If Qin Shi Huang had a modern engineer as his tutor, would the fate of the Qin Empire have been different?
In 260 BC, the smoke of the Battle of Changping had yet to clear. Lin Yan, a civil engineer, transmigrates into Ying Yan, a grandson of King Zhaoxiang of Qin born to a concubine, and is sent to Zhao as a hostage. In an age when human lives are worth less than grass, all he wants is to survive the chaos.
But the siege of Handan and the horror of people eating their own children are just around the corner. History’s wheels are destined to crush countless bones, so Ying Yan decides that at the very least, new crops will grow wherever those wheels pass.
At the hostage residence, he fires an improved blast furnace, increasing the range of Qin crossbows by thirty percent.
Beneath the walls of Handan, he saves the pregnant Zhao Ji, changing the fate of the future Qin Shi Huang.
In the palace at Xianyang, he presents a road network spanning the realm, with four north-south and three east-west routes, then lays the empire’s arteries with natural asphalt.
By the Zhengguo Canal, he solves a landslide problem that has plagued the project for three years, bringing thousands of miles of fertile land to the Guanzhong region.
From exiled hostage to Lord Chang’an, from a minor official overseeing construction to the emperor’s tutor, every step he takes is over the corpses of the old nobility.
When Ying Zheng conquers the six kingdoms, he is in charge of logistics.
When the Qin Empire needs to lay the foundations of its rule, he is the architect of its institutions.
When the First Emperor seeks immortality, he is the only minister bold enough to speak out and remonstrate.
When the upheaval at Shaqiu plunges the realm into chaos, he becomes the Qin Empire’s last guardian through the night.
But his copy of Engineering Mechanics has only three pages left. Among the three thousand Mohist artisans he has trained are spies from the six kingdoms, and the greatest secret is this: he may not be the only person from another time in this age.
“Your Majesty asks what I want? I want only three things: for Qin law to be less harsh, for the Straight Road not to bend, and for civilization to endure.”
