Qin Weique, a powerful modern businesswoman, dies in a car crash and transmigrates to the end of the Sui dynasty, becoming Empress Xiao just as the Jiangdu coup is about to erupt. The first thing she sees when she wakes is a blood-soaked corpse, along with a countdown: in fifty-eight hours, the rebels will massacre the palace.
Armed with the historical knowledge she gained at a top university and the political cunning she honed at a multinational conglomerate, she turns the Jinyun Hall into a game board and lays one deadly trap after another: sowing discord among the rebels, poisoning the imperial physician, and purging the court. In a single night, Yuwen Huaji and Sima Dekan are beheaded, and thirty thousand Xiaoguo troops change hands. When Yang Guang sees that his frail empress has become a ruthless regent, an even more perilous contest is only just beginning.
From suppressing rebellions by powerful clans to introducing potatoes and sweet potatoes, from establishing the Imperial Examination System 2.0 to developing gunpowder and cannons, from paving roads with cement to issuing government bonds, she remakes the Sui dynasty with modern ideas. She crushes Li Yuan at home and campaigns against the Turks abroad, expanding the realm to Persia, Tibet, and Japan. She trains Wu Zetian to succeed her, and Yang Guang ultimately abdicates in her favor, making her the first empress in history.
But when a “guest star” draws near Earth and an alien civilization turns its gaze toward them, she discovers that her transmigration was no coincidence. From palace intrigue to interstellar expeditions, this is a civilizational experiment spanning a thousand years, and she is both a pawn and the one moving the pieces.
Faced with assassinations and military coups during time travel, they responded calmly, the plot was compact, not muddled, and decisive in killing. The characters are clearly drawn and have personality. Worth reading.