When Lin Zhou, a 32-year-old editor at a current affairs media outlet, died suddenly at his computer after staying up all night revising an article, he opened his eyes to find himself in the body of Prince Cheng, Zhu Qiyu, in the fourteenth year of the Zhengtong era of the Ming dynasty. In history, Zhu Qiyu had ascended the throne in a crisis, only to die mysteriously after the Coup at the Gate of the Palace, a tragic emperor.
The terrible news of the Tumu Crisis had just reached the capital. His elder brother, Zhu Qizhen, had become a captive of the Oirats; Wang Zhen’s former cronies held sway over the government; calls to move the capital south were growing louder; and the Ming dynasty teetered on the brink. At this critical moment, the “Martyr System” suddenly bound itself to him. Each day, it granted one recruit, turning an unknown nobody into an utterly loyal martyr, and came with a “Scandal Archive” capable of organizing intelligence.
As a modern editor, Lin Zhou understood the power of public opinion. He was no longer the timid Prince Cheng, but a mastermind wielding both the written word and an intelligence network. He sent martyrs to infiltrate enemy camps and gather irrefutable proof that Wang Zhen’s cronies had embezzled military pay, then used the Capital Gazette to stir public outrage and purge the court of its rotten core. He fabricated the story that “Oirat leader Esen deeply loves Zhu Qizhen,” undermining the Oirats’ attempt to use Zhu Qizhen as a hostage. And he wrote The Overbearing Grand Secretary Fell for Me, using public opinion to shatter the trust between corrupt officials and root out the corruption left over from the Yingzong era.
From regent to emperor, from the defense of Beijing to the Jingtai reforms, he used martyrs as his eyes and scandals as his blade, maneuvering between the civil officials, the aristocracy, and Zhu Qizhen, who was under house arrest in the Southern Palace. When Shi Heng and Xu Youzhen plotted the Coup at the Gate of the Palace, he had already laid a web of public opinion through the court gazette, using an article titled Zhu Qizhen’s Crime Is That He Is Not Emperor Xuanzong’s Son to completely crush the restoration plot.
