Ming: O Ministro dos Humildes
No sexto ano do reinado de Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang declarou: O exame imperial está cancelado. Todos podem voltar para casa. O erudito Gu Zhengchen protestou: Já percorri todo esse caminho, já peguei dinheiro emprestado, já paguei o aluguel, e agora você diz que vai cancelar? Lao Zhu, você está arruinando minha vida! Vindo de uma família pobre, com cobradores de dívidas batendo à porta e sua irmã prestes a se vender, Gu Zhengchen precisava ganhar dinheiro para sustentar a família. Ele procurou um amante de ópera para vender o manuscrito de "A Lenda da Serpente Branca", fez açúcar mascavo, misturou água barrenta no mascavo e, assim, começou a fabricar açúcar branco para sobreviver! Foi recomendado para ser magistrado de Jurong, e decidiu não falsificar as contas oficiais. Corria de um lado para o outro, trabalhando até a exaustão, mas sem perder a cabeça. Encontrou-se com Lao Zhu: aquele que, com boas intenções, acabava fazendo besteira... Encontrou-se com Zhu Biao: você, rapaz, precisa fortalecer o corpo... Encontrou-se com Zhu Di: Zhu Laosi, não maltrate os honestos... No tabuleiro do imperador, caminhando à beira do abismo, serviu como conselheiro por três reinados, alcançando o auge na brilhante dinastia Ming!
Ming: O Ministro dos Humildes
Yanzhou Prefecture, Teng County.
Gu Zhengchen gazed out at the night sky, a vast expanse of countless stars illuminating the serene world with a chilling clarity.
He couldn't understand it—really couldn't. It was just soaking in a hot spring and reciting a line from Li Bai’s poem: “The divine maiden perished in a secluded realm, the hot spring flows like a mighty river.” How on earth did that cause him to be transported through time?
Old Li, you are the immortal poet, not an actual immortal. Send me back! I want to return beneath the red banner…
“Ma De Cao?”
Gu Qingqing, with a tender, youthful face, looked at her brother worriedly. He was calling out that name again. Three days ago, he had jumped into the lake, pointing at the sun and repeating that name for a long time.
But in Dayan Village, there was no one with the surname Ma…
Aunt Hu said her brother had lost his mind from shock. No, their mother had said he was just afflicted with a strange illness.
“It’s all the court’s fault!”
Gu Qingqing whispered fiercely, teeth clenched, filled with resentment.
Gu Zhengchen looked up at the stars and nodded solemnly.
Indeed, it was all the court’s fault—more precisely, it was all Old Zhu’s fault.
It was now the fourth month of the sixth year of the Hongwu era.
Three years ago, in the fifth month of the third year of Hongwu, Old Zhu issued the imperial edict for the imperial examinations, grandly proclaiming, “Special imperial examinations will be held to recruit talented and virtuous men,”
