Witnessing a Bone-Scraping Treatment in the Opening Scene, My Policy Essay Stuns the Jiajing Emperor

A truly satisfying tale of political intrigue!

History is so long, yet so short in the books. There are always people worth pausing to remember.

That year, Yan Song held the court in the palm of his hand.

That year, Xu Jie bided his time, waiting to strike.

That year, Zhang Juzheng was thirty. In Lezhiyuan, his home village, he planted bamboo and raised cranes, watching coldly as the capital was swept by bloody storms.

That year, Yang Jisheng died at the Western Market. Before his execution, he composed a poem: “My righteous spirit returns to the vast heavens; my loyal heart shines through the ages.”

It was also that year that a young man named Xu Huaijin came from Jiangnan to the capital.

He only wanted to study in peace and wait for the spring imperial examinations.

He didn't know that the moment he stepped through the city gate, the wheels of fate had already begun to turn.

Some wanted to draw him into the game.

Some wanted him dead.

Some saw in him the shadow of someone they had once known.

Some saw their own ambitions reflected in his eyes.

In October, the blood at the Western Market had yet to dry.

Yan Song's allies filled the court, incense burned in Xu Jie's study, and Tang Shunzhi's donkey clip-clopped out through Zhangyimen.

And he, a student at the Imperial College, carrying a letter from his teacher, knocked on the gate of a modest residence.

Inside sat the man who, ten years later, would bring Yan Song down.

“Do you know how to make your way through this deepening dusk without losing yourself or being crushed?”

Political intrigue, passion, teacher and student, brothers, and bonds that endure through life and death.

A young man rises and falls amid the torrents of history.