The Splendor of Ming History

Li Xiao, a seventh-grader, visits the Nanjing Museum to write an essay about exploring historical sites. As she looks at an old painting of Empress Ma, a strange phenomenon occurs. The figure in the painting lowers her eyes and slightly parts her lips. Empress Ma calls to her from within the painting, and suddenly time goes awry and space twists. Li Xiao's consciousness blurs, and she feels herself being pulled into the painting. When she comes to, she has transmigrated into a refugee column at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming... Li Xiao experiences the tumultuous journey from a refugee girl to the founding empress.

Ma Xiuying begins life in a lonely, impoverished childhood. After years of hardship and fleeing, and the loss of her closest family, she enters a wealthy household alone. Fate takes its turns, and her adoptive father marries her off to Zhu Yuanzhang for his own advantage. From then on, the two stand side by side on the momentous road to founding a dynasty.

In the small sphere behind the men, she tends to the home front and cares for those around her. The unruly, brash Zhu Wenzheng is shaped into a fearless general, defending Hongdu to the death before meeting a tragic end. Xu Da, a man of both letters and arms, is gentle and restrained. After a lifetime of campaigning and selfless service, he finally receives the emperor's blessing to fulfill a modest lifelong wish. The princes of the Ming Dynasty have all endured difficult beginnings, whether born to low-ranking mothers or marked by unusual bloodlines. She raises them with care and shelters them beneath her wings.

She gives birth to only one daughter, yet takes in the princes and raises the imperial clan, using her kindness to reconcile the royal siblings and teach them to live in harmony.

Everyone knows Zhu Yuanzhang swept across the land and founded the Ming Dynasty, but few have seen the steadfast warmth of this common-born empress beneath the palace lights.

In troubled times, men carve out a realm with sword and blade; women protect their homes and country with gentle strength.

A chapter in Ming history, a lifetime of splendor. The emperor's achievement is a vast realm; her virtue brings peace through the years.

In the fifteenth year of the Hongwu reign, Empress Ma passes away, and Li Xiao awakens. Everything she experienced as Empress Ma was nothing more than a dream!