Li Yan, a failed candidate preparing for the civil service examination in the 21st century, accidentally traveled to the late Eastern Han Dynasty on the eve of the Yellow Turban Uprising. From the struggle of the refugees on a snowy night in Mangshan to the grassroots officialdom game in Fengshi County, he relied on the thinking of "Shen Lun" and historical knowledge to survive step by step in the troubled times of "people eating each other": he used the "Datian Law" to persuade the county captain to seek life, used "statistical charts" to expose the corruption in the farmland, and used modern management thinking to resolve the Wubao crisis.
When Dong Zhuo entered Beijing and the world was in chaos, this modern young man with the idea of "passing the public examination" was forced to be involved in the torrent of history. He not only had to deal with the overt and covert attacks of the local powerful, but also had to survive in the cracks between Cao Cao, Yuan Shao and other heroes. He also had to face the tear between historical records and reality - the grand narrative of the "Yellow Turban Uprising" in the textbook turned into the bones of the refugees and the blood of Wubao in front of him; the cold official system in the "Book of the Later Han" became his survival skills in dealing with pavilion chiefs and stingy men.
The novel uses rigorous historical details as its bones and survival wisdom from a modern perspective as its flesh. In the collision of "historical necessity" and "individual accident", it writes about the struggles and choices of an ordinary person in troubled times. From county clerk to farm Sima, every step of Li Yan's promotion is accompanied by the torture of human nature: when moral principles encounter survival crises, when modern knowledge collides with ancient rules, can this "failed candidate" find his own "official career" in the troubled times of the Three Kingdoms?
