In the thirty-ninth year of the Jiajing reign, Chen Yuan, a modern financial expert, wakes up as a destitute scholar who has been falsely accused of colluding with Japanese pirates, stripped of his scholarly honors, and hunted down.
He has no money, only a single copper coin. Behind him is Yan Song's blade, before him the pirates' flames, and above him the eyes of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
But he has something no one else does: an understanding of capital, a talent for strategic thinking, and foresight into every detail of this period in history.
Starting by hurling a brick that brings down one of his pursuers, and with the first piece of intelligence he buys for a bowl of wontons, Chen Yuan climbs step by step from the bottom of the business world in a small Jiangnan county. He issues government bonds, shorts salt certificates, builds an intelligence network, and turns members of Yan Song's faction against their own. Shen Zheng, Su Wan, Wang Dong, Lin Wenyuan: one by one, people with exceptional skills gather around him, weaving an invisible web.
Yan Song falls. Zhang Juzheng rises to power. Tatar forces threaten the capital. Every contest is a modern mind using its knowledge to outclass the rules of the past.
But the greatest enemy has never been across the board.
Once you've helped the emperor fill the treasury, win wars, and clean up the court, the blade of imperial power that once served you will sooner or later be at your own throat.
Will he choose to become Cao Cao, or retire after achieving success?
