You Asked Me to Edit Books, So Why Did I Arrest the Entire Court?

[Officialdom and political intrigue] [High-IQ protagonist] [Decisive and ruthless] [Rapid rise through the ranks] [Ruler-minister power plays] [Wits and strategy] [Transmigration] [Face-slapping] [Rags-to-riches comeback] Also known as “The Emperor Told Me to Take the Exam for Him, So I Locked Up All the Great Clans?” and “The Great Jing's Most Isolated Minister: From the Start, I Beheaded the Minister of Revenue.” In the forty-fifth year of the Jingxuan era, the Great Jing dynasty was rotten to its core. Great clans monopolized the court, corrupt officials lined their own pockets, and even the imperial examination, held once every three years, had its questions openly for sale. Gu Qing, a seventh-rank compiler, was an invisible nobody who worked on books at the Hanlin Academy. Then he was unexpectedly caught up in a case involving leaked examination questions. The entire court thought he was an easy target and planned to make him the scapegoat. What they didn't know was that this body housed a wily old fox with more than a decade of experience navigating the modern bureaucracy! “Want me to take the fall? Then none of us get to walk away!” Gu Qing flipped the board, rewrote the exam questions overnight, and had the Minister of Revenue's son thrown out of the examination hall in front of everyone! Afterward, he was transferred to the Court of Judicial Review, where he put modern criminal investigation techniques and statistics to brilliant use! No evidence? One “price trend chart” exposed the truth behind a shortfall of 300,000 shi of grain from the Tongzhou transport fleet! Falsified accounts? Cross-checking three sets of data uncovered a shocking case of the Ministry of Revenue smuggling weapons and aiding the enemy! Staring at mountains of confessions from corrupt officials, the old emperor gaped. “I only sent you to work on books. How did you end up having the entire court investigated and arrested?!” Gu Qing gave a slight bow. “Your Majesty, I was only doing the accounts. They were the ones who weren't clean.”