Border States in Troubled Times: Starting from Rescuing One State

Bianzhou was without food for seventeen days, but the imperial court urged Shuoning to deposit 8,000 shi of military food eastward within three days. Pei Shen, the military ration clerk who was demoted to Shuoning, originally just wanted to let the state survive the winter first. But when he followed the warehouse seals, mud seals, road guides and old accounts of dead people, he discovered that Shuoning was not simply short of food, but was being shorted little by little according to the account books. To survive, he must first regain the right to distribute food; to defend the city, he must touch the wealthy families, salt roads, defeated armies, and the transportation department; to overturn old cases, he must reach into the general ledger of the world that can kill people. From recording military supplies to taking charge of the life and death of a state, what Pei Shen wanted to do was never to become emperor. He just doesn't want the people in Bianzhou to die because of the words "taking the overall situation into consideration".