Can a Cowardly Host Still Seize the Throne?

In the twenty-sixth year of Yongguang, Lin Zhe, a junior official in the Ministry of Revenue, was sent away from the capital to the southwest, demoted to a seventh-rank county magistrate.

Officials and scholars alike lamented that a promising young top scorer had been ruined by factional infighting. Xuzhou was so far away, with such long roads between it and the capital, that he might never return.

But Lin Zhe, who had received the decree and hurriedly fled the capital with his bundle: Ha! At last, the day I've been waiting for!

--No one knew that the top scorer was actually a woman.

*

Ten years later, a rebellion broke out among the princes of Jiangbei. A secret memorial also accused the powerful governor of Yunnan of hoarding troops and harboring treasonous ambitions.

The cabinet ministers were frantic, but could only dispatch an imperial inspector to oversee the southwest on the emperor's orders.

Before the inspector left the capital, he was secretly summoned before the emperor, who told him that if he ran into trouble, he could seek help from Lin Zhe, the assistant prefect of Yongning Prefecture.

"Lin Qiyan is truly one of my most trusted ministers!"

The inspector followed the imperial instructions and went to visit Lin Zhe at his residence as soon as he arrived in Yongning Prefecture. But after Lin Zhe ushered him inside and shut the doors, more than a dozen crossbows glinted as they aimed straight at him.

The top scorer smiled as he walked up to him and held up three fingers.

"You have three choices.

First, take a cut from our governor.

Second, go to Jiangbei, take a cut from the rebel prince, and die for your reputation as a loyal subject.

Third, take a cut from me."

Lin Zhe, whom the emperor regarded as his trusted lone minister and a pillar of the state, leaned close and whispered.

"Or hand over the tiger tally you're carrying, then join me in rebellion."

---Reader's Guide---

1. Set in a fictionalized middle to late Ming dynasty.

2. The story begins with the heroine being demoted and sent from the capital to serve as a county magistrate. She has a System, focuses on infrastructure in the early chapters, and disguises herself as a man until her identity is exposed in the middle of the story.

3. The male lead's role is to escort the tiger tally. He may not have very little page time, but his primary role is the heroine's subordinate.

4. The heroine may be somewhat cold-blooded. She has no heir during her campaign for power, and only designates an heir in the bonus chapters.

Theme: If no one supports my ambitions, I will climb to the clouds on my own.