Emperor Chongzhen of the Great Ming turns the tables in this dark comedy. My Great Ming is surrounded by more than seventy transmigrators with golden fingers, and they won’t stop yammering.
Other transmigrators get cheat abilities as a bonus. My court, Zhu Youjian’s, gets demolished by cheat abilities. Golden lightning strikes, and the entire court’s officials have their minds replaced.
The “me” on the Dragon Throne starts shouting “steampunk! Industrial Revolution!” like a snake-oil salesman. The Ministry of Revenue proposes government bonds with a 12% annual yield, backed by nothing but air. The Ministry of War draws a Napoleon cannon on a tablet, then suddenly falters: “I forgot the gunpowder formula.” Hanlin Academicians abandon the eight-legged essay and argue themselves red in the face over “thermal efficiency.”
Meanwhile, the real Chongzhen, me, is squeezed into a corner of my own mind, watching this “heaven-sent talent show” as my inner monologue explodes: “Shaanxi is starving, Liaodong is ravaged by war, and rats are dying of hunger in the treasury. Do any of your billion-yuan PowerPoints have a slide on how I’m supposed to bring grain prices down?”
More absurd still, a System for thwarting transmigrators suddenly appears and issues a deadly mission: “Get the court debate implemented within twelve double-hours, or the Great Ming will be dismantled by a blueprint of chaos!”
And so the most miserable project manager in history comes online. The client is the dying Great Ming, and the contractors are seventy-nine dreamers who think they can pry the planet apart as long as they have the blueprints. I hit them with reality: “Your bond model may look beautiful, but the court is already bankrupt. Your flintlock may look impressive, but the craftsmen have already defected to Li Zicheng. Your blast furnace may be advanced, but there isn’t even a road into the coal mines!”
Watching them collapse from “changing the world” to “failing to source basic materials,” I find grim amusement in it. I used to worry about the dynasty falling. Now I’m worrying about getting these cloud-dwelling dreamers to patch the holes in reality.
