The Imperial Physician of Ming: From a Clan's Peril to Hongwu's Sole Chancellor

Transmigrating to the year before the founding of the Great Ming, Hu Yi discovered that he had an uncle named Hu Weiyong.

In the Hu Weiyong Case, one of the Four Great Cases of the Hongwu era, Emperor Hongwu Zhu Yuanzhang raised the executioner's blade. The nine branches of the Hu family, along with tens of thousands of others, lost their heads.

Hu Yi was utterly bewildered. How had I transmigrated here only to become part of the nine branches doomed to execution?

Fine, fine. At least in the early days of the Great Ming, there was no shortage of opportunities to climb the ranks, and there was still time. Keep a low profile and don't take reckless risks!

Hu Yi only wanted to stay alive. But somehow, his titles kept piling up: from a traveling physician among the common people to a sixth-rank Chengde Lang, then from Chengde Lang to Princess Consort's Commandant, Grand Master of Splendid Happiness, and the Great Ming's foremost imperial physician. Finally, he was granted the title of Pillar of State, becoming The Outcast, second only to the emperor and above all others.

In a daze, when he finally looked back, he had become the Great Ming's sole chief minister, facing Emperor Hongwu Zhu Yuanzhang and Emperor Wenzong Zhu Biao.

Later, The History of Ming, in the biography of Hu Yi, recorded these words from his final letter: “I was originally a commoner from the Jianghuai region. By the grace of the emperor, I entered government service through my medical skills. In the past, I oversaw the distillation of spirits to produce alcohol, and extracted allicin from garlic to heal wounded soldiers. I tested cowpox to defeat smallpox. All this was accomplished under the protection of Heaven's might. I lifted the ban on maritime trade and opened up commercial routes. Though scholar-officials from eastern Zhejiang impeached me, maritime customs revenues reached a million a year, and starving people were saved. My home has only thirty mu of mulberry fields; the modest farmland outside the city was all a gift from the princess. My descendants must work diligently to protect the Han people's legitimate line of succession. I only hope that the ban on maritime trade is never reinstated, and that merchants can reach the Far West. Then I can die with a smile.”