Later generations recorded the year as AD 1387.
News arrived that the last rebel army had surrendered and the Great Yuan imperial court had fled to the northern desert!
Nanjing.
It should now have been called Yingtian Prefecture.
The square-faced Zhu Yuanzhang stood before the newly completed imperial palace, feeling the welcoming aura that heaven and earth sent his way.
He narrowed his eyes in pleasure!
For some reason, Zhu Yuanzhang found this aura familiar, as though he had encountered it more than once before!
But he knew that was impossible, wasn't it?
According to Liu Bowen,
when he ascended the throne, the Great Dao of all nine provinces of the Human Race would be bestowed upon him!
At that point, though his body would still be no different from an ordinary mortal's,
if any god appeared in the White Jade Capital in the heavens,
all he would have to do was speak a few words.
That god would fall from the clouds of the nine heavens, stripped of all power, and collapse before him!
He had indeed felt that power!
To put it another way,
he bore the imperial mandate, and his mouth held Heaven's decree!
Here in the mortal realm, he possessed the authority to make reality obey his words!
How could he possibly have ascended the throne twice?
In truth, however...
Liu Bang: Young man, I felt that more than a thousand years before you did!
Ji Bichang: You little brat, I nearly felt that more than three thousand years ago!
As the reincarnation of Great Emperor Ziwei,
Zhu Yuanzhang naturally possessed the ability and authority to call himself Heaven!
Thus, he styled himself the Emperor Who Carries Heaven's Mandate!
And at the same time as his ascension,
in the sky above the nine provinces, roughly opposite