The Hostage Prince’s Plan to Rule: A Reformer Who Never Took Life Seriously

A hostage prince from Southern Chu and a wastrel in Great Qi, Shen Zhao rolls dice at the Drunken Fragrance House while a secret report in his sleeve lists the sums embezzled by twelve officials in the Revenue Ministry. As he puts an arm around a songstress and banters with her, he listens to bloody reports of uprisings three thousand li away. Everyone thinks he's a useless hostage who lives off others and waits to die, but they don't know this "good-for-nothing" is using the most absurd disguise to dismantle and rebuild Great Qi's rotten-to-the-core bureaucracy, rotten for a hundred years. Only when Chief Councillor Su Dingfang's official hat was flung onto the Golden Hall floor did he realize: that rascal who was always falling off his horse in front of his estate had long since put a blade to his throat.