Claiming the Throne: From Starving to Death to Becoming King

I was Jiang Huan, a business genius, betrayed by my partners and thrown to my death from a building.

I woke up as Prince Xiaobai of the Spring and Autumn Period, the very man who would one day become Duke Huan of Qi.

From the start, it was hell mode. Guan Zhong shot an arrow at me, but I pretended to be dead and survived. Then I made a night raid and seized the throne. Everyone wanted to kill Guan Zhong for revenge, but I said, “Killing him would be a waste. He’s worth an empire.”

I put my chancellor in a prison cart, and the entire court was in an uproar.

I used modern economic thinking to reform the state: a monopoly on salt and iron, currency warfare, the intelligence network known as the Black Ice Terrace, and the special forces called the Warrior Retainers. Others fought with troops; I fought with economics. In nine years, Qi’s GDP increased thirtyfold, the treasury overflowed, and the people prospered.

At the Alliance of Beixing, I was the first lord to summon the world.

At the Campaign of Shaoling, the coalition of eight states forced Chu to bow its head.

At the Alliance of Kuiqiu, the Son of Heaven of Zhou bestowed sacrificial meat upon me. I was the hegemon of all under heaven.

But I knew the ending history had in store for me. Forty years later, I would trust three treacherous ministers, be locked away in the palace, and starve to death. Maggots would fill my corpse, and no one would bury me for sixty-seven days.

Before Guan Zhong died, he told me, “Yi Ya cooked his own son, Shu Diao castrated himself, and Kai Fang abandoned his family. These three will surely bring chaos to Qi.”

I looked him in the eye and said, “Father Zhong, I’ll remember.”

But I still used them.

Because this time, I was going to rewrite history. I wasn’t Duke Huan of Qi, a man at fate’s mercy. I was an emperor of commerce from the modern age.

The three traitors? Three pieces on my chessboard.

Starving to death? That was a false story I left for posterity.

My true hegemony had only just begun.

Tags: Historical, Ancient, Struggle for Supremacy, Transmigration, Emperor, Cunning