Growing a Tech Tree in Southern Tang

Transmigrating into the Southern Tang imperial family, I use a System to turn the arts-loving ruler of a doomed kingdom into a leader whose civilization crushes all others. Zhao Kuangyin has conquered half the realm before he realizes he can't win.

Li Feng, a history graduate student, wakes up one day as a member of the Southern Tang imperial family, on the eve of the kingdom's fall. Li Yu still sits on the throne, singing, “When will spring flowers and autumn moons come to an end?” Outside the palace, the Later Zhou cavalry are sharpening their blades.

“Your Majesty, Bianjing is only eight hundred li away. How can you still be composing poetry?!”

The court erupts in an uproar. Li Feng is thrown into prison on the spot and sentenced to execution three days later. In his cell, he awakens the [Civilization Legacy System]. Its first task is to change Li Yu's way of thinking.

That very night, he writes the Ten Strategies for Southern Tang, using modern charts to analyze the countdown to the kingdom's demise. When Li Yu opens the treatise that overturns everything he believes, history quietly takes a new turn:

Gunpowder formulas are unlocked, and a new army takes shape;

The Institute of Natural Studies is established, and the technology tree is developed at a frantic pace;

An economic war begins, and Southern Tang's new currency becomes the hard currency of Jiangnan.

After Zhao Kuangyin dons the imperial yellow robes, he discovers that the artistic kingdom in the south has suddenly changed beyond recognition.

When Song forces reach Jinling, they are met not by frightened officials ready to surrender, but by an array of firearms from another age, a telegraph command system, and new lyrics sung by Li Yu as he leads the troops himself: “When our horses' hooves trample the land, we'll break through the Helan Mountains.”

Many years later, envoys from every nation come to pay tribute. Li Yu, now retired from the throne and honored as the “Guardian of Civilization,” meets a young scholar in the library. “How do later generations judge Li Feng?”

The scholar replies respectfully, “The history books say that he made Southern Tang terrifyingly strong.”