Fated Ties, Ending Sorrow

Li Manman, a corporate drudge, quits his job to cycle across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. He steps through the stone gate of an ancient temple and transmigrates into the body of Bai Buzhe, a renowned general of the Great Xia Dynasty who died by a hidden arrow.

He doesn't want to fight wars or vie for power. He only wants to find the Gate of Heaven and return to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to feel the wind again.

But he discovers that the name Bai Buzhe carries a debt to this world.

So he refines salt, reforms the military, invents gunpowder, abolishes slavery and grants land, pacifies Loulan, drives back the Xiongnu, secures the southern frontier, and builds the Eight Passes. With modern knowledge, he transforms the Great Xia Dynasty from top to bottom.

Slow burn, political intrigue, ensemble cast, no romance.