How Am I Even More Ruthless Than a Corrupt Official?

Wei Zheng, a doctoral student at Jingzhou University and the top scorer in both rounds of the central government's civil service selection, failed to secure a position at the agency he had applied to. Instead, he was sent to a remote, impoverished county to serve as deputy secretary of the county Party committee. How will he climb the ranks from Pingyu County, where the mountains are high, the emperor is far away, and personal connections are tangled and complex?