A Poor Scholar in the Great Yong

(The beginning may feel a little slow, but don't worry, it gets more interesting as you go.) Don't worry, there's plenty to read, with ten thousand characters updated daily. You'll get through the slow early chapters and reach the exciting parts in no time. In the seventeenth year of Jinghe, the Great Yong dynasty had stood for 127 years, and the history books praised a century of prosperity. But beneath that prosperous facade, the realm had rotted to the core. The great clans seized fertile land and hid millions of acres from the tax rolls; gentry were exempt from taxes, leaving the common people to shoulder every levy and surcharge. Idle officials drew salaries without lifting a finger, border troops existed only on paper, the cabinet monopolized power, and the emperor was trapped within the court. Ten years later, floods and locust plagues struck one after another. Warlords raised their armies, foreign tribes battered the frontier, and flames of war swept across the land. Millions were driven from their homes, and the Great Yong dynasty, a century old, fell in a single day. Shen Yan, a history scholar from a later age, transmigrated into those years of disaster and became a penniless orphan from a poor family in Qingxi County. Rising from the mire, he was a commoner of humble means. With every step forward, he stirred the currents of the imperial court. He aided disaster victims, uncovered hidden farmland, fought corrupt gentry, and purged venal officials, testing new policies within a single county. He entered the provincial administration, navigated officialdom, exposed schemes against him, and won hearts, seeking a way to survive amid factional infighting. When he reached the capital, he faced the cabinet and the great clans, submitting proposals for reform and challenging the realm's aristocracy as a man of humble birth. He took command of the border troops and trained a new army to repel the northern tribes; he headed the Ministry of Revenue, overhauled the tax system, and struck at privileges a century old. The old emperor died, the court fell into chaos, warlords rose on all sides, and the realm descended into turmoil. As the land convulsed and the people faced death, the once humble official had become a pillar holding up a collapsing dynasty. He sought neither an empty name in the history books nor a lifetime of glory. He wished only to sweep away the abuses of the great clans, establish a new order for the realm, open the halls of government to men of humble birth, and let the common people live in peace in their homes. A commoner rises from humble beginnings; a lowborn minister sets the realm to rights.