In the seventh year of the Chongzhen reign, thousands of miles of Liangzhou lay scorched, and corpses of the starving were scattered across the land. Chen Yuanzhi crawled out from a heap of refugees' bodies, some of them gnawing on tree bark. Behind him lay a living hell where people ate their own children to survive.
He had no System, no knowledge of the future, only a soul from a later age and a heart unwilling to accept the fall of his world.
He used the principle of leverage to seize grain carts from corrupt officials, refined salt by crude methods to earn his first fortune, and turned his chemical knowledge into smoke and flame on the battlefield. Beside the blast furnace, he forged more than steel: he forged a sword of civilization. At the school, he taught more than knowledge: he sowed the seeds of a new world.
While the scholar-officials squabbled over power, the Chuang King gathered followers and roamed the land, and the Eight Banners beyond the passes sharpened their blades, a wholly new force was quietly rising on the wastelands of Liangzhou.
Ranks of flintlock rifles tore apart cavalry charges, while red-coated cannons roared with the fury of industry. He replaced clan law with the New Code, buried workshops beneath factories, and awakened the people through universal education.
From leader of the refugees to lord of a domain, from a lone city in Liangzhou to a court receiving envoys from every nation. This is a journey paved with technology, blood and iron, and wisdom.
Come and see how an industrial revolution can crush the old age and forge an unprecedented iron-blooded Ming dynasty.
