I Gained Power over the Ming Dynasty by Balancing the Books

In a year of famine, taxes are supposed to be waived, yet the people's tax burden only grows heavier.

A poor student at the Imperial College digs through the accounts and uncovers a hole spanning an entire province. The man who has been filling it is an official in the Ministry of Revenue, entrenched for more than a decade.

Zhao Shiying clutches the truth, enough to bring down countless powerful people, but is warned: make a move now, and you'll die.

No transmigration, no System: just a stubborn scholar learning to survive first amid the blades of the Hongwu era, then to get things done, one by one.

This is one man's career in government, and the story of a dynasty's seventy years, from its founding to its golden age.