Ding Cheng, a modern urban planner, unexpectedly transmigrates into the least favored Seventh Prince of the Great Yin dynasty. After losing in a struggle for power at court, he is sent by imperial decree to the barren Feiyun Valley on the empire's northern frontier, where he becomes a lord in name only, an abandoned pawn left to die. With winter approaching, bandits lurking nearby, fewer than a hundred households under his rule, and everyone living in fear, Ding Cheng activates the Civilization Infrastructure System. The System quantifies public support, population, and construction progress into points, which can be exchanged for blueprints such as a cement formula, high-yield potato seeds, and basic iron-smelting techniques. It also issues quests at each stage.
His main goal is to survive and grow stronger, but obstacles abound. The powerful local Zhao family sees him as an impediment to seizing farmland and secretly conspires with bandits. His greedy elder brother, the Third Prince, remains in the capital yet controls the frontier army's grain supplies from afar, intending to starve him to death. And the System's countdown to “initial prosperity within one year” hangs over him like a sword. Failure means losing everything and falling into the abyss once more.
Ding Cheng starts by building insulated homes and improving farm tools, using System points to acquire crucial technologies, attract refugees, and form a militia. Every step forward threatens the interests of the old power brokers. From contesting the Zhao family's claim to reclaiming wasteland to breaking the frontier army's monopoly on salt and iron, he transforms Feiyun Valley from a barren land everyone avoids into a budding jewel of the northern frontier. The fun lies in watching a wilderness gradually become a thriving home under his hand, as modern management and technological thinking crush ancient inefficiency and conservatism. And the emperor who first exiled him...
