Zhu Jingxuan of the Great Ming

Above the imperial throne, twenty-two-year-old Zhu Jingxuan smiled. At his feet lay the petition presented by the Tatar envoys: cede territory, arrange a marriage alliance, and pay annual tribute. Outside the hall, three thousand pickled enemy heads glared from wooden crates. He tore off a corner of the petition and stuffed it into a head's mouth. "I will not give up a single inch of my realm." Before his words had faded, a new-style red cannon roared, shattering the glazed roof tiles. This was the first court assembly of the Jingtai reign.

[This isn't palace intrigue. It's major surgery on the nation.]

Taking a hard line against foreign powers was only the beginning. Blood petitions from the people were sewn into the emperor's dragon robe, and codes for siphoning off money were hidden in the Ministry of Revenue's ledgers. From the weapons black hole, where new firearms had a 30 percent misfire rate, to salt and iron smuggling, with accounts written on Dutch paper, corruption had sunk deep into the empire's bones. The emperor held military power in one hand and the ledgers in the other, forming a "mathematical execution squad" under his direct command. If a province's population grew by 2 percent while its grain taxes surged by 20 percent, the prefect's head would be nailed to the city gate alongside the accounts.

[In the end, the enemy turns out to be the creator.]

When the blade of anti-corruption finally pointed at the mysterious "Pavilion of Great Peace," the truth was suffocating: the leader of this shadow organization, which had manipulated the court for a century, was the imperial tutor he respected most. Its members included the father of his trusted female official and the mentor of the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. They manufactured foreign threats and cultivated corrupt officials, all to carry out one ultimate test: "Your Majesty, are you worthy of this iron-blooded realm?"

[A twist ending: I rewrite the rules.]

After the bloodbath, Zhu Jingxuan did something that made everyone kneel: he established history's first "mechanism for the withdrawal of imperial power"...