mouth and said:
“Thirsty… want water…”
Zhu Yuanzhang scowled. “I prayed for rain, not a baby!”
But this baby seemed a little unusual.
She pointed in a babyish voice. “Over there, underground, there’s water.”
They dug up an underground river and saved the people of three counties.
She stood on tiptoe and touched the withered rice seedlings. “You planted them wrong. Do it like this…”
Her improved farming method tripled the yield per acre.
She dozed off beside the Nine Cauldrons, then woke and rubbed her eyes. “It’s going to rain really, really hard. The dikes are going to break.”
Three days later, torrential rain poured down. The capital region alone remained unscathed, thanks to its dikes having been reinforced in advance.
The officials knelt in a sea of robes. “Your Majesty, this is an auspicious sign from Heaven, an omen of the nation’s good fortune!”
Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the little one in his arms, her face smeared with grease as she gnawed on a chicken leg, and fell silent.
This little thing… really was the nation’s fortune?
Empress Ma scooped the child into her arms. “Who cares if she’s the nation’s fortune? She’s ours now. Nobody’s laying a hand on her!”
The Crown Prince, Zhu Biao, gently offered her a handkerchief to wipe her mouth.
The fourth prince, Zhu Di, stood by the doorway with a cold expression, but hid a string of candied hawthorns he had just made for her.
From then on, everyone in the imperial palace of the Great Ming, from the emperor and empress down to the eunuchs and palace maids, revolved around this tiny toddler.
But those with ill intentions soon discovered
