Transmigrated as the Chongzhen Emperor: I Won't Kill Wei Zhongxian from the Start

Modern historian Zhao Chen’s soul travels back to the seventh year of the Tianqi era, where he becomes the newly enthroned Emperor Chongzhen. Facing the deadlock of a late Ming Dynasty beset by internal strife and foreign threats, he abandons the course laid out in the history books. He keeps Wei Zhongxian around as a weapon, using him to check the civil officials whose empty talk is ruining the country. Disguised as an ordinary man, he visits Shaanxi and, amid a dispute at a relay station, discovers Li Zicheng before his rise to power. He wins over the future rebel king with the ideal of “equal land distribution,” turning him into a firm shield for pacifying the common people. He also sees through Wu Sangui’s treacherous ambitions and carefully lays plans to eliminate the threat. Using Wei Zhongxian’s faction, he reinstates taxes on commerce and industry. With Li Zicheng’s help, he promotes military farming, and with his new army’s strength, he rebuilds the border defenses. Amid the gentry’s curses and the rebels’ blades, he carves out a path to survival by sheer force. When the Donglin faction’s memorials pile high on his desk, the Later Jin cavalry batter at the border, and Li Zicheng’s army of refugees stands alongside Sun Chuanting’s new troops, this “fate-defying” Chongzhen knows that killing one man is easy, but pacifying millions is hard; changing a dynasty’s system is easy, but changing hearts across the ages is hard. His imperial path uses both statecraft and compassion to extend the unfinished legend of the crumbling Great Ming.