Lin Zhao, a graduate student in history at Nanjing University, misses a step and transmigrates to the Western Han Dynasty, where he becomes Wang Mang, freshly driven back to his fief by Emperor Ai of Han. The Ding and Fu clans, powerful relatives at court, are eager to kill him, while the powerful local families regard him as a beaten dog. What should he do? Lin Zhao decides to start by taking a census of every household in his fief. He improves iron smelting, introduces crop rotation, and opens literacy schools. Along the way, he uses economic measures to drive the powerful families who mint coins illegally to ruin. By the time the court catches on, Xindu’s granaries are full, its furnaces are blazing, and its people are firmly behind him. From an experimental farm in his fief to a grand game spanning the whole empire, from currency reform to the first firearms, this is the story of a modern man using two thousand years of knowledge to drive hard-core development in the late Western Han. He will eventually become emperor, but this time the “Xin Dynasty” will not be a short-lived regime that lasts only fourteen years. Instead, it will set out from Chang’an and reach across the world.
