The Emperor of His Age Is Still Walking on Earth

In the third year of the reign of Emperor Zhizheng of the Great Yuan Dynasty, twelve-year-old Zhu Chongba was huddled in a thatched house in Guzhuang Village, listening to his mother crying that the newborn baby boy had run out of energy. What he didn't know was that the next plague would take away all his relatives - his father, mother, three brothers, sister-in-law and nephew. He would bury the whole family with his own hands in just a few months, and in the end only one person would be left standing in front of the empty stove. The seventeen-year-old boy walked into the wilderness carrying a bag of moldy grain. He became a refugee, carrying bags, carrying water, digging wild vegetables, and suffered all kinds of hardships. A wandering monk took him in and taught him how to read and recite sutras, saying that the Buddha was in his heart but not on his knees. He worked at Huangjue Temple for three years sweeping the floor and grew into a tall, strong young man. However, one autumn evening he said goodbye to his master and went down the mountain, carrying the Heart Sutra and walking into the troubled times that were about to be turned upside down. He met Tang He and Xu Da, and exchanged a short knife and the words "I know how to kill" for a red cloth strip on his forehead. From Haozhou to Xuzhou, from a small leader in charge of thirty people to independently leading troops to defend Pizhou, he learned to read formations, read the art of war, and lead troops bit by bit. This story tells the story of how a cowherd boy with nothing earned his name from the soil and created an unprecedented Ming Dynasty.