The Entire Army Knows I’m a Drill Instructor

A cool-on-the-outside, warm-on-the-inside young general 🐯 × an earnest, down-to-earth transmigrated woman 🐲

Everyone in the army knew there was something unusual about the new refugee woman. First, she had people line up in three columns to receive porridge, giving priority to the elderly, the weak, women, and children.

Then she organized the women in camp to reclaim wasteland, making sure the fields were divided among households and each person had a clear responsibility.

She even set up a system for Jiang Huaiping's army to requisition military supplies, with a three-tier approval process and signed requisition forms for every item, standardizing the army's logistical management.

When Jiang Huaiping finally couldn't hold back and asked, "What exactly did you do before?"

Mei Jia'an blurted out, "Reporting to the general, I was a team leader."

Jiang Huaiping: ?

He had no idea what kind of official a team leader was, but he knew one thing: if you distrust someone, don't employ them; if you employ them, don't distrust them.

And so Mei Jia'an smoothly took charge of the entire army's grain and logistics. Using workshop management methods, she organized teams, assigned duties, set schedules, and kept accounts, turning a chaotic camp into an efficiently run logistics base. Later, the city's taxes, household registers, and farmland also came under her management.

Jiang Huaiping was a brilliant tactician and a fearless warrior. As he fought from the Rushi River all the way to the northern frontier, she rode north with the army on a grain cart, reclaiming land and establishing farms, building irrigation works, setting up ironworks, and opening supply routes connecting three prefectures and seven counties.

As he swept away bandits along the way and marched on the capital to rescue the emperor, she followed behind the main force, planning every move. On a map, he marked the routes of attack, while she marked the grain depots along the way.

On the day the capital was pacified, he purged treacherous officials. Then, using the emperor as leverage to command the feudal lords, he compelled the empress dowager to seal two edicts. One promoted him to first-rank Cavalry General, granted him the title Duke of Dingguo and the honor of Pillar of the State, and further appointed him Grand Marshal of the Armies, placing all military and civil affairs across the realm under his authority.

The other appointed Mei Jia'an as Minister of Agriculture, a third-rank official, granted her the title of Marquis Who Founded the State and the honor of Guardian of the State. He wanted her, a woman, to take her place among the Nine Ministers and oversee the realm's granaries, agriculture, military farming colonies, farming initiatives, and price-stabilization granaries.

From then on, all financial, agricultural, and civil affairs handled by the Ministry of Agriculture were reported directly to the Grand Marshal's office, beyond the control of the Six Ministries.

When the empress dowager asked him, "Aren't you afraid she'll become another powerful Palace Eunuch?"

Jiang Huaiping replied, "I've even given her my private seal as Grand Marshal. I can see every account she handles, and everyone in the realm can see every rule she sets. If Your Majesty doesn't believe me, you can send an imperial censor to investigate."

In the end, the empress dowager gave in to his authority and agreed.

When the appointment edict was issued, the entire court erupted.

The Minister of Rites invoked ritual and tradition, the Minister of Personnel cited the system of official selection, and the Vice Minister of Revenue sneered that she should have to start at the bottom.

Mei Jia'an opened her ledgers in court and read out the figures one by one: a shortfall of 120,000 dan in the price-stabilization granaries, forty percent of the Imperial Guard's pay going to nonexistent soldiers, and 9,000 strings of coins in taxes evaded by rice merchants. Behind every fraudulent account stood a neatly dressed senior courtier in the hall.

"You're willing to entrust the nation's granaries to an idle old official, but you can't bear to let someone who has painstakingly laid out every shortfall enter this court. This isn't about rules for appointing officials. Do I really have to spell out the motives you're hiding behind those rules?"

Not a single one of the old men in the hall dared to answer.

Before court convened, Mei Jia'an had already posted notices at all nine gates of the capital. Anyone whose land or property had been seized by the Palace Eunuch's faction, or who had been forced into slavery, could submit a petition for redress to the Ministry of Agriculture. That very night, a long line had formed outside the government office.

There were longtime residents whose ancestral homes had been seized, soldiers' elderly mothers whose sons' pay had been fraudulently claimed, and widows whose husbands had been murdered for refusing to falsify accounts...

Mei Jia'an accepted each petition one by one, attached an investigation form to each, and numbered and filed every case in red ink.

At the public trial on the imperial avenue, she brought out the Palace Attendant's secret ledgers, grain inspection records, and the rice merchants' original files, linking together the evidence that the Palace Eunuch's faction had sold off government grain, embezzled military pay, and hoarded goods to drive up prices.

Jiang Huaiping sat high in the great hall. At his command, the Palace Attendant's head struck the bronze gong inscribed with the words "The Realm Belongs to All." She stepped down from the public trial platform and comforted the people who had suffered wrongful persecution.

She personally investigated the rice merchants, sealed their estates, recovered the stolen military pay, and eliminated fictitious positions, transforming the Ministry of Agriculture from a mere stamp-issuing office into a place that made corrupt officials tremble.

The empress dowager watched it all with cold eyes. In the end, she was forced to seal a third edict, formally appointing Mei Jia'an Grand Minister, a first-rank official, granting her the title of Princess of An State and the honor of Pillar of the State.

Jiang Huaiping and Mei Jia'an ruled the realm together.

Later, after Jiang Huaiping had unified the realm and ascended the throne, he left the palace's six quarters empty and made Mei Jia'an his sole empress. He reformed the system of female officials, allowing the empress to participate in government and court deliberations, and to command military forces, giving her authority equal to the emperor's.

Someone asked why the imperial harem had only one empress.

He said, "She alone can do the work of my entire Secretariat."

Those were Jiang Huaiping's true feelings. A woman like her should not be confined to the inner palace. From the ladle serving porridge in the refugee camp to the official seal of the Ministry of Agriculture, from the farming records of Yanyun to the realm's tax ledgers, she had already carved her name into her era and the history books of generations to come.

[Reading Guide]

1. The female lead has no romantic experience before the male lead. She was born in a remote rural village in the 1960s. In her previous life, her parents forced her to marry before she had even finished middle school (at that time, the country had not yet made nine years of compulsory education universal). She was not yet twenty when she fled to Shenzhen to find work. In truth, I originally wanted to write a period novel about business, and the female lead really is inspiring and exceptional.

The male lead knows about her past. He simply feels for her. In my fictional world, there is no chastity arch tradition. Love is not bound by status or position; as long as two people share the same ideals, they can be together. The male lead trusts and relies on the female lead, both in governing the country and in their relationship.

2. Happy ending.

Theme: No matter what circumstances you find yourself in, face life with a positive attitude.