Rebuilding the Wanli Era

Never say Heaven has no warmth: a city’s snowstorm bids farewell to its lonely minister.

In the tenth year of the Wanli reign, Zhang Juzheng gave everything he had in service to the empire. But after his death, the emperor grew suspicious, his family fell into misfortune, and the new policies he had poured his heart into collapsed in an instant. His lifelong loyalty ended with his death and the demise of his reforms.

Carrying the anguish and regret of his final moments at the age of fifty-eight, his soul returned to the late autumn of the sixth year of the Longqing reign.

He awoke from his dream still thirty-two, newly appointed to the Grand Secretariat, with power yet to come.

In his previous life, he had sacrificed everything to rescue the ailing Ming, yet he could not overcome the emperor’s suspicion or the entrenched interests of the scholar-officials. He could not escape the tragic fate of a reformer.

Given another life, he shed his blind loyalty. He had no cheat-like power to defy Heaven, and would not crush everyone without a thought.

With the shrewdness of an old minister who had weathered countless storms, he would navigate the young emperor, the empress dowager behind palace walls, the eunuchs of the Directorate of Ceremonial, the nobles at court, and the scholars across the realm.

He would plan step by step, balance competing interests, and make compromises. He would root out corruption, manage the grain transports, reform taxation, strengthen the border defenses, and curb the concentration of land.

In this life, he would no longer be a lonely minister who burned himself to ashes.

He would rebuild the Ming’s golden age and bring peace to all under Heaven. More than that, he would break an age-old curse and find a way to save both his family and the nation, without sacrificing himself.

The Forbidden City’s snow remains, a game of strategy begins anew.