Who is the worse emperor of Jin Yong's universe?

[Trien Chieu]

My pick would be Li Zicheng of the Shun Dynasty. According to "Sword stained with royal blood", once he captured the capital, he acted pretty wild. He was way worse than Chongzhen emperor.

Who would be your pick? why?

[Ian Liew]

Li Zicheng's failure as an Emperor was particularly bad, as he brought down the Ming and left the Qing an easy route into China. History has it that Wu Sangui would most likely not have opened Shanhaiguan if Li hadn't attacked him, and had his men steal Chen Yuanyuan and execute Wu's family. However, Li, to his credit, was a good leader of men, brave and charismatic, and he really thought that Chongzhen had the people's wealth stored away and that he could just take Beijing and distribute it. It wasn't until he took the throne that he truly understood the problems Chongzhen had to go through. Like his predecessor, though, Lie had good intentions, but lacked the wisdom to make the correct decisions when confronted by corrupt and convincing officials.

The Wu Emperor in the Yue Maiden Sword was completely taken by Xishi and counted as quite a hopeless emperor by the time Gou Jian, Fan Li and the Yue army was done with him.

Song Huizong and Qinzong, the legendary "Hui Qin Twin Emperors" which Yuefei tried to save, and who were mentioned so many times in LOCH, were quite poor Emperors as well. If anything, Song Gaozong (who is so reviled in LOCH) was probably a much more able Emperor than Qinzong or Huizong.

HSDS was set towards the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and although I have no idea which Emperor was on the throne then, it definitely wasn't a particularly useful emperor. We also don't know which Emperor was on the throne during XAJH, but given the disdain people had for officials and the government then, it must have been latter day Wanli or later. In which case that Emperor would be a sure contender for worst Emperor.

We don't really get to see bad Emperors in Jin Yong, though. Sword Stained with Royal Blood was probably the only case in which a less than average Emperor was actually casted.