How to See the Situation Clearly? Liu Bowen Saw Through the National Fortune of the Ming Dynasty with Half a Sesame Cake

One day in the early years of the Hongwu era, Zhu Yuanzhang was slacking off in the inner hall, eating a sesame seed cake—don't laugh, even emperors are human. He had just taken a bite and hadn't even chewed it when a eunuch came trotting in: "Your Majesty, Liu Bowen requests an audience."

Zhu Yuanzhang rolled his eyes, suddenly struck by a playful idea. He casually placed the half-eaten sesame seed cake upside down under a bowl, thinking to himself: Old Liu, you claim to be able to divine and calculate everything, don't you? Today I'll put you to the test. After Liu Bowen entered and finished his salutations, Zhu Yuanzhang leaned back in his chair and said: "Sir, you have a deep understanding of numbers and principles. Can you tell what object is under this bowl?"

Most people would have panicked at this scene—how should I know what's in the emperor's bowl? But who was Liu Bowen? He closed his eyes, twirled his fingers in calculation, and slowly uttered: "Half like the sun, half like the moon, once bitten by a golden dragon, leaving a nick. This is food."

When the bowl was lifted, sure enough, it was half a sesame seed cake. Zhu Yuanzhang slapped his thigh on the spot: "Sir, you are truly a divine man!"

Do you think that's the end of it? The real highlight was yet to come. Striking while the iron was hot, Zhu Yuanzhang directly posed the ultimate question: "Since you can divine such trivial matters right before your eyes, can you calculate the fate of my Ming Dynasty?"

Anyone else would have immediately knelt down and shouted "Long live Your Majesty, may you live ten thousand times ten thousand years" at this fatal question. But Liu Wen stroked his beard, sighed deeply, and said something that sent a chill down Zhu Yuanzhang's spine: "Our dynasty will have ten thousand sons and ten thousand grandsons—why ask?"

It sounded like an auspicious saying—ten thousand sons and ten thousand grandsons, meaning the empire would last forever. But who was Zhu Yuanzhang? A shrewd man who had risen from beggar to emperor through years of fighting. He immediately sensed something was wrong: Ten thousand sons and ten thousand grandsons? Does that mean the dynasty will end with the grandson of the Wanli Emperor?

As everyone knows what happened later, the Ming Dynasty indeed perished at the hands of Chongzhen, the grandson of the Wanli Emperor. What a coincidence, you say?

In fact, there's no such thing as prophetic foresight. Liu Bowen's skill, to put it plainly, is the great knowledge of how to make correct decisions. Look at how he guessed the sesame seed cake—was it a random guess? How many kinds of food could the emperor be eating in the inner hall? Combined with the size and weight of the bowl, even the smell of sesame seeds drifting in the air, a little reasoning would get you pretty close to the answer.

As for seeing the situation clearly, Liu Bowen was a master of it. When he followed Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer the empire, he saw the chaotic chess game of the late Yuan Dynasty clearly: Chen Youliang was arrogant and prone to trouble, Zhang Shicheng was small-minded and lacked long-term ambition, and the Yuan court was in complete chaos internally. Every decision he made hit the mark, which helped Zhu Yuanzhang rise from a nine-man squad leader all the way to the founding emperor.

Many people think the *Song of the Sesame Seed Cake* is incredibly miraculous, but is there really so much mystery to it? To put it simply, it's the ancient people's ability to deduce the general trend. Just like how you check today's weather forecast, ancient people observed the stars and phenology—essentially, both are about finding patterns from details. How to improve judgment? To put it bluntly, it's about observing more, thinking more, and not being blinded by superficial appearances.

Of course, the *Song of the Sesame Seed Cake* later became more and more exaggerated in folk tales—things like "eight thousand female ghosts disrupt the court" and "a curved ruler hangs on a tree, it stops when encountering Shun"—all told with vivid details. But if you think carefully, these ambiguous words can be interpreted in any way to fit the facts. When it comes to real ability, you have to look at the solid decisions Liu Bowen made during his lifetime—defying all opinions in the Battle of Longwan, defeating the enemy with fire in the Battle of Poyang Lake—wasn't each of these won through precise judgment?

So, don't always look for some prophet to show you the way. When you really encounter trouble, learn from Liu Bowen: look more at the details, think more about the causes and consequences. If you can see the trick from half a sesame seed cake, what situation can't you see through?