A student registered at Nanyong Academy in the Ming dynasty, from the start of the eleventh year of Hongzhi, during the provincial examination in South Zhili.
This was the era most admired by Ming literati. Beneath the prosperity of a renaissance lay hidden currents of crisis. Doyan Khan’s ambition to unite the steppe was plain to see, as he bared the fangs of his ancestors and eyed the Central Plains. The entire court was filled with ministers who styled themselves upright and incorruptible, yet preached ritual, music, benevolence, filial piety, and rule by noninterference.
Who says the imperial examinations were the only path to success for an ordinary person in this era?
Zhang Zhou, courtesy name Bingkuan, was the most impractical scholar in the Ming. He had no intention of going with the flow under the banner of the literati. With insights that transcended his era, he would lead the Ming toward a path of hegemony that scholars would call “militaristic aggression.”
Emperor Xiaozong? Please address him as Emperor Wuwu.
