This novel tells the story of a modern grassroots civil servant who transmigrates back to the Song Dynasty.
What I want to write about isn’t transmigration, power struggles, or technology. It’s people and institutions. Shen Muzhi isn’t an overpowered hero, and he has no golden finger. His greatest asset is the experience he built up over eight years working at the grassroots level: drafting documents, organizing archives, making plans, mediating disputes, flood prevention and control, epidemic response... These seemingly insignificant tasks become a force capable of changing a city in Song times, eight hundred years ago.
The things he does in Shezhou are things that happen every day to countless grassroots officials. Many of them spend their whole lives quietly giving their all, heads down and toiling away. They don’t know how to flatter or curry favor, they don’t “innovate,” and they never earn titles like “outstanding” or “exemplary.” History will not remember them. Yet it is these unremarkable people who form the backbone that keeps the machinery of the state running efficiently.
I believe the essence of social governance is treating people as people.
The same goes for grassroots officials. Every unseen effort deserves to be remembered.
This is really just a dream,
Something to enjoy for a bit.
