Late Ming: Farming on the Frontier, from Foolish Soldier to Duke

PS: If you don't like the slow pace at the beginning, you can skip ahead.

After transmigrating, he becomes Li Rui, a foolish soldier at the Ming Dynasty's end, bullied by everyone on the frontier.

From the start, his superior frames him and plans to send him to the battlefield as cannon fodder, all to steal his last possession: a barren wasteland where not even birds would shit.

Everyone is waiting to laugh at the fool.

But they don't know that beneath this simple-minded exterior is a soul from the modern world!

You laugh at me for being dumb? I'll grow potatoes and sweet potatoes, yielding three thousand jin per mu, and end famine across the entire garrison!

You bully me because I'm weak? I'll forge refined steel and build repeating crossbows, making the Jurchen cavalry tremble in fear and cry for their mothers!

You think I'm cannon fodder? I'll build cement star forts, impregnable strongholds that even the powerful in the imperial court will beg me to defend!

From a foolish soldier anyone could bully, to a marquis commanding a mighty army, and then to a Duke of the Nation with power over the entire court.

When Li Rui stands surveying the realm, clad in a qilin robe and carrying an embroidered spring saber at his waist...

Those who once humiliated and looked down on him have long since fallen to their knees, trembling at his feet.

Even the lofty emperor has to ask him with a smile:

"Minister Li, what do you think of the realm today? Are you... satisfied?"