Things That Happened in the Ming Dynasty 1: The Hong-Wu Emperor

Forward by the Author

I love history. I love the people and events that had come to pass. In the endless flow of history, there are so many things worth going back to. Twenty years after my first encounter with history, I picked up my pen and put down these words, for myself, and for all those who love history.

This series took me about six months in its conception. It mainly tells of certain events that came to pass during the Ming Dynasty, from 1344 to 1644, using historical records as the basis, chronology and specific characters as the main plot, incorporates story-telling methods as well as psychoanalysis of the characters, and finally, some commentary on the governmental and economical systems of the time.

One thing I need to clarify is that this series describes the official history, taking sources from Annals of the Ming Dynasty 《明实录》, A General History of the Ming Dynasty 《明通史》, The History of the Ming Dynasty 《明史》, Chronicles of the Ming Dynasty 《明史纪事末本》, and more than twenty other primary historical records, notes, and analects. Although I often use pop literature writing styles and expressions, practically all of the historical events and characters, including dialogues, have their origins in the records. For the sake of the flow of the story, I won't list the sources one by one.

Because I read way too many academic books in my younger years, I really hate ostentatious essays that try to be profound in some way or other. History itself is splendid, and any history can be written well. I hope I can do it, too.

In fact, I'm not sure myself what form of literature I'm writing. It's not really a novel and not really a history book either, but I don't think it's that important.

What I want to write is a book from which you can learn about history in your leisure. A book people will enjoy.

That's all.

Well, let's begin.