Iron Bones from a Humble Home

I transmigrate into the world as a discarded son from a poor family. With technology as my blade and political strategy as my shield, I carve out a path to the heavens in this chaotic age of imperial power struggles and entrenched aristocratic clans!

Modern engineer Chen Ang transmigrates one day into the Great Jing Dynasty as a poor branch-family member, abandoned in the wilderness for offending his masters. The original owner died of hunger and cold, leaving him only a damaged family genealogy and a sister on the brink of death.

Within his clan, they oppress him and covet the last of his farmland. Outside it, petty officials make life difficult and force him into death-defying corvee labor.

Chen Ang smiles.

He'll show this backward era what it means to crush the competition with superior technology!

Using his knowledge of chemistry, he improves saltpeter and presents “enemy-breaking gunpowder,” making his first mark in a border war and escaping his lowly status through military industry.

Applying mechanical principles, he builds a new dragon-bone waterwheel, ends a province's drought, and earns an official post, rising from the lowest ranks as a county commandant.

He creates the “work-for-relief system,” providing jobs in place of handouts, gathering refugees and secretly training his first force, loyal to him alone: the “Rock-Solid Battalion.”

At court, the struggle between old and new factions rages like a pot of boiling oil. The emperor is old, the princes vie for the throne, and the various powers relentlessly scheme against one another.

Everyone believes this poor young man with no connections is nothing but a useful, easily broken blade.

They watch coldly, waiting to see when he'll be shattered.

Yet Chen Ang advances step by step through the gaps between the competing factions. He allies with the poor, suppresses the powerful, reforms officialdom, and builds irrigation works. Amid the turbulent succession crisis, he repeatedly chooses the right side and turns the tide.

Until one day, he reaches the highest rank of office and takes his place among the Three Excellencies.