A Bowl from the Start, and You Want Me to Be Empress?

[Conquest + transmigration + System + nation-building + empress + ensemble cast]

Transmigrated into a chaotic age and forced to flee famine from the start, you have to choose:

A. Disguise yourself as a man | B. Leave it all to fate

You decisively press A, and with nothing but a chipped bowl, struggle to survive with your little sister. You can't even get enough to eat, and at any moment you could be captured and treated as “two-legged mutton”...

At death's door, you have to choose:

A. Fight back with all your might | B. Kneel and beg for mercy | C. Golden finger, hurry up and show yourself!

You frantically press C. [Emperor Simulator, loading complete!]

Great. Looking at the strange panel that has appeared before her, Wang Heng nearly faints.

Treasury: 0, Population: 2, Territory: 0, Troops: 0

Wait, other people start with famous ministers and consorts. She starts with a fight for survival?

Fine, fine. She'll carve out a path with her own hands!

No food? The System has superior seeds that yield a thousand jin per mu.

No people? Then she'll train refugees into an army of steel.

No land? Then she'll take it back, inch by inch!

She drives the northern barbarians back, pacifies the pirates in the south, and wins maps offered in submission by the nations of the Western Regions. Her fleet's banners blot out the sky...

Years later, when a historian asks how this legendary ruler rose from humble beginnings to usher in a golden age and forge an empire on which the sun never sets, Wang Heng merely smiles and says:

“There's no such thing as destiny. It all comes down to, ”

“What you make of it.”

1. She disguises herself as a man early on, but will reclaim her identity later.

2. Her daughter inherits the throne; the father is unknown.

3. This is an alternate history. Don't scrutinize the details: the government systems and customs of the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties are all mixed together.

4. To make the story easier to read and names easier to choose, the author has omitted courtesy names for all characters, using titles and common forms of address instead.