Great Ming: I Saved a Little Princess, and Her Father Turned Out to Be the Chongzhen Emperor

I opened my eyes in the tenth year of the Chongzhen reign. Smoke rose across the land, and I’d become the most useless penniless nobody in the capital. Half-starved, I unexpectedly rescued a little girl as adorable as a porcelain doll. She was so sweet and soft, calling me “Brother Chu” every other sentence. She melted my heart. I planned to settle down and take care of her, but then I took a closer look. What? She was Princess Kunxing? The poor girl whose own father would one day have her arm chopped off? How could I stand for that?! I made my decision right there: I’d protect this girl! Not even Jesus could stop me, and that’s final! To make sure she had enough to eat and warm clothes, I brought out recipes for soap and white sugar, astonishing the Huizhou merchants! To give her toys to play with, I casually invented kaleidoscopes and wooden rocking horses, which took the capital by storm! But... the rebels were coming, the Manchus were coming, and Chongzhen, the girl’s father, was utterly useless! I had no choice. To keep my precious princess from crying, I rolled up my sleeves and saved the tottering Ming Dynasty along the way! Chongzhen: “Chu Heng, the treasury’s empty again!” Me: “Don’t worry, Father-in-law. Here! This is the maritime tax I just collected. Want to buy some local specialties from the Americas?”