The Artisan King's Era

In the waning years of the Southern Liang dynasty, craftsmen were lower than the grass beneath people’s feet. In Qingxi Village lived a young blacksmith who refused to bow his head. He improved farm tools and repaired river dikes; he turned battlefields into construction sites and cities into works of craft; he transformed “craft” into “systems,” and wrote the craftsmen’s words into law. His ancestral hammer in hand, the mark of charcoal on his heart: how far can an ordinary man rise from a lowly registered status? When skill changes the order of things, will the new order turn around and grind people down? This is a saga of rightful rule forged from mud and fire... Build a nation through industry; let tools carry the Way. (Hardcore technical focus / ordinary man’s rise / systems and institutions)