Chapter 1
I woke up as one of history’s most notoriously vicious empresses.
My powerful, overbearing family had put me on the throne beside the emperor.
I had killed his first love—the crown prince’s birth mother—and taken the boy to raise as my own.
Disgusted with the emperor’s inadequacies, I had taken the grand tutor as my lover. I had even tried to murder the emperor and seize power myself.
Both father and son hated me to the marrow. They were planning to kill my father and brothers, then have me torn apart by five horses.
Oh, wonderful. Starting out on nightmare difficulty. What was I supposed to do with that?
At first, I tried to redeem myself.
The crown prince studied day and night, so I sent him ginseng soup and rare books whose teachings were closely guarded secrets.
The palace maid came back to report, “His Highness poured out every drop of the soup you made for him and fed it to the dogs!”
A eunuch added, “He burned all the books you went to such trouble to find!”
My informant repeated his words verbatim: “The crown prince says you’re a born bitch. The more he ignores you, the harder you’ll try to please him.”
Me? A born bitch?
My personal maid was furious.
“All these years, His Highness has relied on being the only prince left in the palace. He’s certain he’ll be emperor one day, and he shows Your Majesty less respect by the day. If you hadn’t saved him back then, how could he ever have come this far?”
Faced with my indignant maid and informant, I remained perfectly calm.
“Bring me all the princesses in the harem whose mothers have died. It’s been a while. Let’s enjoy a little mother-daughter time.”
I had always turned a blind eye to the palace’s open struggles and hidden schemes.
One crop of princes after another had died. The crown prince really was the only son left.
But that was all right. There were still daughters.
Who said only a man could be heir to the throne?
Being the heir was a position, not a gender.
When I first took the crown prince into my care, he had inherited his father’s intelligence. He was an utter imbecile.
Only by pouring money into his standing and hiring distinguished teachers had I dragged him back from the brink of idiocy to become the crown prince of today.
If I could educate one child, why couldn’t I educate another?
So I established a school in the palace. I summoned Grand Tutor Pei—the very man I was rumored to be sleeping with—to teach, and invited all the princesses who had never been entitled to attend lessons.
I stopped sending the crown prince ginseng soup. Every bowl went to my daughters instead.
“Whichever one of you does best,” I told them, “I will acknowledge as my own legitimate daughter. You all understand what that means, don’t you?”
A row of pretty girls dropped to their knees in perfect unison, crying, “Long live our imperial mother!”
The candles in the school burned until midnight.
Competition, you see, was the greatest driver of productivity.
They stopped competing with other women and started competing with men. No more beautiful jewels. No more fashionable new clothes.
Instead of comparing their looks, they compared how many books they had memorized and how well they could write essays on statecraft.
Every one of them studied fiercely, vying to become my daughter.
Their progress was astonishing.
That unsettled the crown prince.
“Mother, why have you dismissed Grand Tutor Pei from teaching me and sent him to teach my younger sisters?”
I patted his cheek with a smile. “You’re already so clever. You’ve finished your studies. Grand Tutor Pei has nothing left to teach you.”
He looked rather pleased with himself. “His learning is indeed limited. It’s time I left the schoolroom and learned to command troops.”
The fool. A couple of compliments, and he actually believed them.
I smiled without answering, then took up his suggestion. “Very well. Your second uncle commands troops on the frontier. Go and learn from him.”
Off the crown prince went, delighted.
Grand Tutor Pei stepped out from behind the curtains, cool and composed.
I took his hand and smiled. “Did you hear that? Apparently, your learning is rather limited.”
He went on reading and marking papers, untroubled. “I don’t care.”
The next morning, I slept very late indeed.
The person beside my pillow had energy to spare. He had risen early and gone to the school to supervise the princesses’ studies.
Yawning, I wrote my second brother a letter, telling him to ruin that stupid crown prince with praise.
My brother gave him a small force of his own at the training camp.
During every exercise, all the other units let the crown prince win. In time, he began to believe he really was a military genius.
He even wrote triumphantly to the emperor and me:
“Father, Mother, I have considerable talent for warfare. Father, please transfer my second uncle’s military command to me.”
The emperor set down the letter and pondered it for a while.
I idly tended the candle flame. “Your Majesty is still in the prime of life, yet the crown prince is already so eager for military power. That could threaten your throne.”
The Third Princess said, “My brother has acted improperly.”
The Fifth Princess said, “My brother presumes to meddle in affairs of state. His ambition is immense.”
The Seventh Princess said, “Can my brother be hoping to take your place?”
The emperor turned red with fury.
They had played the villains long enough. It was time for me to play the peacemaker.
“Still, the crown prince has been impulsive since childhood. Perhaps he meant no harm.”
The emperor’s expression softened. “He is my firstborn son. He can be rash, but his heart is good. Very well. I’ll give him some military authority and let him try his hand.”
Oh, spare me the act.
You’d been itching to strip my family of its command for years.
You thought that little double act with your son had finally persuaded me to yield some of my family’s military power.
Did you have any idea that every part of this was exactly what I had planned?
Smiling faintly, I led the princesses in bowing before him. “Your Majesty is wise.”