When an engineer in the 21st century wakes up in the blood-shrouded Eastern Capital of Luoyang in 756 AD and becomes a prisoner awaiting death, what can he do?
There is no domineering spirit or peerless martial arts. All Li Yuan has is his brain that is accustomed to logic, data and risk assessment. After witnessing An Lushan's cruelty and frailty, he made the most rational and craziest decision: to assassinate this troubled hero who was stirring up the world. This is not to help the country, but a precise calculation to survive.
He took advantage of the fragility and superstition of people's hearts and instigated the eunuch Li Zhuer to become an assassin; he searched for raw materials in the sewers and toilets, created the primitive black powder that shook the era, and disguised an assassination as "the punishment of heavenly fire and god".
However, a small deflection in history triggered a violent chain reaction. Li Yuan was forced to survive between the Tang court and the rebels, and established his own base in the Nanyang Basin. He founded the "Gewuyuan" and sowed the seeds of mathematics, physics, and chemistry in this ancient land. Water-driven blowers caused blast furnaces to spit out torrents of steel, and granular gunpowder spawned firecrackers that subverted the battlefield. When the volley of line infantry ended the myth of cavalry, and when the roar of steam engines sounded for the first time deep in the mines, a new industrial era rose up on the ruins of the prosperous Tang Dynasty with an unquestionable attitude.
This is a hard-core novel that uses gears and levers, steel and flames to reshape history. See how an engineer grew from a death row prisoner to a master of the era who personally closed the coffin of the old era and opened the curtain for the new world.
