Exiled from the Start, I Turn a Run-Down County into a Royal Capital

[The first 45 chapters focus on building the protagonist's team and putting it to the test for the first time]

[Alternate History + Farming and Management + An Illegitimate Son's Comeback]

Shen Li transmigrates as the least valued illegitimate son of the Duke of Zhenguo's household.

He has no interest in martial arts or fighting for favor. He just wants to scrape by and live in peace.

But during a spring hunt, someone ambushes him. He nearly loses his life and is exiled to Qingshan County in the Southern Frontier.

Bandits run rampant there, miasma blankets the land, and five county magistrates have died in three years.

Everyone thinks Shen Li is finished.

But when Shen Li sees [Daily Heavenly Secrets] appear before his eyes, he realizes something is off.

What others see as a dead end is full of resources to him.

Bandits are ready-made targets for training troops.

Refugees are laborers who just need a meal.

There may be a mine beneath the miasma-covered mountain.

Repair the broken post road, and it becomes a trade route.

So Shen Li leads his people to Qingshan County, the place everyone else is unwilling to go.

At first, he only wants to stay alive.

Later, he only wants to make the county seat a little more comfortable.

Flush toilets, sugar, soap, glass mirrors, waterwheels, military farms, trade routes, local militia camps...

As one new invention after another appears, the whole Southern Frontier is left dumbfounded.

Years later, when the court brings up Qingshan County again, the assembled officials finally realize the truth.

The illegitimate son they once exiled as a good-for-nothing has long since turned a dilapidated border county into the richest, safest, and most impenetrable place in the Southern Frontier.

The emperor wants to take Qingshan County back and rebuild it as the new capital of the Southern Frontier.

Shen Li looks at the city he built, brick by brick, and falls silent for a long time.

At last, he asks just one question: "Why should I?"

Shen Li is at a loss.

He never meant to rebel...

[I only wanted to meet my KPIs, but they kept forcing me to found a state.]