Chongzhen: Building the World's Strongest Nation

Wang Xiaowei, a Peking University scholar with two postdoctoral degrees, wakes up as Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian. Facing a nightmarish situation from the start, he laughs. Internal strife and foreign threats? Just a list of bugs to fix! Corrupt officials? Watch me write an “Anti-Corruption Scan Program”! A rotten army? Quantify new recruits' training with KPIs, and tie their pay directly to performance! The civil officials tremble as they hold their “Job Responsibility Agreements.” “Your Majesty, these… these annual targets are beyond my abilities!” Beyond the passes, Huang Taiji roars, “The Ming emperor fights dirty! Why can't my cavalry break through his ‘matrix formation’?” When Western sailing ships encounter “steam-powered treasure ships,” the whole world is dumbfounded. Meanwhile, Wang Xiaowei stands in the Forbidden City, speaking softly to the “Global Data Center” he built with his own hands: “Next KPI: an empire where the sun never sets? That can only be my Great Ming.”