Shen Yan, a 24-year-old graduate student in the history of the Ming Dynasty, was accidentally electrocuted and his soul traveled to the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. He became a down-and-out scholar in Suzhou Prefecture who had his family property taken away and was in huge debt.
The original owner was forced by his uncle Shen Wanshan to commit suicide in the river. As soon as Shen Yan woke up, he was faced with the desperate situation of his creditor. Relying on his solid historical knowledge and modern thinking, he wisely repaid his creditors and then cleverly seized the ancestral home. He also unexpectedly met Wang Chengzu, a descendant of an official who was willing to give up money and justice, and gained his first powerful ally.
In times of crisis, he rescued Su Qingyuan, the daughter of a doctor who was forced into marriage by her uncle, and the two joined hands to start a counterattack. He earned his first pot of gold by improving the sucrose process, made a name for himself by optimizing prescriptions and opening a medical clinic, and offered "work-for-relief" solutions to resolve floods in Suzhou. Shen Yan's talents gradually came to the fore.
He won the first prize in the government examination and Jieyuan in the provincial examination, and his state-governing policies alarmed the Jiajing Emperor. He exposed official corruption, improved the firearms of the Ming Dynasty, and promoted high-yielding crops to suppress food shortages. Shen Yan gradually rose from a poor family to the court.
Facing the insidious counterattack of his clan uncle and the partisan strife of the civil service group, he worked step by step to gain a foothold in the whirlpool of imperial power and court. In the end, he not only achieved the transformation from a poor scholar to a powerful man, but also protected his lover and the people, and wrote a legend in the Ming Dynasty that defied fate and changed his fate.
