In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the rebel army breached the capital, officials welcomed the invaders, and the Great Ming dynasty teetered on the brink of collapse. At Coal Hill, facing certain defeat, the Chongzhen Emperor flipped the table in a rage. He mortgaged the fortune of the Great Ming and the Forbidden City, then borrowed a hundred million taels of silver from the System at a cutthroat rate!
"Ding! One hundred million taels of silver deposited. Monthly interest: ten percent. Soul will be erased if payment is overdue!"
Staring at the outrageous loan contract, Chongzhen's eyes turned bloodshot. He became a mad tyrant on the spot, spending money like water and summoning an all-star roster of legendary figures!
Xiang Yu, the Conqueror of Western Chu; Bai Qi, the God of War; and Zhuge Liang, the peerless demon chancellor, all descended upon the Imperial Ancestral Temple!
And so, the entire world went completely off the rails.
Li Zicheng had just taken the throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony when the doors were blasted apart by a halberd.
Xiang Yu appeared like a demon god. "So you're the Rebel King? I hear you're loaded. Lend me your head and military pay so I can cover some interest for our emperor!"
All the officials knelt before Meridian Gate, wailing about being broke. Bai Qi led the Qin elite troops to seal off the nine gates, bloodlust in his eyes.
"His Majesty's decree: no prisoners, only cash! Strip the silk robes off every official and sell them for scrap to pay off the debt!"
In the Grand Secretariat, Zhuge Liang trembled as he examined the System's ledger.
"Your Majesty! Even back in Shu Han, I never saw such a crooked financial pit as this interest scheme that turns nine into thirteen!"
To scrape together tens of millions of taels in monthly payments, Chongzhen went completely berserk!
The corrupt officials in the capital have been stripped of their wealth? Go plunder the Eight Great Shanxi Merchant Houses!
The Shanxi merchants have been picked clean? Go raid the Manchus beyond the passes!
The Manchus are so poor they've pawned their last pair of trousers? Send the Great Ming's invincible fleet to sea and squeeze every last drop from the whole universe!
Years later, when the Great Ming's steam-powered ironclad fleet swept through the English Channel,
