Exiled for Three Years, the Emperor Begs Me to Return

The Su family was executed, with 312 members reduced to fewer than 30 who walked out of the capital alive. Su Yuanzhi was one of them. Exiled to the northern frontier—frozen ground so cracked you could fit a fist in it, hundreds freezing to death each year. Everyone expected these 30 to die out. No one knew what was in Su Yuanzhi's head. Others saw frozen soil; he saw iron mines. Others just wanted to survive; he started calculating—how to organize 30 people into teams, how to rotate crops on wasteland, how to manage refugees, how to recruit craftsmen. He devised a merit-based system, using grain, money, and promotions to unite the refugees. In one year, salt and iron from the north entered the Central Plains. In two years, over ten thousand refugees flocked to him. In three years, the northern cavalry could reach the capital in three days. The emperor could no longer sit still.