Glimpses of a King's Life

Watched the movie Chu Yuan-chang 朱元璋 in YouTube and caught a glimpse of the early life of the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor:

• Chu Yuan-chang was born to a family of impoverished peasants. Records stated that his parents were farmers in Zhongli Village in the Huai River plain, that is present day Fengyang, Anhui Province.
• Chu Yuan-chang lived with his parents and another brother. Records stated that he had seven older siblings and his parents had given several away because they were too poor to feed them.
• Chu Yuan-chang was a Buddhist monk. In the movie and historically, he became a monk after his parents died and he became a destitute. A drought had ruined the harvest and famine had claimed the lives of his parents and many others.
• Don't know for sure if the movie is 100 per cent accurate though. In the movie, Chu Yuan-chang went to school for a brief period when he was a boy where he learned to read and write. Being poor, he brought charcoal to be used as ink snd a stone slab to write on. Records however had it that he learned to read and write from the Buddhist monks in Huangjue Temple; that was the Buddhist monastery he was attached to.