His Majesty, Who Strengthens the Nation Through Science
After transmigrating into the useless third prince, exiled to a bitterly cold land, he starts with a single bowl and just thirty-two coins to his name.
His fief is Beiliang, where the people have barely enough clothes to cover themselves, powerful gentry eye him hungrily, and the barbarians could invade at any moment.
Everyone is waiting to see him starve to death in this godforsaken place.
Xiao Jinglan just smiles.
He refines salt, makes cement, and smelts glass, turning sand into heaps of silver. He builds terraced fields, improves crops, and constructs granaries, making golden wheat grow in barren saline soil. He builds repeating crossbows, hot-air balloons, and incendiary bombs. When three thousand barbarian cavalry invade, his forces wipe them out before they can even catch sight of him.
The eldest prince sends him a coffin. Xiao Jinglan makes himself someone the eldest prince could never hope to surpass. The gentry lay a banquet trap for him. He performs the trick of freezing water on the spot. The court officials laugh at his foolish ambition, but he shuts them all up with cement and glass.
“I've read books, so don't try to fool me. Nothing in this world is impossible. Some principles just haven't been figured out yet.”
While the capital's powerful families squabble over taxes worth a tael of silver, Beiliang's walls have already reached the horizon. While the grassland's iron cavalry mock the people of the Central Plains as weak and easy prey, they can't even make it out of Beiliang's valleys.
Xiao Jinglan surveys the world from a hot-air balloon. Behind him lies Beiliang, its granaries overflowing. Beneath him, his enemies tremble. Ahead lies an empire waiting to be conquered.
“I'm a simple man. Treat me with respect, and I'll treat you even better. Step on me, and I'll dig up your ancestors' graves.”
This isn't sorcery. It's science.
This isn't a comeback. It's a victory through technological superiority.
