After stepping in to help someone, special forces soldier Lin Zhou unexpectedly transmigrates to the Great Yong Dynasty and becomes a poor scholar stranded in Bianjing. Freezing and starving, he uses modern knowledge and special forces combat skills to survive against the odds. He earns his first fortune with a soap recipe, makes improved glass mirrors all the rage among the nobility, and boosts farm yields with techniques like wood-ash fertilizer and waterwheel irrigation. From a refugee, he rises to become the wealthy shopkeeper Lin.
When Prince Duan Xiao Che is ambushed, Lin Zhou turns the tide with a special forces-style assault and becomes the prince’s trusted aide. He helps Xiao Che establish a merchant caravan and open up trade routes between north and south. Later, while escorting provisions, he lays an ambush at Blackstone Ridge and routs the bandits with lime jars and improved crossbows. His legendary feat of driving off the enemy single-handedly shakes the court and earns him the title of Gentleman of Martial Virtue, securing him a place in government. As glassworks and a weapons-improvement bureau are established, Lin Zhou’s influence spreads from the streets to the borderlands. The new guard he trains uses modern tactics, and the repeating crossbow bolts he invents strike fear into the Northern Di cavalry.
At court, Lin Zhou uses “soap economics” to force reforms in the Ministry of Revenue, only to face a joint impeachment by the civil officials. In the martial world, a mysterious bandit chief vows revenge, while Northern Di spies infiltrate Bianjing with sinister plans. Meanwhile, a tangled romance quietly unfolds between Lin Zhou and Su Qingwan, daughter of the Minister of Personnel; Liu Ruyan, a Mohist heir skilled in mechanisms; and A Yina, a Northern Di princess disguised as a man.
From a refugee sheltering in a ruined temple to the Duke of Dingguo, whose power dominates the court, Lin Zhou opens the door to wealth with twenty bars of soap and changes the fate of a dynasty with a single improved blueprint. As he stands on the dragon steps of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, looking down at the golden throne room where civil and military officials kneel in rows
