Hongwu's Anti-Corruption Ban? I Legally Emptied the Treasury!

Zhao Jing transmigrates to the Hongwu era of the Ming dynasty and becomes a low-ranking ninth-grade official, bound to the Great Ming Legal Loophole System.

Whenever he exploits a loophole in Ming law, the decree Zhu Yuanzhang issues to patch it becomes a god-tier halo for him!

In the early Hongwu era, Zhu Yuanzhang launches a bloody purge of corrupt officials and lays down a strict law: "Anyone who embezzles more than sixty taels will be skinned alive and stuffed with straw."

While officials are so poor they have to live on chaff, Zhao Jing quietly starts up a Great Ming version of Pinduoduo and a legal commercial monopoly. Without embezzling a single coin from the treasury, he earns every last bit of the court officials' salaries and becomes richer than the state!

Zhu Yuanzhang spends half a month checking the books with a knife in hand, then discovers to his astonishment that the young man has done it all through legal business dealings without breaking a single Ming law!

The next day, Old Zhu issues an urgent decree, his eyes bloodshot: "Court officials are strictly forbidden from doing business privately to amass wealth!"

Zhao Jing smiles faintly. "Ding! The emperor's patch has been triggered. Halo awakened: God of Wealth Descends. Legal earnings from all non-commercial activities increase ten thousandfold!"

From then on, the whole Ming dynasty goes completely off the rails.

Forbidden to do business? He puts on the Great Ming's first charity gala, making regional princes bankrupt themselves with donations just to save face!

Forbidden to take bribes? He opens the Great Ming's first tutoring academy, where Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen line up to pay exorbitant tuition!

Three years later, looking at the treasury so empty you can hear it ring and Zhao Jing richer than the state, Zhu Yuanzhang breaks down. "How did my Great Ming become your legal property?!"