My name is Lu Polu, from a military household in Baoan Prefecture. I am seventeen years old.
To be precise, my soul comes from four hundred years in the future. The original owner of this body died in an encounter and was trampled into a dry ditch by the horses of the Qing army. When I woke up, there was a corpse on top of me, and a shaved horseman was collecting the head in the distance.
The first year of Chongzhen. Little Ice Age. There was a severe drought, and the price of food was one to two and a half to one stone. The food in Shunxiang Castle was only enough to last until the twelfth lunar month.
I know what will happen next: the Qing army will enter the fortress every year, the rogue bandits will sweep across the north, the court will impose an additional three-month tax rate, and the city of Beijing will fall in seventeen years. But my neighbors don't know that. They only know that the bark is thinner this year.
They call me Lu Polu. In my hand I have a Yan Ling knife with the word "Lu" engraved on it, a military household register, and a brain that does not belong to this era.
The problem is - knowledge cannot be directly turned into productivity.
Drawings require raw materials, craftsmen, tools, trial and error, and organization to come to fruition. The army cannot exist without food and fodder. Any victory has a real price, and any reform will create both beneficiaries and losers. And I, a time-traveler who can't even speak the words of this era, must first learn how to survive the first meal.
The smoke from Shunxiang Fort dispersed and gathered again in the wind. I held the knife and walked into the castle gate.
