The First Year of Chongzhen: The Emperor Guards the Nation's Gates

In the first year of the Chongzhen reign, a later-generation scholar of Ming history transmigrated into the emperor's throne as the dynasty teetered on the brink of collapse at Coal Hill.

Facing a dead-end crisis, beset by troubles within and enemies without, the eunuch guards ran rampant, the Donglin faction fought endlessly among itself, drought stretched for a thousand miles across northern Shaanxi, Later Jin cavalry battered at the passes, and the imperial treasury held less than a million taels of silver.

Using the history books as his blade, he first stripped Wei Zhongxian of his power, then broke the Donglin faction's grip. He reformed customs, modernized firearms, planted potatoes and seedlings amid famine during the Little Ice Age, and rebuilt the Guan Ning cavalry under the iron hooves in Liaodong.

When the fateful "Jisi Incident" recorded in history broke out three years early, he stood with sword in hand atop the Desheng Gate watchtower, watching the Shenji Battalion he had trained turn its Western cannons on the invading enemy. At last, he understood:

This elegy for a dynasty was never a final chapter ordained by Heaven. It was the beginning of a new story, with an emperor carrying a lamp into the abyss to rekindle the realm.