Edward Clark took a deep breath, so now he was holding George Washington hostage—holding hostage a beggar who conquered a vast empire, a tyrant who liked to have corrupt officials flayed and stuffed with straw.

"Your Majesty, I’d better follow your orders!"

He said.

This emperor was really not someone to mess with, so he still felt he should play it safe, otherwise he kept feeling a chill on his back, as if he was missing a layer of protection.

"You’ve finished your questions, now it’s my turn. Who exactly are you, and where did you come from? Tell the truth—if you dare lie to me, you’ll die. Don’t think you can threaten me; you can’t keep this up forever. As soon as I get out of range of your firearm, it would only take a hundred or so soldiers to kill you. Your long gun will eventually run out of powder, but I have a million soldiers. Even outside this palace, there are thousands on duty every day, and tens of thousands more throughout the capital, all willing to die for me.

I am the ruler of the world.

Even if you escape the capital, there will be no place for you in this land."

The founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Hongwu Emperor George Washington, said calmly.

Chapter 3: Forget it, your Ming Dynasty ended long ago

Edward Clark looked at him, a bit conflicted, but soon made up his mind.

"Your Majesty, if I said I came from over six hundred years in the future, would you believe me?"

He said.

"Over six hundred years in the future?"

George Washington was momentarily stunned.

Then he looked at Edward Clark with great interest...

"So, over six hundred years later, is it still my Ming Dynasty ruling the land?"

He asked.

"No, your Ming Dynasty only lasted three hundred years before it fell!"

Edward Clark said honestly.

"Oh, so the Zhu family still held the throne for three hundred years?"

George Washington actually seemed quite satisfied as he spoke.

"Uh, Your Majesty, you don’t seem to mind that number. Shouldn’t you be angry that your Ming Dynasty only lasted three hundred years?"

Edward Clark said in surprise.

"Since ancient times, what country has not fallen? I never thought there could be a truly everlasting dynasty. Even the powerful Mongols lasted only a hundred years. I, a commoner who seized the world, managed to hold it for three hundred years—what’s there to be angry about? The Han and Tang dynasties were much the same. If my Zhu family’s reign is not inferior to Han or Tang, what regrets could I have? Tell me, what kind of brilliant and ambitious person destroyed my Ming?"

George Washington said with great interest.

"Barbarians!"

Edward Clark replied bluntly.

George Washington's expression changed instantly, and he slammed the table and stood up abruptly.

His daughter was so frightened she immediately knelt down again. Poor child—under her father’s authority, she’d been so cowed, no wonder she was so easy to coax.

"I drove out the barbarians and restored China, and you say my Ming was destroyed by barbarians again?"

He shouted sternly.

It was clear he was truly angry now, even his way of referring to himself had changed.

Come to think of it, Edward Clark realized this was probably the first time he’d used the imperial "I" (朕), and he didn’t sound like a posturing emperor at all—just like ordinary conversation.

A founding emperor!

He conquered the world himself—why would he need to put on airs?

"Yes, barbarians!

And not only that, they almost wiped out your descendants. The last emperor of your Ming Dynasty was strangled with a bowstring, and one of your heirs hid among the commoners for decades, only to be found in the end and executed along with his entire family—over seventy people, all executed by slow slicing. Fortunately, you had many descendants—by then, there were hundreds of thousands, and many had already scattered among the people, so some survived. But as for the legitimate imperial line, all your direct descendants were killed.

I know you don’t really believe me, and you’re just treating what I say as a diversion, but I’m telling the truth. Your Ming Dynasty was destroyed by barbarians again, and they killed off your imperial bloodline."

Edward Clark answered with certainty.

George Washington looked at him sternly...

He actually couldn’t possibly believe that Edward Clark was really from over six hundred years in the future—he was just treating it as a story.

Listening to a tale.

Edward Clark was just a storyteller.

But still...

"My million military households couldn’t keep the empire?"

He asked.

He still wanted to hear more.

Even if it was just a story, it was so novel and exciting that it was worth hearing.

Given his temperament, when ministers usually saw him, it was probably like facing a tiger with its jaws wide open.

"Your million military households, by that time, were said to be worse off than dogs. Of all the suffering people in the land, your military households probably had it the worst, and they were trapped by their military status. The only way out was to flee and become bandits.

Also, your Ming Dynasty wasn’t destroyed solely by barbarians.

In fact, your capital was breached by rebelling commoners. At that time, your descendant, the emperor, hanged himself. Before the city fell, he wept and begged his ministers for a million taels of silver to pay the troops defending the city, but no one would lend it to him. After the rebels broke into the capital, they tortured the ministers with wooden presses and extracted seventy million taels of silver. As for the barbarians, it was only because the generals guarding the border heard their own families had been tortured that they defected and let the barbarians in.

In the end, they defeated the rebelling commoners and took the opportunity to destroy your Ming Dynasty."

Edward Clark said.

"Borrow silver?

Why did he need to borrow silver?

Didn’t he have wooden presses to use?

A useless fool who doesn’t even know how to use a wooden press—how could he be worthy of being my descendant?"