How to Take Out Nobodies and Become Emperor

[Ensemble Cast + Political Intrigue + Nation-Building + Powerful Heroine + Princess Becomes Emperor]

A sensation swept through Bianjing. Princess Zhaoyang, the legitimate daughter of the Empress, had fallen out with the Emperor and Empress over the top scholar of the imperial examinations, and swore she would marry him.

Rumor had it that Princess Zhaoyang had fallen head over heels for her consort. She would even wash her hands and cook for him.

This lovestruck entanglement went on for three years.

In the eighteenth year of Kangsheng, Princess Zhaoyang was "molested" by a beggar in the street and fainted in shock. When she woke, it was as if someone else had taken over her body.

Xiao Jingjun: I must have been mad to do something like this.

Beggar: That's right, Your Highness was indeed under a spell from Nanjiang.

Xiao Jingjun: What a vicious scheme.

How could that impoverished scholar, her consort, possibly get his hands on a spell like that?

She followed the clues, hoping to expose the vicious mastermind, only to uncover an even greater conspiracy.

Tsk. She hadn't planned to fight her brothers for the throne, but now she had already become a thorn in the side of so many people.

If she refused to fight, she would only die sooner.

Casting aside her former lovestruck ways, Princess Zhaoyang put righteousness before family and petitioned to investigate the imperial examination fraud. She even gave her former consort's whole family a free ten-year trip to Ningguta.

She quelled the plague, suppressed bandits, executed corrupt officials, repelled the Xiongnu, and earned glorious military honors.

She built roads, provided disaster relief, and cut taxes. All the people in her fief praised Princess Zhaoyang's virtue.

When Princess Zhaoyang returned to court, she looked around. Few of her ambitious royal brothers remained.

When she petitioned to be named Crown Prince, a group of censorial officials objected:

"There has never been a woman who became Emperor!"

Xiao Jingjun looked up at the dissenters and smiled.

"Then I shall be the first."