The Unranked Magistrate

By a stroke of bad luck, a soldier king transmigrates into the body of a lowly woodcutter in the Northern Song. By another stroke of luck, he passes the imperial exam at the top of his class. The emperor plays a joke on him by making him an unranked county magistrate, a mere petty official. But the soldier king sees it differently: there are plenty of unranked officials, while the highest rank in the court is the first rank. Surely being unranked means he's even higher, and gets him promoted one level above any official he meets! And so the soldier king begins his career in the Northern Song, rising one rank every time he meets an official. Good grief, how could things not get lively? The whole Song dynasty is soon turned upside down.