The Corrupt Official's Mentor: I Secretly Raise a Thousand Officials to Control Dayong

After two years of hard study following his transmigration, Lu Heng passes the imperial examination as a second-class jinshi. He should have risen swiftly through the ranks, but his refusal to take sides makes him a scapegoat in the power struggle between two factions, and he is thrown into prison.

After six months in the imperial prison, he sees the truth of the court: no matter how upright he is or how much talent he has for governing, he cannot stand alone.

Demoted to oversee Su Wenyuan, the former chief minister exiled to a poor county in the southwest, Lu Heng is set on a new path by the former minister's words of wisdom.

Everyone calls him greedy and corrupt, a man who has joined the very forces he once opposed. Only he knows that his corrupt official's persona is merely a disguise.

Every coin he extorts flows into a manor hidden deep in the mountains, where he secretly trains displaced commoners and orphans, while quietly infiltrating the garrisons in every town and the imperial border troops;

He opens an ordinary private school on a busy street. In public, he teaches and nurtures students. In secret, he screens them in two stages, training practical clerks proficient in the ministries of Personnel, Revenue, Justice, Agriculture, and the Imperial Granaries.

After fifteen years in hiding, his men fill the military, while his students travel across the nine provinces, pass the examinations, and enter officialdom. Hidden pieces he has placed are everywhere in court and country.

For a century, the old and new factions have fought for power, believing they can manipulate this corrupt little official with no backing. Only when his power is firmly established do they realize:

Half of Great Yong's civil and military officials, and all its military power at home and abroad, have long been in the hands of this so-called "corrupt official."

One lone minister cannot save a world in chaos. Only by building a system of a thousand loyal officials can he reshape the court.