After graduating from university, Xiao Xiaobai spent ten years trying his luck across the country but never achieved much. Several startups left him saddled with debt after he got burned by unreliable partners. At thirty-six, he lost his job. His parents were getting old, his child needed to go to school, and he didn’t even own a home. With a midlife crisis closing in, he went to Sanya, Hainan, to look for opportunities ahead of the island’s planned 2025 customs closure. Hoping to challenge himself by skydiving and make a fresh start, he never expected to plunge through the clouds into lightning and thunder, then transmigrate.
Xiao Xiaobai transmigrates into an ordinary farming family in a mountain village in the Qinling Mountains at the end of the Sui dynasty. Using knowledge from his previous life, he sets up workshops, grows cash crops, and leads the villagers to prosperity. While selling local specialties, he meets a merchant from Chu who travels across the country. He joins the merchant caravan to Guanzhong and, by a twist of fate, meets Li Xiuning, becoming Li Shimin’s brother-in-law. From then on, he helps Li Shimin sweep across the realm and unify the Central Plains, resist the Tujue, contend with the great aristocratic clans, develop agriculture and the economy, promote the imperial examinations and specialized education, advance technological development, launch a massive infrastructure program, and build a nationwide road network.
In just ten years, the Tang dynasty becomes powerful, and its people enjoy plentiful supplies.
Ten years later, the Tang commands the respect of all directions:
The Tujue are destroyed, and Li Shimin is honored as the Heavenly Qaghan.
The campaign reaches Liaodong, with horses grazing by the Northern Sea; Goguryeo is brought to heel, and Japanese raiders are wiped out.
The Baiyue lands and islands of the South China Sea are brought under Tang rule in the south, while Qinghai and Tibet are controlled in the west and the reach of the Western Regions is extended.
An unprecedented unified empire is established.
Next comes the third ten-year plan…
