When Zhu Yuanzhang consulted the master and asked how he could unify the world, the master just said to Zhu Yuanzhang: Build walls high, accumulate grain widely, and become king slowly. It was this sentence that made Zhu Yuanzhang understand what he was going to do in the future. It was precisely because of the master's advice that Zhu Yuanzhang laid a solid foundation for his subsequent proclaimed emperor.

So what does this sentence mean? In fact, this sentence is the master's warning to Zhu Yuanzhang not to rush to become king, but to lurk, quietly consolidate the territory he already has, and accumulate food, weapons and other things, waiting for the opportunity to rise to the top in one fell swoop.

After hearing the master's advice, Zhu Yuanzhang silently remembered the master's advice to him. It was not until he later eliminated the forces of Chen Youliang and Zhang Shicheng after many battles that he proclaimed himself the king. It can be said that if Zhu Yuanzhang had proclaimed himself king early that year, he would not only have faced attacks from Zhang Shicheng and Chen Youliang, but also from the imperial court and the Yuan Dynasty at that time. Then Zhu Yuanzhang will face a situation where everyone in the world is his enemy. And Zhu Yuanzhang, an emerging force, will inevitably be extinguished while he is still a small flame.

Zhu Yuanzhang can suppress his ambitions and desires when they are very inflated, and then tolerate them. This is the fundamental reason why Zhu Yuanzhang can succeed. After Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, he still regarded these nine words as one of his life principles. It was precisely because of this that he was able to consolidate the Ming Dynasty's regime and lay a good foundation for the Ming Dynasty's centuries-old foundation.