It all began on a night in 1328.
Farmer Zhu Wusi's wife, Chen, gave birth to a son—known to history as Zhu Yuanzhang.
When an emperor is born, historical records often claim strange omens: fierce winds, sudden rain, mysterious fragrances, stars flashing in the night, red light flooding the land. These serve to mark the child as extraordinary. Zhu Yuanzhang was no exception. On the night of his birth, a crimson glow blanketed the ground, and strange lights flickered in his home. The neighbors, thinking the house was on fire, rushed over to help (Ming Shilu).
But Zhu Wusi's mood was nothing like that of the anxious yet joyful fathers pacing outside modern hospital rooms. Already the father of three sons and two daughters, his chief concern was not destiny, but dinner.
Zhu Wusi earned his living in two ways: he ran a small tofu shop and, more importantly, farmed land for his landlord. Like countless working families of the Yuan era, he labored endlessly just to survive.
A month after the baby's birth, his parents gave him a name, as was customary in the Yuan Dynasty: Zhu Chongba, also nicknamed Zhu Baba. The Zhu family's names were unusual:
• Great-great-grandfather: Zhu Sijiu
• Great-grandfather: Zhu Bailiu
• Grandfather: Zhu Chuyi
• Father: Zhu Wusi
This was not the legacy of a mathematician's family—it was simply how poor villagers named their children when they had neither education nor titles. They often used the sum of the parents' ages or the child's birth date—practical for household records, if confusing to outsiders.
Zhu Chongba grew up in a shabby thatched hut—cool in winter, warm in summer, with "excellent ventilation" and "abundant natural light." His main job was herding cattle for the landlord Liu Dejia. He dreamed of going to school, but tuition was far beyond what his family could afford. He lacked the romantic ambition of Li Mi, who studied with books hung from an ox's horns, and no great official like Yang Su would discover him. So, he herded cattle faithfully—for twelve years.
Because he needed to eat.
At sixteen, Zhu's dream was modest: find a good, hardworking wife with the help of village elder Wu, have a few children—perhaps named Zhu Saner or Zhu Siling—and, when they were old enough, send them to herd cattle for the landlord's son.
This was the extent of his happy future at sixteen.
Yet beyond the village, China groaned under the weight of the corrupt Yuan Dynasty. The Mongol rulers treated the people as little more than livestock—at times even debating whether it might be better to depopulate the land for grazing (History of Yuan). Taxes and levies multiplied endlessly: "holiday money" during festivals, "regular money" for labor, "official money" for lawsuits. Even doing nothing brought demands for "idleness money."
After more than sixty years of such rule, the Yuan state was a dying camel—vast, but on the brink of collapse.
The final straw came soon enough.
In 1344, Heaven seemed to abandon the Yuan. Two disasters struck China, and the cryptic prophecy spread: "The one-eyed stone man stirs rebellion along the Yellow River." It was the dynasty's epitaph—and, unwittingly, the summons for its gravedigger: Zhu Yuanzhang.
Seventeen that year, he could not have imagined that Heaven had set aside a monumental task for him. Catastrophe loomed, but so did destiny. Like the phoenix, he would have to endure the fire before he could rise, radiant, into the sky.
Come forth, Zhu Yuanzhang.
The God of Fate awaits you.