An unsystematic, "knowledge-based" Machiavellian article without cheats. The protagonist Shen Mo is not a time traveler and has no modern knowledge base. His only weapons are the "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic" and "Sun Zi's Sutra" that he learned in the county school, as well as the instinct of "looking at the account book as if you were looking at flesh and blood" inherited from his father, a low-level scribe. The whole story revolves around the three major economic lifelines of "grain", "household registration" and "land". Starting from the audit, it goes all the way back to the hidden fields of the gentry, water transportation corruption, and the black hole of salt tax, and finally points to the stubborn land annexation problem that has persisted for hundreds of years since the founding of the Yong Dynasty. The story rejects the folklore-style drama of an upright official and shows a real game - every time Shen Mo overthrows his opponent, he has to pay an equal price, or even higher.
