Great Qin: I Became Fusu’s Tutor

Lin Wan, a leading modern historian obsessed with Qin history, once joked, “Just copy the answers. Anyone can do it.” In a raging storm, his words somehow became reality: he and thirteen volumes of printed books containing a thousand years of wisdom were swept into the tumultuous era of Qin Shi Huang! When he awoke, he was lying right in front of Emperor Ying Zheng’s carriage. The remarkable books in his bamboo basket were written entirely in seal script and laid out a magnificent vision far ahead of their time: land reform, economic development, technological innovation, the passing down of civilization… Ying Zheng was overjoyed to find such a treasure. He read through the night, his imperial heart shaken! He personally led his ministers in honoring Lin Wan as their teacher, elevating this stranger of unknown origins to the pinnacle of power and wisdom in the Qin Empire! Lin Wan was not only Ying Zheng’s state preceptor. He also took on an even more important mission: teaching Fusu, the Qin dynasty’s eldest prince and future heir to the empire. Combining modern educational ideas with the realities of the Qin dynasty, he used the rise and fall of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou to explain the cycles of history, introduced science and technology through middle- and high-school lessons, and shaped Fusu’s character with the finest ideas of the Hundred Schools of Thought. Through their lively and entertaining lessons, Fusu grew from a boy into a mature man, and from kind-hearted into wise and virtuous. Yet the currents of the power struggle ran deep. Conservative forces watched like hawks, while powerful ministers such as Zhao Gao and Li Si each harbored their own schemes. Lin Wan knew the tragedy of the Qin dynasty’s collapse after just two generations. With thirteen remarkable books and a wealth of knowledge at his disposal, how could he push through one breathtaking reform after another while navigating the perilous world of serving an emperor? How would he compile A Complete Survey of All Things in the Great Qin and pass down knowledge accumulated over a thousand years in a systematic way? How would he develop water power, metallurgy, gunpowder, navigation, and other technologies to arm the empire?