Recommendations IMPERIAL HAREM/HISTORICAL NOVELS

The novel's plot should revolve around gaining power or politics. With romance or no romance is okay to me.

MC could be the emperor.
MC could be the concubine.
MC could be the queen.
MC could be a prince/princess.
MC could be the daughter/son of an official.

NO BL. No hate, I just don't like BL that much.
I don't mind if it's a trashy novel, I'm really just craving for this stuff since I just found a few.
And oh, I would much love it if it has too many schemes, etc.

I would very much appreciate it if you could help me. Thank you, guys!

 

How a realist king rebuilds his kingdom

 

Do you mean something like "Eight Treasures Trousseau" or
The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage ?

 

The Job of An Imperial Concubine
To Be A Virtuous Wife

 

https://www.novelupdates.com/nauthor/butterflys-shadow-beneath-the-moon/
This author's historical novels are a great read. You might have to scroll down a bit because the first few that pop up are bl

 

Thank you. I have read the first few chapters of it and decided to drop it. For me, the story was too fast-paced.

Both please.

Thank you, I have already read it.

Thank you! I appreciate it.

 

Read the LN from j-novel club. The first few volumes may be but it slows down quite a lot afterwards.

 

Try
Princess in the Prince's Harem,
Curse of Loulan: The Tyrant Bestows Favor on Me,
Falling All In You

 

The Favoured Medical Princess

This novel is mostly palace-adjacent. The main imperial family largely plays a supporting role, but the political situation has a lot of interesting bits to it and there are portions that follow ML while he deals with foreign affairs. I'm not sure what the translation situation is, though, it looks like it hasn't been updated in a few months. The earlier parts of the story deal with minor internal family affairs. It takes some time before the story starts spanning various types of intrigue.

FL has a couple of cheats (rebirth+attained medical knowledge from her grandfather in her first life), but the cheats aren't too OP. Her knowledge of the future stops being useful very early in the story since the timeline moves in a different direction. The medical knowledge is pretty exaggerated, especially at the beginning when she's still a very young kid, but she has help setting up schemes to use it to attain status so things don't come out of nowhere.

FL's best quality is that she's very good at being a proper lady, so she's good at using the rules of society to benefit her and the people she cares about, without being dependent on a man's feelings to help her. With a lot of the intrigue novels I've previously read, the politics are in the hands of the men of The Court and there's not a lot of focus on what exactly the women are doing when they're not acting out their parts in public or face slapping other women. This novel goes into a lot about managing the home and estate, and why it's important that someone keeps a strong hand on estate affairs. But it takes a long time in the novel to get to this point.

I'm very fond of the ML in this story, because he's not a domineering iceberg. He has a lot of personality.

Di Huang Shu

This one has been on my radar for a while but I haven't gotten around to reading it. It's quite well-known though, maybe give it a shot.

As a side note, the author of Malicious Empress has written a bunch of other novels. If you haven't read them all already you could try glancing them over.

 

They may not be exactly what you're looking for, but give these a try:

Like Pearl and Jade
To Be A Virtuous Wife
Eight Treasures Trousseau
The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage
Husband, Be A Gentleman
Seeking Happiness - no palaces, but plenty of houyuan scheming
Transmigrating into the Female Supporting Character with a Good Life in a Laid-Back Novel - again, palace adjacent
A Mistaken Marriage Match: Record of Washed Grievances - palace adjacent
A Mistaken Marriage Match: A Generation of Military Counselor - palace adjacent

 

oh, then I would read it again. Tysm!

Heard of it but never tried to read it. Tysm!

The two novels are quite familiar hehe. I think I just skim through out that's why I can't remember? Anyways, I will re-read it again. Tysm!

I have read all of it but still thank you!

 

If you don’t mind longer novels I highly recommend Reborn: Femme Fatale First Daughter and The Devious First Daughter both by Lina Shang. Both start out palace adjacent but the MC marries a prince who eventually gets involved in the battle for the throne. Romance is a slow burn usually taking a back seat to face slapping and harem battles but the ML is pretty much involved from the beginning for both stories. They have pages here but are fully translated over at read novel full. I’ve also been enjoying Medical Princess by her but it’s her longest novel to date an the translator updates pretty regularly it’s still generally one chapter at a time.

 

Oh yes! I have read also that two novels while medical princess, I'm still thinking about it. Thank you.

 

Return of the Swallow
It's Better to be the Empress Dowager
Liu in the Imperial Harem (the deleted chapters can still be found online)
These three are favorites of mine.
Also, if you don't mind MTL I highly recommend Consort Shu 淑妃 by 晓桥琉水 (BG, 143 ch.)
Summary: Shen Moyun entered the palace as the first-class Consort Shu, only one step away from the position of empress. But that single step took her twenty-five years.

 

I have read all of those novels except Consort Shu but still Thank you. Can you please recommend some that are just mtl'ed? it's okay for me.

 

Jin Wang Dotes on his concubine is also a good one if you want low relationship drama, high cavity fluff moments. The FL is a bit dim and definitely not the center of any high stakes court intrigue but she does bring a bit of commoner common sense to the arguments that I think gets overlooked a lot. Like Jin Wang is looking for some deep intrigue meaning for why his emperor father put him and all of his brothers in different posts in the ministry offices and Yaoniang just sort of simplifies it with a story about a common business man whose sons start fighting over his business and inheritance after the man falls I’ll but doesn’t die so after he recovers he takes back all the benefits he gave his sons and puts them into positions to work where he can see who is truly best suited for the task of running the business. The story makes Jin Wang realize that his father is well aware of all The Court intrigues his brothers have been up too and him on the sidelines and is now wanting to see them work to see who will truly put the effort into the work no matter where they are placed and as such keeps a low key profile abides by all the strictures of a level 5 official and does a really good job impressing his father and The Court.

 

Thank you but I have already read it too.

 

The following are all untranslated.
Favored Consort Strikes
宠妃罢工日常[清] by 沉坞 (BG, 175 ch.)
Consort Yi, favored by the Emperor and head of the inner palace, has a nightmare of a dark future. Based on Qing Dynasty's Kangxi Emperor.
Golden Branches and Jade Leaves
金枝玉叶 by 晓桥琉水 (BG, 68 ch. discontinued)
A sequel/side-story of Consort Shu about Princess Heluo, the eldest daughter of the Emperor.
Princess Returning Pearl's Empress Dowager
还珠之太后金安 by 月下蝶影 (no cp, 55 ch.)
A modern-day woman transmigrates into a drama and cleans up the Qing Dynasty that was turned into a mess. No romance involving the mc.
Eunuch Lian, How Dare You!
连公公，你放肆! by 拟古 (BG, 87 ch.) The young Empress Dowager has an affair with her Chief Eunuch.

 

Thank you for the recommendation, I have finish it all now. And if it's not bothersome, can you pls recommend some again? Or can I know what sites I should visit to look for non-translated novels? Thank you again.

 

These are all the novels I read, I can't recommend you any more.
If someone else has more recommendations, please post them! I'd like to read them too.

If you have adblock or sth similar, it's easiest to just Google the Chinese characters and see what sites show up.

Spoiler: Websites

https://m.shubaow.net/ or https://www.sto.cx/mindex.aspx are OK, but not all sites have all novels.