I Want to Be an Emperor Who Loses His Kingdom

(I may make small changes to the details of this blurb based on the outline before starting the novel, but the general idea won't change.)

-

Wei Changshu transmigrated into the body of a prince of the Great Wei dynasty. He grew up, ascended the throne, and vowed to accomplish great things and leave his name in history.

But he refused to take the Five-Stone Powder to prolong his life, and his frail health and crushing workload quickly wore down his spirit. He died just three years after ascending the throne.

After death, he became a wandering ghost and roamed Great Wei for ten years.

He watched helplessly as the ministers supported a young emperor from a collateral branch of the imperial family after his death. But the Great Wei dynasty was already nearing the end of its mandate: land was being consolidated into the hands of the powerful, the people were displaced, and corrupt officials were amassing wealth and influence on a massive scale.

Foreign powers bullied them, and the court was weak.

All the work Wei Changshu had put in during his three years on the throne, and the brief revival of Great Wei, vanished in an instant.

He: "..."

Damn it, he might as well have been the emperor who lost the country. At least he could have died with some dignity!

The one who overthrew Great Wei was Zong Mang, the sole surviving heir of the loyal and patriotic Marquis Huguo household.

Zong Mang would become a wise ruler of the new dynasty.

-

After ten years as a wandering ghost, his long dream ended, and Wei Changshu returned to a point one year after his ascension. He immediately summoned Zong Mang to the palace.

The rise and fall of dynasties was inevitable. Since Great Wei was rotten through and through and beyond repair, rather than let it rot in someone else's hands and bring suffering to the people, why not become the perfect kindling and burn this decayed dynasty to the ground?

He would help Zong Mang rebel and establish a new imperial dynasty.

Only...

Wei Changshu looked at the seventeen-year-old boy in front of him, his heart burning with patriotic zeal, and fell into deep thought.

There were two problems:

1. How could he stay alive until Zong Mang rebelled?

2. What could he do to make Zong Mang rebel?

-

At last, the day the capital fell arrived. The people cheered, the land was reclaimed from the powerful, and officials eager to curry favor with the incoming new emperor chopped up the fallen emperor Wei Changshu's bones and burned them as an offering to the gods.

The new emperor arrived at the altar at a gallop. Seeing the scattered bones, he could not even cry. He knelt on the ground, gathered every bone fragment to his chest, and trembled all over.

*

Wei Changshu, who had faked his death and escaped, was already in Jiangnan, planning to enjoy what little time he had left. On the road, he heard that the new emperor had ascended the throne and sighed with emotion.

The tangled affairs of this dynasty had nothing to do with him anymore.

That is, unless Zong Mang hadn't captured him and dragged him back (.

Theme: After a diseased tree comes a forest of new growth.