Building Great Tang: Sign-In Rewards Unlock Modern Technology

“Ding! Sign-in completed today at the rice shop in the Western Market. Obtained Blast Furnace Ironmaking!” Li Yan, a down-and-out scholar, wiped the batter off his face (payment for copying an account book for the rice merchant) and laughed as he stared at the System panel.

It is the ninth year of the Wude era. Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin are locked in a brutal struggle, while the people of Guanzhong are reduced to eating clay. But no one knows that this shabby scholar, who’s always crouched by the city gate copying books, carries a treasure trove of modern technology: a cement formula that can pave ten li of streets, Champa rice seeds that can save a million starving people, and even a Guide to Running a Caravan that can help Chang’an’s silk reach Persia!

When he slaps a cowpox inoculation recipe down on Li Shimin’s desk, the calculations in the Prince of Qin’s eyes give way to burning curiosity. “What do you want, sir? An official post? Wealth?” Li Yan rubs the newly drawn Hundred Strategies for County Governance and grins slyly. “I want Your Highness to trust me. With these ‘useless contraptions,’ we can make the prosperous Tang into something entirely different.”