Mechanical engineer Chen Yan traveled through time and became the magistrate of a small border county. He only had 300 veterans, two warehouses of moldy grain, and a group of people waiting to die. The court pressed for taxes, barbarians suppressed the territory, and wealthy families forced the palace, but he started by burning bricks, cement, crossbows, and salt and iron, and gradually transformed the broken county into a fortress in troubled times. Others rely on bloodline for hegemony, while he relies on technology, system and granary. By the time the imperial court wanted to take back this county, the Kyushu trade routes, the weapons of the frontier troops, and the hearts and minds of the people were already in his hands.
