In the twenty-second year of the Hongwu reign, Chen Ansheng becomes a condemned prisoner and supervisor at the Imperial Armaments Bureau in Yingtian Prefecture.
An exploded cannon condemns 127 craftsmen to execution in three days. A dilapidated workshop becomes evidence that officials across the court are scrambling to bury.
Chen Ansheng refuses to accept his fate. He rescues people from the death-row barracks and establishes himself through the workshop, using firearms, trade routes, military supplies, and ledgers to turn a group of condemned men into the Ming dynasty’s sharpest weapon.
When the northern frontier lacks grain, he produces military provisions. When the capital blocks payments, he takes over procurement. When sea routes are cut off, he opens a trading port. When political pressure forces him to choose a side, he makes sure nobody can do without Ansheng Workshop.
From a death-row workshop to a new order with military and commercial power spanning the realm.
When Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Di, and the entire court of powerful nobles set their sights on Chen Ansheng, he merely smiles and taps his ledger.
“A workshop can make firearms, and it can make rules, too.”
