Three days from now, Cheng Chiheng, magistrate of Baishi County, will be taken to the prefectural city and executed for "embezzling relief grain." Yet of the 300,000 jin of grain recorded as stored in the books, only 68,000 jin remains in the granary. The county has over ten thousand people, and the government grain will last only six days.
Awakening with memories of the modern world, he has no infinite granary and cannot create an artifact from another age. The only thing that came with him, the "Ledger of the People," can tell him only how many people remain, how much grain they have, and how much time is left.
To prove his innocence and keep the people outside the city alive, he opens the granaries for inspection, investigates the grain case, repairs canals and restores farmland, and resettles refugees, bringing a dying county back to life one step at a time.
But the more people he saves, the more grain, soldiers, and public support he commands. The triplicate accounts, relief registers, and militia rosters: every document that once saved lives eventually becomes evidence of treason on the emperor's desk.
The emperor asks, "The people of the northern border recognize only you. How dare you claim you have no ambition to rebel?"
Cheng Chiheng replies, "Your servant has never considered rebelling. I only want them to have enough to eat."
