Li Cheng'an wakes up to find himself the second son of a fallen merchant family in Suzhou Prefecture in the second year of the Wanli era.
His father is gravely ill, his uncle is scheming to seize the family estate, the bookkeeper is falsifying the accounts, and the family weaving shop is left with nothing but a pile of bad debts.
Everyone is waiting for the Li family to collapse.
But they don't know that this seemingly frail young master has a mind full of modern factory know-how: purchasing, inventory, costs, production techniques, and processes.
At first, all he wants is to save the weaving shop his father left behind.
Then soap, alcohol, improved weaving methods, printing, and water-powered machinery begin emerging from this little workshop, one after another.
The old rules of Jiangnan merchant guilds, local clerks, the Imperial Weaving Bureau, and court tax revenues are all pried open, just a crack.
Starting with a dilapidated weaving shop, Li Cheng'an pushes the Ming Dynasty in a new direction.
