In the Famine Years, I Led the Female Prisoners into the Mountains and Crowned Myself King

Chen Wangbei transmigrates as a squad leader in the Tiger and Leopard Battalion of the puppet Qi regime. He is ordered to escort a hundred women two thousand li north to the Northern Barbarians' royal city.

Head north and die. Disobey and die.

After a blizzard, he and the thirty-odd people left in his group stumble into a hidden valley where spring lasts all year.

It holds a hidden military cave left behind by the Prince of Huainan of the former dynasty, a hundred shi of old grain, abandoned weapons, mountains of medicinal herbs, salt deposits, hot springs, wild beasts, and unknown ancient ruins.

Chen Wangbei lays down ironclad rules. With a group of women who have never had to lift a finger, he builds shelters, gathers wild produce, hunts and clears land, makes salt and soap, and trains them to use crossbows to defend themselves.

Beyond the hidden valley, the world is in turmoil, with bandits running rampant;

within it, they go from struggling to survive to putting down roots, from owning nothing to filling their storehouses with grain and building rows of homes.

Once their foundations are secure, Chen Wangbei ventures out of the valley and opens up trade routes to Linshui Town with polygonatum paste, Xuncao soap, refined salt, and medicinal herbs.

He wipes out bandits, opens apothecaries, builds a merchant caravan, and quietly weaves a commercial network spanning prefectures and counties.

He has no desire to rule the land or bow to the warlords. He only wants to protect this little paradise and the people behind him.

But when every faction sets its sights on the valley's wealth, and the Northern Barbarians' cavalry rides south, he discovers that in times of chaos, once your business grows big enough, you can no longer stay out of the conflict.