The day I transmigrated into the magistrate of Yunzhou County in the Ming Dynasty, I knew the job wouldn't be easy.
The county treasury was so empty it could starve a mouse, and the people were selling their children.
Luckily, I had a master's degree in economics from a top university and experience working in grassroots investment promotion.
No System, no pocket dimension, just a modern mind and a whole bag of unconventional tricks.
To the court, I cried poverty year after year: “Your Majesty, locust plagues and droughts have left us with nothing!”
For the people, I cut agricultural taxes, raised commercial taxes, built official roads, and opened private schools.
Two years later, Yunzhou's granaries were overflowing, shops lined the streets, and people could leave their doors unlocked at night.
But the court still thought it was a starving, poverty-stricken county.
Until one day, a “merchant named Zhu” dressed in fine silk strolled onto my turf.
My eyes lit up. I thought a fat sheep had walked right into my hands.
Tea that cost three taels of silver, I sold for thirty.
For incense money at a ruined temple, I asked for five hundred taels.
Even a fortune-telling session cost a thousand taels. I fleeced him until his face turned green.
But I never imagined this “fat sheep” was the reigning emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, traveling incognito.
After secretly investigating for three months, he dragged me before the throne with a stack of “evidence.”
“You took three thousand taels from me as a toll. Do you admit it?”
“I do... but I used the money to build roads!”
Zhu Yuanzhang slapped the imperial desk. “You tricked me into investing a hundred thousand taels, promising to double it in three years. Where is it now?”
Lin Yue's heart skipped a beat. The hundred thousand taels had long since gone toward roads and schools, but he put on a smile.
“Your Majesty, the money may be gone, but the granaries are full and tax revenue has quintupled. Isn't that worth more than cash? I've also been thinking about a canal project. Would you like to invest a little more?”
