Saving a Barren County in Thirty Days

In the seventeenth year of the Jinghe era under the Great Sheng dynasty, the northern lands suffered their third year of severe drought.

When Xu Yan opened his eyes, he had become the newly appointed ninth-rank county magistrate of Qingshi County. The county office had only seven people, the granary held just forty-three shi of old grain, and more than two thousand starving refugees were crowding outside the city. Worse still, an official notice from the court had already arrived: household registers would be reviewed in thirty days. If the population fell below three thousand, Qingshi County would be abolished, its officials punished, and its people registered as residents of neighboring counties.

Others advised him to abandon his post and flee for his life. But Xu Yan saw a tattered county gazetteer slowly opening in his mind.

[Current Livelihood: Critical.]

[Possible deductions: restoring water to shallow wells, crop rotation on dry land, traditional grain storage, simple waterwheels.]

[Warning: The gazetteer provides no finished products. Everything must be made by the people of this county with their own hands.]

And so Qingshi County gained its first well, its first waterwheel, its first refugee workshop, and its first grain-protection squad.

A year later, the prefect demanded his grain. Three years later, the frontier army demanded his grain. Five years later, the court realized that grain prices, salt routes, military supplies, and water transport across the entire north had all come to depend on this little county that had once nearly vanished from the map.

The whole court urged Xu Yan to go to the capital and accept a promotion.

Instead, he laid a ledger on the imperial desk. "I don't need a promotion. First, pay Qingshi County the 370,000 shi owed for military grain."