Transmigrated as the Scumbag Patriarch? I'm Devoted to the Hilt, So Please Don't Behead Me

[No System + Judge Bao + farming + lighthearted tone + romantic rivalry + multiple heroines]

Overnight, I transmigrate into the Great Song’s original scumbag patriarch, Chen Shimei!

In the imperial palace, the emperor decrees that I marry a princess?

At the thought of the gleaming dog-head guillotine in Kaifeng Prefecture, the patriarch’s survival instincts kick into overdrive!

This script has to change! Top Scholar Chen refuses the marriage on the spot, causing a sensation in Bianjing and thoroughly offending the royal family. They promptly kick him out to serve as magistrate of a godforsaken border county.

For most people, exile means despair. For the patriarch, it means opening up new territory!

Watching the Northern Song ship pitch and roll beneath the iron hooves of Jin, Chen Shimei grins: “Save the Great Song? I’ll take that job for now!”

No System? A modern man’s clever tricks are the ultimate cheat!

Factories roar, schools spring up everywhere, and military academies train the troops!

Insurance companies steady the people’s nerves, entertainment venues bring in cash, and real estate sends land prices soaring!

With modern ideas, the patriarch transforms a dirt-poor backwater county into a mighty steel fortress that makes Jin soldiers tremble.

The fires of war spread across the land. Jin’s cavalry tramples the realm, and the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun fall one after another, yet the Jin army cannot capture the patriarch’s little county, no matter how long it besieges it.

The Great Song loses half its territory and retreats south of the Yangtze. The patriarch displays his might and recovers the lost lands, stunning the world.

From then on, the patriarch commands a great army and controls the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun. Though he still publicly honors the Song emperor as his sovereign, in truth the Song, Jin, and his own power form a three-way standoff.

There’s no way the court can take his troops away. The patriarch is the protagonist of a power fantasy, after all. Rebellion and becoming emperor are the right path. That’s how these stories are written.

The greatest scoundrel in history? No, the greatest emperor of all time.

Excerpt from Unofficial Bianjing History: The Biography of Taizu Emperor Chen Shimei