“Who says only upright officials can win battles?”
Qi Yuan’s soul transmigrated into the body of Qi Jiguang. Seeing the starving, sickly soldiers in the garrison camp, he tore up the Confucian classics on the spot.
The Ming court has no money to pay the troops?
He’ll use financial leverage to monopolize maritime trade and raise the silver himself!
The upright officials at court impeach him for greed, womanizing, consorting with eunuchs, and building up his own army?
What a coincidence: he’s the top supporter of Yan Song, the Grand Secretary. His accusers are dismissed on the spot.
At home, he’s the peerless warlord who makes every Ming official grind their teeth, wielding power with an iron fist.
But when the Japanese pirates attack, the civil officials who know nothing but empty talk tremble in fear.
His Qi Army receives the highest pay in the Ming, eats white flour and raw meat, and carries improved firearms. They grind three thousand real Japanese pirates into the dirt like sacks of silver!
“So what if I’m corrupt? Every ounce of silver I take becomes a cannon to blast the pirates to pieces or compensation for the families of my fallen brothers! As long as my soldiers can eat their fill and turn that pack of beasts into a monument of skulls, I’m the most loyal subject in all of Great Ming!”
