Everyone thought Shen Yanzhi was the greatest wastrel in the Great Ming, promoted only because Old Zhu was blind. He paved roads with pure gold, insisted that soldiers eat meat three times a day during training, and recklessly dumped the treasury’s gold and silver into the sea. So many impeachment memorials against him piled up that they could not even fit in the Fengtian Hall.
It was only when the Eight-Nation Alliance tried to outflank the Great Ming by sea and its coastal defenses collapsed in an instant that the truth finally came to light. As scholars across the land wailed in despair that the Great Ming was doomed, the real story was revealed to all.
Standing at the bow of a colossal nuclear-powered aircraft carrier built from pure gold and high-strength steel, Shen Yanzhi fired a single shot that flattened the enemy nation’s entire coastline.
Only then was the whole world truly stunned. The pure gold he had used to pave the roads had been meant to construct an era-defying superconducting defense array. Every silver coin he had tossed into the sea had gone toward building invincible warships and cannons powerful enough to destroy the world. Every act of extravagance had been a desperate effort to keep the Great Ming alive!
Su Qinghan, the Great Ming’s foremost beauty and a cool, ethereal genius, gazed at the divine warship on the sea with utter adoration. She tore up her marriage contract with another noble family and swore before everyone that even if it cost her life, she would be the sheath for Lord Shen’s sword. The ruthless and domineering Empress of Northern Yuan went even further, throwing caution to the wind as she raced south and presented him with a map of the entire grassland, roaring that every woman in the Great Ming should be driven out so she could have this savior of the world all to herself.
When the accusations and curses of the entire world turned into frenzied worship of a god, who among those people who once thought he would bring down the Great Ming could still claim to gaze upon his dazzling brilliance?
