You’re a Poor Scholar’s Son-in-Law, So How Do You Have More Silver Than the National Treasury?

[Alternate-history romance + sweet story with one heroine + farming, imperial exams, and business + no System]

Wei Heng was originally a poor scholar in the Great Jing dynasty.

After being born into the modern era, he was reborn back in Great Jing.

A cold kang bed, an empty purse, a weak body, and the wife he had let down most in his previous life.

Wei Heng: “I’ve done the math, and this time around, I’m suited to marrying into her family.”

Wei Heng helps his wife get healthier and taller, build a fortune, and pass the imperial exams.

Others laugh at him for marrying into his wife’s family. He laughs at them for having no one who cherishes them.

He was once suppressed by powerful local clans when he served as a county magistrate?

This time, he starts with the children and leads the whole village to become a powerful clan.

What? A live-in son-in-law has no prestige?

He opens a school, teaches the whole village to read, helps them get rich, and develops ingenious techniques.

You say making huge profits will invite envy?

He places first in the prefectural exams, earns the top honors in all three national exams, and heads straight for the Hanlin Academy.

What? A career in office without the backing of an influential clan is like a pile of loose sand?

Then what do you call the silver he has, which exceeds the imperial treasury’s reserves?

Court infighting and imperial scheming are too melodramatic?

He rescues loyal ministers, guides the new emperor, and earns great merit. The people are behind him.

They try to drive him out of court by granting him a barren island as his fief?

Pfft! What a novel way to ask for death. He makes sea salt, mines silver, builds infrastructure and roads, manufactures firearms, assembles warships, takes in refugees, and trains iron cavalry.

Hmm? You want to snatch the pocket money his wife earned for him?

Well, that’s too bad. Besides his money and handsome face, he has invincible warships at sea, a fierce pack of loyal hounds on land, and an elite squadron of royal eagles in the air. He has silver for money and fearless soldiers for men.

Wei Heng says the dynasty’s mandate is spent. If you refuse to accept it, I’ll march north and south, sweep east and west. Don’t go running to my Taotao to tattle on me.

Foreign powers, the royal family, and the ministers all roar in fury: Who went and provoked him this time?