May 1942, Savage Mountain. Two hundred thousand soldiers of the expeditionary force were chased and intercepted by the Japanese army in the jungles of northern Burma. The British army betrayed their trust and fled westward first, and their way back home was completely cut off by the Japanese army. Du Yuming led 20,000 soldiers into Savage Mountain, but only 2,000 people came out alive. Li Mu, an expert in diplomatic economics in the 21st century, graduated from Huangpu in time and became a major in the expeditionary army's supply camp. When everyone fled north towards the desperate situation, he took three hundred remaining soldiers and headed west - into the wild land later known as the "Golden Triangle". There is no system, no cheats. He only has a mind that can settle a century-old account. While others are fighting for a city or a place, he is calculating: Where is the critical point when the freight rate of a road is lower than that of sea transportation? How many poppy-free farmers can a fertilizer plant feed? How does the cost of guarding an armed caravan translate into tax revenue? In the Japanese military files, he is "Number 9". In the eyes of the British, he is "the most difficult tenant". The Americans wanted to get him involved, and New China sent a message through special channels. And it took him thirty years to transform the Golden Triangle from an opium den into the industrial heart of Southeast Asia - occupying nodes instead of land; relying not on guns but on roads, ports and fertilizers. In the end, when the territories of Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia were quietly rewritten, the world discovered that a Chinese man, using abacus and drawings, had circled a territory larger than his own country. This is a story about "settling accounts". After all, a nation has been lost for four hundred years.
