In the first year of Zhengde, Chen Yan, a military household in Yongping, was fourteen years old.
The monthly grain of the family was withheld and the farmland was occupied. The father tolerated it and the mother worked hard. With his original historical memory, he started with a piece of mixed bread and an old farm book, and began to calculate an account that no one dared to calculate.
From the county examination to the palace examination, from the county magistrate of Le'an to the governor of Xuanda, from the head of the household department to the chief minister of the cabinet. He cleared the land, reorganized the garrison, opened a horse market, trained the new army, pushed a whip, and cleared the sea. Every step is stepped on the chessboard of interests, and there is opposition to every government decree.
He does not stand in the clear stream, does not cling to power, does not rely on the system, and does not create things out of thin air. His greatest weapon is to see the consequences of the system earlier than people of this era.
Game in the court, military affairs on the frontier, farming in the imperial examination, family and country in the world. How did a boy from a poor military family spend thirty-five years to find his way from the bottom to the top in the most complicated court situation of the Ming Dynasty?
