What to rewrite, history or South Korean mindset?

The portrait of Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of Ming Dynasty, preserved in Peking Palace Museum now.
MBC, the South Korea's second biggest TV station, reveals some shocking secrets on a program called "Mysterious TV Surprise." In its program on March 7 this year, it claimed that Zhu Yuanzhang, the builder and first emperor of China's Ming Dynasty, could possibly have been a Korean.

In the following days, several influential South Korean media outlets published the "news" in quick succession, including the Web sites of Newsen, JoongAng Daily and Yahoo ROK and so on.

According to the program, they believe Zhu is a Korean due to three reasons.

First: Korean folklore

It is said that a Korean man called Zhu Yuanzhang followed his parents and moved to Anhui province from Jeollanam-do around that time period. And all of this because his parents dreamed a god told them that it would bring their family prosperity. Also, Korean legend says Zhu left to bury his body back in Korea, so the famous Tomb of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang (Ming Xiao Ling) is an empty one.

Second: History books

According to a history book, named "Record Events of Korea," there was a Zhu Yuanzhang born in a poor Korean family, and he became a monk when he was 5 years old and left the monastic order at 15. And they said this history book was published hundreds of years earlier than the Chinese version of "Zhu Yuanzhang's biography" wrote by Wu Han. So Wu's description about Zhu's poor and monastic history could have been based on the stories in this history book.

In addition, some works of fiction and folklore also mention Zhu's Korean identity.

Third: Zhu was surrounded by many Koreans

They also said that many people around Zhu were Koreans, including people who had rendered outstanding service to help him to start his dynasty and his concubines.

Some Korean netizens seemed so exited when they "realized the truth" and some of them even called to "rewrite the histories of Korea and China."


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