The Register

One ton a day, and he was the only one who could make the journey.

One day in the modern world was three days in the past. During those three days he was away, the people there had to live on their own, or die on their own.

On the twelfth day of the first month of the first year of Chongzhen’s reign, Lu Ke landed on a tidal flat in Zhoushan with 919.4 kilograms of cargo, hauling it in twenty-eight trips all by himself. He had brought price lists, maps of the coastline, and a homemade dictionary. The one thing he hadn’t brought was an identity.

It took him twenty-three days to figure out that the first enemy he couldn’t beat wasn’t pirates or soldiers. It was a piece of paper.

Later, he had thirty people, a well one zhang and eight chi deep, and a ledger of his own making. It recorded two things: how much work each person had done, and how much he owed them.

Later still, the ledger grew thicker and thicker, until it could hold an entire realm.

In the year of Jiashen, he took the throne.

The first thing he did after his coronation was set about dismantling it.