A Phoenix Cry from a Farming Family

Li Fengming was a top university graduate and a discharged soldier in his previous life. He sacrificed himself to save a child, and when he opened his eyes, he had become the posthumous child of Li Family Village in Qingxi County, in the Great Qian Dynasty. His grandfather had lost an arm, and his parents were dead.

Fortunately, he had a photographic memory and the insight of two lifetimes. At age four, he made a fishing trap to improve food, invented a threshing bucket to solve the autumn harvest crisis, and designed a baby carriage that sold for hundreds of taels of silver, causing the whole village to look at him differently.

He began his education at five, and from then on it was unstoppable. He passed the county exam, prefectural exam, academy exam, provincial exam, metropolitan exam, and palace exam one after another. At eight he became a xiucai, at sixteen a juren, and at seventeen he topped the palace exam, becoming the youngest zhuangyuan in the history of the Great Qian Dynasty since its founding.

On the day he rode through the streets in triumph, the princess threw flowers to him from Star-Gazing Tower, and the granddaughter of the Grand Tutor had someone deliver a red note to him. For a time, all the noble young ladies in the capital were smitten. But on the court’s stage, storms were brewing. As a zhuangyuan, Li Fengming entered the Hanlin Academy and repeatedly offered ingenious strategies, earning the emperor’s favor, but also drawing the suspicion of the powerful chancellor.

A political enemy publicly made a wager: if you can pacify the disorder in Goryeo within three months, I will petition to be demoted to a commoner. If you fail, then leave the court forever.

Li Fengming agreed boldly. He abandoned the pen for the spear, using surprise troops, hearts-and-minds tactics, and firearms assistance. Not only did he suppress the rebellion in three months and make the peninsula into territory of the Great Qian, he also destroyed the Japanese invaders and conquered Lan Xang and pacified Annan, and more.

On the day of his triumphant return, the Son of Heaven personally welcomed him at the city gate, the officials lined the road, and the people cheered. A historian later wrote this line in the posthumous Great Qian Record of Eminent Ministers: Li Fengming of Qingxi. Rising from the fields as a mere posthumous child, he was appointed Grand Tutor to the Crown Prince, Ministry of War...