After finishing “1587, A Year of No Significance,” I was filled with a sense of melancholy throughout.

Under the grand narrative of history, the more technical the “diagnosis” of the Ming Dynasty, the more I felt the helplessness of people in the world. The book starts from the perspective of individuals, aiming to present the political, social, and ideological context of the time. The more objective the narration, the more one feels the subjective helplessness of each character. Wanli, Zhang Juzheng, Shen Shixing, Hai Rui, Qi Jiguang, Li Zhi—each was a remarkable figure, but all were “limited by their era and technology,” which clarifies the reality that they were trapped in the historical cage of their time.

Yet everyone is born into their own era. In other words, people are inherently unable to escape certain inescapable predicaments. There will always be things that cannot be obtained. Some problems, sooner or later, will be found to have no cure.

This is a book that dissects the “pathology” of the Ming Dynasty. Why did so many figures act as they did? Why did so many events unfold as they did? The book always seeks deeper reasons. Looking back after hundreds of years, with a rational and technological perspective, the final conclusions are climate, technology, economy, and ideology—various macro data. 1587 was not a year when circumstances made heroes, but rather a year when human effort could not overcome fate.

This article was originally written in Chinese and translated into English by AI. Please excuse any errors in expression.