Reborn as the Chongzhen Emperor: I Give the Ming Dynasty Another Five Hundred Years

He woke up to find he had transmigrated into the body of the newly enthroned, eighteen-year-old Chongzhen Emperor?

Looking at the empty treasury, the arrogant Donglin Party, the Manchu invaders poised beyond the frontier, and the white silk at Coal Hill that history had destined for him, Zhu Youjian smiled.

“Ding! Military Industry System bound. Reward: Blueprint for a Basic Flintlock!”

Late that night, in Zhonghe Hall, Zhu Youjian kicked Wei Zhongxian, the all-powerful “Nine Thousand Years,” to the floor. “Want to live? From today on, you’ll be my most loyal dog. Tear those greedy officials apart for me, the ones who never stop preaching benevolence and righteousness!”

From then on, the Ming dynasty took a sharp turn.

With Wei Zhongxian, he confiscated estates and wiped out entire families, filling the treasury with tens of millions of taels of silver. At the same time, he founded the Ming Academy of Sciences and put Xu Guangqi and Song Yingxing to work, building everything from flintlock rifles and breech-loading cannons to steam-powered ironclads, Maxim guns, and even World War II tanks!

Battle-hardened generals like Sun Chuanting and Lu Xiangsheng led the Ming cavalry to crush the Manchus, while the ocean-going fleet blasted open the gates of the world.

Then one day, when the System unlocked all his memories, Zhu Youjian’s eyes turned red. “So I wasn’t a transmigrator at all... In this life, I’ll make the Ming Empire one where the sun never sets!”