The Tang Dynasty's Spendthrift Son

In the sixteenth year of the Zhenguan era, Li Yuanying transmigrates into the Tang dynasty as its most infamous wastrel prince.

Everyone in Chang’an calls him ridiculous: he spends two thousand taels on a run-down blacksmith shop, ten thousand taels on worthless rocks from foreign merchants, and insists on building an alchemy furnace before leaving for Liangzhou.

The court officials laugh at him as useless. The Crown Prince and Prince Wei treat him like a pawn, while Li Shimin sees him as nothing more than a spoiled, dissolute member of the imperial clan.

That is, until Tibetan troops surround Liangzhou, the food runs out, the city walls fall, and the people’s resolve begins to crumble.

Then the first palm-thunder bomb explodes atop the walls, and Tibetan cavalry are blown to pieces.

Only then does the world finally understand:

What he squandered was not family wealth, but provisions, weapons, gunpowder, and cavalry: an entire frontier army capable of reshaping the empire.

Chang’an laughs at him for squandering his fortune.

Liangzhou hails him as its king.

But Li Yuanying has never wanted just one city. He wants the future of the entire Tang dynasty.

Historical what-if, transmigrate, Tang dynasty, Zhenguan era, wastrel, prince, cunning, court intrigue, war, frontier army, military industry, gunpowder, wish fulfillment, decisive and ruthless, play the pig to eat the tiger, ensemble cast, court politics, struggle for supremacy, Tibet, defense of Liangzhou

Ancient historical, transmigrate, alternate history, rulers and generals