Xia Qi, a postgraduate history student, unexpectedly transmigrates to the Xia dynasty, on the eve of the kingdom’s fall during the reign of Taikang, and becomes a herdsman’s slave in the You-Reng tribe. The “Chinese Civilization Knowledge Base” in his mind grants him technology and strategic thinking far ahead of his time: from improving bronze smelting and designing irrigation systems to developing an early form of the well-field system and creating a spy network. When Hou Yi of the Eastern Yi seizes power in Xia and Han Zhuo murders his ruler and plunges the realm into chaos, this adviser from the future aids Shaokang, an exiled descendant of the royal house. He revolutionizes agriculture with the curved-plow, reverses drought with waterwheels, and sweeps away enemy ranks with bronze swords. At last, he helps Shaokang storm the city with a fire-ox formation and retake the capital through tunnel warfare, bringing about a great restoration.
As he rebuilds the Xia dynasty, he strengthens central authority by implementing the ten-family and five-family system and spreads the seeds of civilization by compiling the Xia Book: Treatise on Technology. Yet, on the eve of a golden age, as the Nine Tripods are recast and the tribute system of the Nine Provinces is established, he mysteriously disappears. This epic blends archaeological research with the thrills of a power fantasy. When modern knowledge collides with an ancient society, watch as a transmigrant uses technology as his brush and political cunning as his ink to write a vivid chapter at the dawn of Chinese civilization.
