Don’t Panic Over Chongzhen’s Early Death: I’ll Have a Firearms Expert Save the Day

Lin Sui, a nationally renowned expert in detonators, was thrown back to the eighth year of the Chongzhen reign by a laboratory explosion.

He woke up as a low-ranking guard in the Qianqing Palace, with ten soldiers under his command and a battered old matchlock in his hands.

He had just started thinking about how to upgrade the thing when Chongzhen vomited blood and collapsed right in front of him.

A cerebral hemorrhage.

The imperial physicians dropped to their knees. “His Majesty has passed away!”

Empress Zhou wept uncontrollably, while the six-year-old crown prince stared on in bewilderment.

Lin Sui knew that once the news got out, the old foxes in the Grand Secretariat would never let a little boy take the throne.

So he stepped forward.

“Your Majesty, how long we can keep this news under wraps is up to you.”

From that moment on, this unremarkable palace guard became the only blade protecting a widowed empress and her orphaned son.

Wen Tiren wanted to put a prince of the collateral line on the throne? Lin Sui blocked the palace gates with fifty flintlock rifles.

The civil officials banded together to force a palace coup? He pinned Cao Huachun down in four moves, broke Luo Yangxing’s resolve with a few words, and brought the inner court, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and the upright scholars over to his side.

Thirty thousand Later Jin cavalry broke through the pass, and the capital’s garrison collapsed at the first clash.

With the entire court at a loss, Lin Sui led a thousand new troops out through Desheng Gate, carrying the flintlocks he had made himself.

In his tent, Duo’er smashed a teacup. “What the hell is with this Ming army? How can their guns shoot seventy paces?!”

Worse still, that loudmouth on the other side kept standing outside the camp gates and shouting:

“Duo’er! Your eldest brother was fathered by your mother and the stable hand!”

“Your third brother is Fan Wencheng’s bastard!”

“You’re the only Jurchen with a legitimate bloodline!”

Duo’er spent the whole night unable to sleep. What if… they really weren’t his father’s sons?

Lin Sui wiped down his gun barrel and smiled.