Bowen

Don't get me wrong. The book 《明朝那些事兒》 is entirely satisfactory and enjoyable - as a bedtime reading, to say the least.

Of course, I could not agree with many of the author's view points, notably, his praise to the few important founders of the dynasty - particularly Liu Bowen (劉伯温) - and the interpretation about the capacity of the Scholar of the Wenyuan Chamber (文淵閣大學士).

The first point may worth further elaboration. You may know Liu Bowen was the principal political advisor of Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋), a post similar to Zhang Liang (張良) who served for Liu Bang (劉邦). Since Zhu and Liu were the only two in the history of China who rose from an ordinary citizen to the emperor, it seems logical to compare Liu and Zhang.

Alas, take aside all the advises that they actually gave to their boss, Zhang successfully excused himself from the limelight soon after the Han empire got going and enjoyed a peaceful retirement, while Liu died after refusing medical treatment - for the fear that his political adversary, or Zhu Yuanzhang himself, would try to poison him through the doctor.

That's more than a fine line of difference.

PS. Many people believe that Liu Bowen was an expert in astrology, and wrote the classical Biscuit Poem (燒餅歌). That may be true. Nonetheless, the Poem becomes insignificant when put by the side of the Push-Back Pictures (推背圖), written by Li Chun-Feng (李淳風) and Yuan Tian-Gang (袁天罡) of the Tang empire.