The Mad Minister of the Great Ming

After transmigrating to the late Ming, Xu Zheng makes a decision: he will not become emperor. Everyone else who transmigrates becomes an emperor. He refuses. All he wants is to become the greatest Grand Tutor in the Ming. Starting as a refugee in Teng County, hunted by routed soldiers, he uses his knowledge of history to set traps, launch ambushes, and push through reforms. He face-slaps the gentry, crushes the Qing army, and brings the rebel forces under his command, carving a path through the chaos of the late Ming. He declares in public, “I don’t want to be any kind of emperor in this life.” But when he takes Xuzhou, installs the crown prince, and launches a northern campaign into the Central Plains, the people of the realm realize that this Grand Tutor who refuses to become emperor is the one who truly holds the fate of the Ming in his hands. Dorgon’s final words: “With Xu Zheng in the Ming, the Qing will have an enemy for ten thousand generations.”