The Ming Dynasty's Five Hundred Years

Chapter 57 Hardships and Difficulties
The incense of sages has appeared!

Li Qi's expression brightened.

This is a crucial item for ensuring the continuation of the family line!
This brings us to the game system on Li Qi's body. Although he doesn't use it often, it's always very effective.

In the Ming Dynasty, where imperial power was supreme, this was the key to the Li family's continued succession.

These magical items are divided into four levels: Heaven, Earth, Mysterious, and Yellow.

Celestial-tier items possess the power to transform the world. In his previous life, Li Qi had seen a Celestial-tier item called "Collapse and Earth Shattering" on a game forum. Its effect was to deliver a 9.5 magnitude earthquake at a fixed point, equivalent to the simultaneous explosion of 25,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs. It was eight times more powerful than the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon, and could shift the Earth's axis of rotation by 8 centimeters, shortening the Earth's rotation period by one millionth of a second. It was an absolute city-destroying strategic weapon!

Unfortunately, Li Qi has never obtained one, nor does he know the effects of the other Heavenly Rank items. However, the official website states that Heavenly Rank items can change the fate of a dynasty or nation.

Below that are Earth-rank items. The key to a family's inheritance lies in its talent, and the inheritance of great Confucian scholars and the appearance of a half-saint are created for this purpose.

Earth-rank items are naturally far inferior to Heaven-rank items. For example, Li Qi used the inheritance of a great Confucian scholar, but he was still constrained by the general trend and had to calculate every step in order to carve out a glorious path, and he only went halfway.

In his previous life, Li Qi had obtained a high-ranking artifact called "Sharing the Same Heart and Soul". The user could bind to a person and gain a very high level of trust. Even if you really rebelled and you personally admitted to the rebellion, the emperor would spare your life out of consideration for past feelings.

In ancient society, this item was far more powerful than the rank of a demigod. The official website describes it as follows: "[Earth-rank items can maintain the prosperity of a family; with good luck, they can even temporarily extend the life of a dynasty.]"

Next are the Xuan-level items. Items at this level have limited power, but they are not weak either. For example, the Divine Incense. As the saying goes, "An elder in the family is a treasure." Its function is to awaken the ancestral spirits, and then the ancestral spirits can give some enlightenment to their descendants in the form of dreams.

However, the Li family is quite different. Their ancestor was a time traveler, and Li Qi himself can play a role that even surpasses that of a low-level artifact.

Even if the dream incense has many limitations and can only be used to say a few words, it still has a huge effect. Therefore, the incense for summoning spirits is of great importance to the inheritance of the Li family!

[Mystic-grade items can slow down the decline of a family and allow one to control the outcome of a battle for a time.]

As for Yellow-rank items, they can only exert their effects on specific people at specific times, such as the hallucinogenic incense that Li Qi used on Yang Jing earlier.

If given to someone with a strong will like Zhu Yuanzhang, it probably wouldn't be of much use even when Zhu Yuanzhang was at his weakest before his death. The advantage is that yellow-rank items can be exchanged with achievement points, and as long as you have enough achievement points, there is no limit to the number you can exchange.

[Yellow-tier items can provide limited assistance, but if used skillfully, they can be extremely useful.]

The future head of the Li family will naturally be Li Xianmu, but he is the third son of the legitimate wife, and he has two older brothers who are also legitimate wives.

The position of family head that Li Qi refers to is not the inheritance of property in the traditional sense.

Currently, the Li family has no title, only some family property, which can be divided equally among the three brothers without their concern. However, if they acquire a title in the future, it is impossible to give it to someone outside the eldest branch of the family, as the imperial court would not allow it.

Therefore, the succession of the family headship is not the inheritance of titles or family property, but rather the right to perform the sacrificial rites for Li Qi in the future. The person designated by each generation's family head to preside over the sacrificial rites for Li Qi is the true head of the Li family!

The head of the family will receive the incense for divination!
In the past few generations, the head of the family line may not have been able to completely overpower the branch line, but in the future, as the Li family develops, the head of the family line will have other benefits. Gradually, the family members who control the sacrificial rites will naturally make them more and more solemn!

But that might be a hundred years from now...

……

While Li Qi was in seclusion in the capital writing his books, the northern border had already become a scene of carnage and bloodshed.

When the Yan army encountered the imperial army, Geng Bingwen was no match for Zhu Di and suffered a crushing defeat, with only his remnants escaping. However, this was just the beginning. The imperial court, with its vast resources, was not afraid of losing. After Geng Bingwen was dismissed, Li Jinglong, the war god of the Ming Dynasty, was appointed as the general and led an army of 500,000 to besiege Beiping, but failed to capture it. Naturally, he was no match for Zhu Di either. At this time, Zhu Di had already acquired the army of the Prince of Ning, greatly increasing his strength, and the imperial army suffered defeat after defeat.

Since the start of the war in the first year of the Jianwen reign, up to the beginning of the second year, the court had won almost no battles, and morale was severely damaged. When this news reached Empress Dowager Yingtian, it naturally caused unrest among the people. It is said that the emperor had smashed countless objects in the palace.

Riding on their great victory, the Yan army attacked Jinan. Li Qi, who was familiar with history, knew that the real test for Prince Zhu Di of Yan was about to begin.

……

When Zhu Di led his army to stand beneath the walls of Jinan, he thought the city, which had long been filled with fear, was within his grasp. However, two men stopped him. Their names were Tie Xuan and Sheng Yong, one a Shandong Provincial Governor and the other a Military Commander.

Their official positions were not high, far inferior to those of Geng Bingwen and Li Jinglong, who were dukes and marquises, but they were the strongest enemies Zhu Di encountered in the Jingnan Campaign!
Historically, his vast and ambitious career almost came to a standstill because of these two people!
In the Jingnan Campaign, who was right and who was wrong?
No one knows that everyone who participates in this war has their own reasons for needing to win!
Zhu Di encountered a nightmare here. The city that seemed easy to conquer stood firm despite its precarious state. The scholar who knew nothing about military affairs firmly blocked him outside Jinan.

One month, two months, three months!

The successive victories had clouded his judgment, and he seemed to have forgotten the fear he had felt of the court's power when he first decided to launch the rebellion!

He forgot the perilous situation he had anticipated. He thought the Southern army was nothing special, even if they numbered 200,000, 500,000, or more, they were nothing more than his defeated enemies!

He attributed everything to his own excellence, or even destiny, but never considered that Li Jinglong was simply too incompetent!

When a great commander begins to forget his strategy, he is not far from failure!
Moreover, being an unknown soldier does not mean being weak. Just like Han Xin, who had not yet been appointed as a general and had no reputation whatsoever, who would have known that he would become a brilliant and invincible military genius?
Although Sheng Yong and Tie Xuan were not well-known, they were truly outstanding second-generation leaders during the Jianwen era, unlike the aging veterans like Geng Bingwen and the useless second-generation leaders like Li Jinglong!

Failure is born from this!

Through hardship and adversity, amidst gloom and despair, the true emperor will emerge from mountains of corpses and seas of blood and fire!

(End of this chapter)