The Great Ming Toothsmith

Chen Yue, a modern dentistry PhD, wakes up in the Ming dynasty as a streetwise “tooth-filler.”

He may not be a prince or lord, but he has modern medical know-how and a box of ingenious tools made with improved folk methods: salt, milk, honey, pig bristles, pine needles... With every patient he treats, he pries open the door to another seat of power. From answering the imperial summons to save the emperor and humiliating officials at a banquet, to testing toothbrushes in a workshop and crushing the competition at an international dentists’ convention; from earning the loyalty of a fleet commanded by Zheng He’s descendants through a sea rescue to eventually taking his place at court, where he uses the “dental industry” to shake the foundations of corrupt eunuch rule.

He is a “tooth-filler” everyone looks down on, yet he turns little skills once dismissed as a joke into soft power capable of changing the nation’s destiny.

You’ll find gritty medicine, pain, ingenious procedures, and palace intrigue all unfolding side by side. Every challenge brings a fresh twist, and every victory wins him people, resources, and an even greater storm.

Want to see mind-blowing folk remedies defy the odds, satisfying palace face-slapping, and the Ming dynasty’s dental trade thriving alongside diplomacy?

And will this very toothbrush eventually be displayed alongside an electric toothbrush used by an Apollo astronaut at Harvard University’s School of Dental Medicine Museum?