Late Ming: I Steal Chongzhen’s Throne, and Zhu Yousong Won’t Flee South

[Multiple heroines] + [Decisive and ruthless] + [Power fantasy] The fifth year of the Tianqi reign (1625): He transmigrates as Zhu Yousong, the Heir of Prince Fu. The butterfly effect takes hold: Emperor Tianqi falls into the water and is in grave danger, and a power vacuum is about to emerge. By the rules of succession, he is first in line to the throne after Prince Xin, Zhu Youjian. The time is right. Why shouldn’t the imperial throne belong to him, Zhu Yousong? To that end, he devises a three-step plan to seize the throne: Step 1: Present auspicious hybrid rice, break the ancestral rule forbidding princes from entering the capital, and slip into the city as a hidden dragon. Step 2: Exploit Zhu Youjian’s hatred of Wei Zhongxian for murdering his mother to drive a wedge between them. Step 3: Take command of an army loyal to him, then plant this dagger right beneath the emperor’s nose without anyone noticing. On the day Emperor Tianqi dies, the Forbidden City is swept up in a storm of change. The one who takes the throne is not Chongzhen, Zhu Youjian, but him: the Hongguang Emperor, Zhu Yousong! But ascending the throne is only the beginning. If benevolent rule cannot save the Great Ming, then he will carve out a bright new world with the blade of tyranny. Seize the eunuch faction’s wealth, kill the Donglin scholars, strip the imperial clan of its privileges, abolish the nobility, slaughter the Shanxi merchants, tax the gentry, execute the generals in Liaodong... You treat the state treasury as your private property and the common people as dirt. Then I will treat you like pigs and sheep! I will have the palace steps of the Forbidden City drenched in the blood of the powerful. I would rather bear the infamy of a tyrant for ten thousand generations than use the skulls of corrupt officials to build a new backbone for the empire. In this life, there will be no panicked flight south under Hongguang, only the new Ming emperor’s iron-fisted reforms. Who says Heaven’s Mandate belongs to Chongzhen? I, Zhu Yousong, will defy Heaven and win by half a move!