False Heir, True Lord: Building the Northern Frontier

In the final years of the Great Yong, chaos looms. Modern architectural expert Shen Yan is transmigrated naked into a border-army death row inmate. To survive, he relies on his mastery of aristocratic etiquette and ancient historical lore to impersonate a collateral branch of the long-extinct Jiangdong Shen clan. After cheating his way to a sliver of life from the edge of the blade, he gathers refugees and convicts, flees into the barren mountains, and uses modern construction and water-conservancy techniques to build forts and open farmland, forcibly carving out a homeland from the wasteland. Aristocratic investigations are perilous at every step, while bandits and routed soldiers raid in turn. He patches the holes in his identity while training troops and defending the land, forging a false name into true renown. When the Northern Hu cavalry sweep south and the government army collapses at first contact, only his wilderness fort stands firm—and watch how a commoner in cloth can pacify a corner of a chaotic realm. — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: False Heir, True Lord: Building the Northern Frontier — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠