Ming Dynasty: I'm a Petty Official in Troubled Times

During the Chongzhen era of the Ming Dynasty, Shaanxi suffered a severe drought, leaving the land barren for thousands of miles. Transmigrated as Shen Qing, the lowest-ranking "jail clerk" in the county office, on his first day at work he was handed a hot potato—escort a group of refugees out of the border, dead or alive. If he released them, he would defy orders and be executed on the spot. If he didn't, he would watch three hundred lives starve to death in the ditches. Shen Qing chose a third path: he led the refugees to occupy barren hills, establish military farms, and smelt fine iron. Three years later, when Li Zicheng's envoy came with heavy gold to recruit him, and Chongzhen's spy secretly delivered an imperial edict of amnesty— Shen Qing looked at the camps stretching ten miles down the mountain and said to his brothers beside him: "Tell them, this world is not only for those surnamed Zhu to rule." — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: Ming Dynasty: I'm a Petty Official in Troubled Times — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠