Great Ming: The Poorest Chancellor, Zhu Yuanzhang: Please, Just Take Bribes

In the thirteenth year of Hongwu, the Hu Weiyong case begins.

Fang Xiu, Marquis of Jing'an, is impeached by a censor for keeping a private army and building a faction for personal gain.

Zhu Yuanzhang and his officials go to Fang Xiu's residence to investigate.

There they find him wearing thin clothes in the dead of winter, eating leftovers, and living in a thatched hut, just as he has for the past thirty years.

Every coin he saves goes either toward building academies or making guns and cannons.

Years later, facing Fang Xiu, now a chancellor, Zhu Yuanzhang finally loses his patience:

"My dear Minister Fang, please, just take a bribe! Our Great Ming cannot have a chancellor as poor as you!"