The Commoner Rises to Power

[No System + Satisfying Read + Farming + Conquest + Smart Protagonist + Semi-Fictional Setting]

In the eleventh year of the Great Zheng era of the New Dynasty, the people of Zhuxia had barely survived half a century of Mongol oppression. At last, the curse that “no barbarian dynasty lasts a hundred years” came true.

That year, the great river burst its banks. Roaring floodwaters surged down the Huai River and into the sea, and a million laborers witnessed a stone man with one eye emerge from the river's depths.

Then the prophecy, “Don't say the stone man has only one eye; he will stir the Yellow River and bring all the land to revolt,” spread across the realm, ushering in an age of chaos.

That year, someone found a silk message inside a fish declaring that the Han clan would rise. Someone else happened to hear a children's song predicting that Lord Xu would rule the land.

That same year, a wandering monk from the Buddhist order, a fisherman from Mianyang, and a salt merchant from Taizhou all plunged headfirst into this world that devoured its people.

And that same year, a young commoner from Guanzhong flew into a rage, spilling blood in an instant. With nothing but his youthful spirit as a blade, he went up into the mountains to become a bandit and vie for supremacy.

--

Later, a monk surnamed Zhu invited the young man to a showdown on Poyang Lake.

Zhao Xu: “Hey, did I damn well turn into Chen Youliang? Fine! I'll let you experience the power of ‘The wheat has ripened a thousand times, but the people are eternal for the first time!’”