The Founding Empress

Updated irregularly. ** Two-faced, scheming, growth-oriented empress X endlessly resourceful, green-tea male empress An orphan girl seizes the throne and becomes emperor. This is not a story where women rule over men. Pei Ying's birth was a momentous event for the Great Jing Dynasty. She was born during a change of imperial power. As she let out her first cry, the old emperor in the neighboring Qilin Palace breathed his last. The newly enthroned emperor was her uncle, barely five years old and unable to speak clearly... Before Pei Ying had even turned a month old, both her parents had died. She was adopted by Empress Dowager Qi. She studied and learned etiquette, growing year by year. At fifteen, she came of age and was granted the title of princess, with the style "Ban Yi." The Great Jing Dynasty has lasted more than five hundred years, and now its days are numbered. Every industry is in decline, the people are destitute, and banditry is rampant: put down one group and another springs up. Emperor Bai Wuyi has been fighting bandits ever since he could talk. Princess Ban Yi, always a loyal dog at the Empress Dowager's side, naturally leads the charge against the bandits. Officials and merchants collude, taxes are ruthlessly extorted, and the nobles and ministers feast and sing every night, asking, "Why don't the people eat meat porridge?" After a flood, hundreds of thousands are driven from their homes, chewing clods of earth and stripping bark from trees to survive... Princess Ban Yi looked at the soldiers behind her and thought, Maybe I should rebel too. I'm sick of this rotten world. And so she rebelled, for ten years. Ten years later, a new dynasty was established, its name Yong. The people were enlightened, the nations lived in harmony, and the realm flourished under benevolent rule. She was the founding emperor. Her descendants all bore the surname Pei, and their family crest was a proud Suanni. -- "The people were enlightened, the nations lived in harmony, and the realm flourished under benevolent rule" is quoted from the "Canon of Yao" in the Book of Documents. Theme: Who says women are inferior to men?