The Great Zhou Imperial Merchant

[Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms] [Transmigration Without a System] [Hard-Nosed Commerce] [Political Intrigue and Ensemble Cast] [National Fortunes Simulations] [Conquest of the Realm] [Court Politics and People's Livelihoods] [Realist Fiction, Not Wish Fulfillment] [Breaking Through Civilization's Impasse] [Chai Rong] [Wang Pu]

In the first year of the Xiande era, iron cavalry tore through the darkness over the Central Plains. Chen Lang clutched half a moldy meat bun amid a crowd of refugees. Just three days earlier, he had been running a sundries stall outside a university. In the blink of an eye, he had fallen into the chaotic Five Dynasties, where "the strongest warrior claims the throne."

With a few copper coins in his pocket, he used modern business principles to partner with Li Er in Li Family Village and open a grain shop. He countered the village bully's threats with "small profits, quick turnover." In just three years, he rose from a country grain merchant to chief administrator of the Imperial Trade Bureau, his abacus strokes shaping the economic lifeline of Later Zhou.

As head of grain policy, he built granaries and opened up canal transport. When he entered military affairs, he improved firearms and repeating crossbows. When the Chenqiao Mutiny broke out, he escorted the Chai clan south and raised an unyielding banner atop Jinling's walls. Step by careful step, this refugee-born "Half-Emperor Chen" climbed toward the throne, determined to escape the historical fate of a "weak Song" and restore peace to the land.

Yet the pinnacle of power was also an abyss of solitude. When the emperor's adopted brothers turned against each other, Chen Lang was trapped in a frigid chamber of the Hall of Enlightenment. By the light of a bronze lamp, he continued sketching his blueprint for a "Divine Kingdom of China" on the tattered pages of the Chronicles of the Nine Provinces.