Transmigrating as Emperor Wang Mang

I am Wang Mang. People in later generations have called me a “transmigrator” and a “usurper who betrayed the Han.” Others have cursed me as “a mad idealist.” But do you know that when I brought the Western Han to an end with my own hands, Chang’an’s granaries were piled high with moldy millet, while starving people outside the city gnawed on dirt mixed with blood? Have those who curse me ever seen the great landlords’ granaries, dug three yards deep and still not reaching the bottom, while tenant farmers’ lives were worth less than grass? My life was a paradox. - In my early years, I rose to prominence as a “sage.” While the Wang clan’s imperial relatives lived in luxury, I remained frugal, cared for my widowed mother, raised my brother’s son, and even had my own son executed for breaking the law. The world praised my flawless virtue, but only I knew that it was more than a reputation: it was my weapon. I used it to bring down my political rival Chunyu Zhang, then rode auspicious omens and prophecies step by step to the pinnacle of power. - I founded the Xin Dynasty to create a “world of great harmony.” I abolished slavery and reformed the system, introducing the “Royal Fields Decree” to distribute land to the displaced. I cast bronze calipers to standardize weights and measures so merchants could no longer exploit the people. I established the “Five Equalizations and Six Controls” to stabilize prices... But the Confucian scholars who quoted Confucius and Mencius denounced me for violating the ancestral laws, while the powerful landlords whose land I seized hated me to the bone. - But did I lose to fate, or to the people’s hearts? At the Battle of Kunyang, Liu Xiu called down thunder and meteorites, routing my four-hundred-thousand-strong army. People call him the “Son of the Plane,” while I am no more than a “transmigrator defying heaven.”