Transmigrating to the Late Ming: I Will Become the Most Benevolent Emperor in the Land

The Forbidden City.

Lin Chen opened his eyes and discovered he had become the emperor who would hang himself on Coal Hill, the ruler of a fallen dynasty.

He knew how history would unfold. In seventeen years, Li Zicheng would breach Beijing, the Eight Banners would enter through the passes, and the land would fall into chaos.

To survive, and to keep hundreds of millions of people from becoming slaves, he chose the harshest path.

Imperial Guards: Boys selected from among the refugees, trained to be blades loyal only to the emperor. If their own parents stood in their way, they would show no mercy.

Military Farms: The entire nation was organized into military camps, and the people reduced to tools of production. Grain went to feed the horses first, a policy called "horses eating people."

Royal Gazette: The written word was sharper than a blade. If they said you were a traitor, then a traitor you were. Public opinion was entirely under control.

Embroidered Uniform Guards: A shadow of secret-police rule fell over the country. Failing to praise the emperor was a crime.

Was this tyranny? Perhaps.

But when the Eight Banner cavalry of Hong Taiji starved amid the corpses on the scorched earth of North Zhili, when the heads of the rebel bandits lined the city walls, when the black soil of Liaodong once again bore the banner of the Great Ming!

Who could say this wasn't another kind of salvation?

And the young emperor, high above it all, looked down upon mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, with only one thought in his heart:

I will not only be a "benevolent ruler," but the greatest "benevolent ruler" in the world, one whom it is a "crime" not to praise!