Lin Yan, a doctor of modern mechanical engineering, traveled back to the Qingli period of the Northern Song Dynasty in an experimental accident and fell into the mud on the outskirts of Bianjing. With nothing but an emergency kit filled with basic tools and knowledge, he started from the survival instinct of identifying wild vegetables and treating wounds, and gradually stepped into this thousand-year-old ancient capital where the buildings and palaces are intertwined.
When the Song Dynasty's market system met modern thinking, and when traditional craftsmanship collided with mechanical principles, Lin Yan started from the small market skill of repairing a mechanical bird, improved looms, innovated iron smelting, reshaped farming tools, and used "craftsmanship" to break the shackles of the identity of a craftsman. He not only had to deal with the rejection of his peers and the doubts of the scholar-bureaucrats, but also had to balance technical ideals and court intrigues in the wave of Qingli's New Deal - providing military support for Fan Zhongyan's reforms, following Di Qing in guarding the border and proposing defensive methods, and discussing with Wang Anshi the technical path to "rich the country and strengthen the army".
From the struggle to survive in the slums to drawing up the blueprint for being a prisoner, from the sound of anti-Japanese artillery in Dengzhou coastal defense to the inheritance of artifacts at Jiangnan Academy, Lin Yan used his modern skills to carve the mark of the era as a "craftsman" in the Song Dynasty where elegance and disadvantages coexisted. After all, he failed to rewrite the flow of history, but he left an echo across time and space in the fireworks of Bianliang and the wind and sand at the border with the concept of "If a worker wants to do his job well, he must first sharpen his tools."
