Po-yen was a powerful minister of the Chinese Emperor Tohan Timur (1320—1370). He thought of a very cruel plan to punish the people who were against the government.
He wanted to punish every man, woman, and child with the surnames Chang, Wang, Liu, Li, and Chao. These were very common Chinese surnames. At that time, 50 million people out of 56 million had these names.
So Po-yen planned to punish nine out of every ten Chinese people. Luckily, the Emperor was overthrown before the plan could happen.
