In a village in the Ming Dynasty, there was a man named Ping. He was very small compared to everyone his age and very quiet. People didn’t even know if he could talk. They would call him stupid and unintelligent. This village was well known for it’s rice. It was said to be the best in all of china. One day a small army of soldiers can crashing in. “The Emperor has summoned us to collect all your rice and take it to the palace.,” declared one of the soldiers. The crowd was in uproar. “ But how will we feed everyone. We have children,” commented a elderly man. “ That isn’t my problem,” yelled the same soldier while he pointed his sword at the old man. In a few hours all the rice had been taken and the soldiers were on their way back to the palace. The village called a town meeting. “We need to figure out a way to stop this. They will just come back,” yelled a woman with a baby in her arms. “ I say we attack when they least expect and make sure they know who they are messing with,” a young man exclaimed. Many heads in the audience nodded in agreement. Ping did not like this. Being the peaceful man that he was, he knew that id they fought then the Emperor would never leave them alone. He thought long and hard over a way to trick the ruler. “ I know what we can do,” Ping spoke up. The entire crowd gasped. They all turned to get a look at the town fool that could now talk. “ Instead of fighting, we could trick the Emperor into not wanting the rice anymore. What we will do is pretend to have really horrible diseases that had come from the rice. The Emperor will surely not want it after that,” Ping concluded. The crowd was silent for a while. Then the all started d cheering and smiling. You are a genius they all proclaimed. In a month the ruler’s men came back declaring for rice. They stopped in their tracks. The whole village was sick. There were men lying on the middle of the roads as pale as the rice itself. “ We don’t want this anymore,” said the soldiers, “keep it all for yourself.” They left and went to go to tell the Emperor that bad news. The village was joyful. They all cheered for Ping. From then on, he was not “Ping the Fool”, but “Ping the hero”.