Liu Ji, the founding military advisor of the Great Ming Dynasty, was the founding advisor of Zhu Yuanzhang. Liu Bo Wen anticipated things like a god, no less than Jiang Ziya, Zhang Liang and Zhuge Liang. Under his strategy and planning, Zhu Yuanzhang pacified all the heroes and achieved the imperial blueprint of the Ming Dynasty.
A gifted “prodigy”
Born in the village of Wuyang in Qingtian, Zhejiang Province, Liu Bo Wen was so intelligent and good at learning and remembering that he could read seven lines at a glance.
The general schoolchildren were daunted by the sight of Confucianism books, especially those obscure scriptures. However, when Liu Bo Wen encountered difficult scriptures, he could recite them quickly after reading them twice silently, and he could interpret the meaning of the scriptures according to his own understanding. At the age of 12, he became a successful scholar, and people in his village called him a “prodigy”.
As his reading increased, at the age of 17, he became interested in difficult subjects such as astronomy, geography, prophecy, and military arts. He had a special interest in astronomy, arts and mathematics, and the art of war, and could often sit in meditation and study the mysteries of the scriptures.
A famous scholar, Zheng Fuchu, visited Liu’s Family and said to Bo Wen’s father, “Your ancestor’s virtue is profound and has blessed his descendants. This child, Bo Wen, is so outstanding that he will surely be able to enrich the Liu family in the future.”
There is another story about his ancestors’ profound virtue.
Liu Hao burned his house to save a man, and his descendants were blessed.
During the Song Dynasty, Liu Bo Wen’s ancestor, Liu Hao, served in the Hanlin Academy. After the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty, Liu Hao returned to his hometown to avoid the military disaster. At that Time, there were many loyalists who could not bear to see the country perish, so they organized themselves to resist the Yuan soldiers, but many of them failed.
Liu Hao’s fellow countryman Lin Rong also recruited a volunteer army, which also failed in the end. In order to completely pacify the local scourge, the Yuan Dynasty sent people to record all the people related to Lin Rong and prepare to arrest them for questioning.
Liu Hao was a rich local gentleman, and the officials often stayed at his house. One day, the officials finished recording the people related to Lin Rong, and on the way back it was already late, so the officials went to Liu Hao’s house to stay overnight.
During the banquet, Liu Hao overheard the incident and found out that there were too many people involved, only a few masterminds, but many innocent people were implicated. Liu Hao could not bear to see the people suffer, so he thought of a solution.
He ordered his subordinates to bring several jars of good wine, entertained the officials, got them drunk with wine, set a big fire and burned down his house, and then rescued the drunk officials.
When the official woke up, he saw that Liu Hao’s house had been burned down and the roster had been turned into ashes. Liu’s family suffered heavy losses this time, the official knew that he had failed in his duty, and did not dare to blame Liu Hao, but could only make another roster hastily from memory, and only wrote the name of the mastermind who had a reputation.
The fire destroyed the roster and saved many innocent people. Liu Hao’s righteous act of burning his house and saving everyone at the expense of his small family has become a beautiful story for all generations of celebrities. The virtues accumulated by Liu Hao were fulfilled by his great-grandson Liu Bo-wen, and this is the reason why the famous scholar Zheng Fuchu said that the ancestors of the Liu family had deep virtues and Liu Bo-wen would surely shine in the family.
(Source: Ming Dynasty History, the sixteenth in the list of biographies; “The Eight Virtues”, the sixth in the first collection of “Twenty-four Virtues”)
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