Great Ming: From the Start, I Urge Lan Yu to Rebel

The fifth day of the second month in the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu. Three days remained until the Lan Yu case.

Zhu Yuntong opened his eyes and discovered he had become the forgotten imperial grandson whose name had been erased from the history books: the legitimate son of Crown Prince Zhu Biao and the grandnephew of Lan Yu. His original fate: imprisoned until death by Zhu Yunwen, without even a tombstone to his name.

The good news: Lan Yu hadn't been arrested yet when he arrived.

The bad news: The Embroidered Uniform Guard's report was already written.

Zhu Yuntong climbed over the palace wall in the middle of the night and kicked open the Duke of Liang's gate. "Granduncle, the old man wants to kill you!"

Lan Yu, half awake from drink, blurted, "Who? Who wants to kill me? The emperor? That can't be..."

"He's already drawn up a list of your entire family. Want me to recite it?"

Lan Yu's wine cup hit the ground and shattered to pieces.

Eight hundred elite warriors. Three days. A general suspected by the whole realm, and an imperial grandson everyone thought "wouldn't live to see next month." Those were all the cards Zhu Yuntong had in his hand.

But had anyone asked if he agreed to this fate?

Could he command troops? He could.

Could he navigate the power struggles at court? He could.

Could he win people over and turn them against their allies? He could do that too.

And more than that, he had the hard-earned martial arts of the fierce generals of the Sui and Tang dynasties. Qin Shubao could cut through thousands of troops with his twin maces, and Zhu Yuntong's fists were hardly any weaker than his ancestor's.

Later, Lan Yu asked him, "Grandnephew, what are you after?"

Zhu Yuntong looked out over the vast Ming realm, then at Zhu Yuanzhang's secret order that said "Kill without mercy," and grinned.

"I want a say in things. Old Zhu thinks he can kill anyone he wants? He'll have to ask whether my blade agrees."

In a nutshell: An imperial grandson leads eight hundred elite warriors in a head-on clash with Hongwu's iron laws. This time, Old Zhu's blade won't come down.