Good news: I transmigrated.
Bad news: I became the third-to-last emperor of the Tang dynasty.
When Li Ye wakes, rain leaks through the rafters of the palace at Huazhou. His imperial robes have three holes in them, and the imperial kitchen serves him a bowl of cold porridge with so few grains of rice he can count them. Outside the city, Li Maozhen’s thirty thousand cavalrymen are at the gates, demanding that the emperor grant him the title of Prince of Qi. Inside, Chancellor Cui Zhaowei has spent the night drafting an edict of self-reproach, waiting for him to stamp it. The eunuch Liu Jishu is plotting to replace him with a more obedient emperor. And in Bianzhou, a man surnamed Zhu is sharpening his blade, a thousand miles away.
The history books give this young man’s fate just one line: In the first year of Tianyou, Zhu Wen murdered the emperor in Luoyang.
He has twelve years left.
Every emperor who ever cared about the people is long dead. Since fate has brought me here, I’ll settle these accounts myself.
Fengxiang forces its way into the palace? I’ll make them kneel and listen to my decree.
The Shatuo cavalry rides south? I’ll beat the drums atop Chang’an’s walls to welcome them.
Zhu Wen’s army reaches the gates? I’ll open them and invite him in for tea, then see if he dares to drink.
The Central Plains are a battleground on all sides. The regional warlords all have their own schemes, the civil officials are forever in tears, and the eunuchs live by the sword. Everyone thinks this young emperor won’t survive another autumn. But they don’t know this:
The man standing before them is an emperor who has read the script.
On the night assassins raided the palace, he stood in the courtyard clutching a bloodstained candlestick, with the last daughter of the Dugu family behind him, having taken a blade meant for him. The next day, Cui Zhaowei knelt in the courtyard and stared at the steps, where the bloodstains would not wash away. Suddenly, he felt that something was wrong.
And stranger things were yet to come.
The female strategist sent by the Pei clan of Hedong came to work through the accounts with him in a secret chamber. By the time they finished, she had somehow counted herself among his assets.
I've read a few chapters and I feel pretty good
That's obviously the case