The Iron-Blooded Tianqi Emperor Zhu Youxiao of Great Ming

On the sixth day of the ninth month of the first year of Taichang, Emperor Taichang died. A 21st-century special forces soldier, Zhu Youxiao, opened his eyes in the body of the Ming dynasty’s eldest prince. Facing an imminent plot to seize him, he ascended the throne on the spot, crushed the Palace Relocation Crisis with an iron fist, appointed Wei Zhongxian to form a palace guard directly under his command, and retained Xiong Tingbi to stabilize Liaodong. In two years, he purged corrupt officials, reined in the nobility, and trained a new army, dragging the crumbling Ming dynasty back from the brink.

In the spring of the second year of Tianqi, Wang Shaoyu, commander-in-chief of Xuanfu, killed 337 frontier soldiers demanding their pay, then cut off civilians’ heads and falsely reported them as enemy casualties. The emperor flew into a rage and decreed three ironclad rules: military pay must be issued directly, heads must be verified, and military commanders must be supervised. At court, Minister of War Zhang Heming and Minister of Rites Sun Shenxing pleaded against the decree, even at the cost of their lives. In the Golden Hall, Zhu Youxiao himself seized a golden mace and beat to death a censor who had stepped forward to protest.

Cannon fire against Zhangjiakou Fort, a bloodbath in Xuanfu, a revolt in Jizhou, turmoil across the court and country: everyone thought the young emperor was playing with fire and courting his own destruction. They did not know this was exactly the battle he had been waiting for. What I want has never been the lives of a few corrupt officials. I want to turn the page on the entire frontier defense system once and for all.