Xi Jun: from a Downtrodden Prince to the Founder of New Rituals

Ji Yan, a graduate student in the history department, woke up and became the king of the small country "Xi" in the Zhou Dynasty. Faced with the desperate situation of a country where the poor were weak and surrounded by powerful neighbors, he decisively tore up etiquette: promoting universal literacy in simplified Chinese characters and using assembly lines to mass-produce bronze weapons. While the Jin and Chu armies were watching the border, Ji Yan led the people to dig ditches and improve farm tools. The nobles of various countries laughed at him: "The barbarian king does not practice rituals and music, but only specializes in lowly professions." Until the Xi Kingdom's new plows doubled their food supply, cheap salt and iron were dumped on all countries, and heavily armed crossbowmen shot through three layers of leather armor. The Emperor of Zhou sent an envoy to ask, "Do you want to overstep your bounds?" Ji Yan smiled and spread out the "New Zhou Rites": "Your Majesty, this is the etiquette of the people in the world." The princes were shocked to discover that what he described in his book was actually a new world without slaves.