Siheyuan: Building an Industrial Powerhouse, Rising All the Way to the Top

Transmigrating to 1950, Zhao An becomes a poor young man living in a Beijing courtyard compound on Nanluoguxiang.

His father is a fitter at a steel mill. The family is so hungry they live on cornmeal porridge, and they can't even afford coal briquettes.

But he realizes that this era, with everything waiting to be rebuilt, is full of opportunities. At the salvage depot, he finds a Soviet technical manual. At school, he secretly learns from lesson plans copied on wax paper. In the neighborhood literacy classes, he builds connections.

While others spend their days bickering and scheming just to get by, he keeps his head down and studies books and technology. Starting by helping his father understand Soviet blueprints, he takes one steady step after another, making his way from a poor kid in a back alley to a leading figure in the drive to make China an industrial powerhouse!

The petty squabbles of courtyard life? Sorry, my journey is toward the industrial blueprint of New China!

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any similarities are purely coincidental. Do not imitate.