Forward by the Author

When a young man who had lost everything found himself on the edge of history at the teetering point of the Yuan Dynasty, he rose from the bottom to become one of the greatest and most ruthless leaders of all time.

This is the first of a series of books about the Ming Dynasty, which succeeded the rule of China from the Mongol Empire and reigned for 276 years. The story begins in the year 1344, following the humble beginnings of the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and ends in 1644, with the fall of the Dynasty and its last emperor. The series was written by Shi Yue, who first published his work online under the pseudonym "当年明月" (loosely translated as "The Bright Moon That Year").

"Things That Happened in the Ming Dynasty" (《明朝那些事儿》) is a series written with love and respect for history. It's well researched, but never dull. The author spins his own writing style into the narration of the history so smoothly that it's almost as if you are reading a novel - and you can read it just like that: a novel, but with events that actually happened, people that actually lived and died. To me, it's that weight of reality, the weight of choices having actual consequences, the weight of history, combined with a fictional sense of storytelling and engagement, that made me love this series, and furthermore, love history.

And since I am currently unaware of an English translation of these books but desperately want to share them......I'm going to take a shot at this task. Please stop me if you know of an English version of this series.

Translations for proper nouns may not be the same as you know, but I will try my best to use the ones that are clear and/or widely accepted, and I'll be adding notes to places that may need a little extra explanation, just to expand the scope of understanding.