In the 5th year of Zhenguan, on the 23rd day of the 6th month.
30 li outside Chang’an City, in the small village of Dujiawa at the foot of Zhongnan Mountain, the downpour pounded down like beads from a snapped string, and everything between heaven and earth turned a dim gray, with even the distant mountain silhouettes blurred into a smear of ink.
A ghastly white bolt of lightning split the sky with a sharp “crack,” and then thunder rumbled “boom-boom-boom” over the ridge, shaking the earthen house where Du Heng lived until dust fell in sheets; a mouse cowering in the corner jolted in fright and went “whoosh” as it dove into the straw pile, vanishing without a trace. Inside the room, the 14-year-old boy Du Heng snapped his eyes open, his heart thudding “bang-bang,” and he felt like he had just been hauled out of water, with his lungs packed full of unfamiliar air that left him stifled and swollen.
“I… didn’t die?”
He instinctively touched his face… skin as rough as sandpaper and split with tiny cracks, cheekbones jutting high, lips so dry they were peeling, knuckles thick and huge, and palms covered in heavy calluses; this was nothing like the face of a college student who stayed up gaming every night and lived off takeout, but plainly the body of a farm boy who went hungry for years and endured sun and wind.
Memories surged in like a breached flood, chaotic yet unnervingly clear, and he remembered that he was a junior in mechanical engineering at a certain 985 university in the 21st century, and that last night he stayed in the lab until after midnight debugging a small steam-engine model for a course project; who would have thought the circuit would suddenly short, sparks leaping up with a “zzzt” as the stench of scorching spread in an instant… and when he opened his eyes again, he had become this Du Heng, so thin he was little more than a frame of bones and dressed in tattered rags… born in the 5th year of Zhenguan, with his parents long dead, no real relatives in the clan, and barely scraping by on neighbors’ charity and a meager half-mu of land.
“Du Heng… 5th year of Zhenguan… 14 years old… orphan…”
He murmured the information that surfaced in his mind, his voice hoarse but edged with calm, and there was nothing in the room except an earthen kang covered with a torn straw mat, a chipped clay bowl, and half a sack of millet gone moldy; a few bundles of firewood were piled in the corner, the stove was cold as ice, and he figured even the mice found this place too shabby to linger.
Another peal of thunder exploded outside the window, and rain leaked through the gaps in the thatched roof, hammering little pits into the mud floor and splashing up murky droplets, but Du Heng suddenly laughed… not a bitter laugh and not a breakdown laugh, but the particular, faintly excited laugh a STEM guy made when he ran into a complicated problem.
“No system? No cheat? No superpowers? Fine… then I’ll rely on myself!”
He rolled over and sat up, but the sudden movement tugged at his belly and a twisting pain of hunger hit him, making him bare his teeth, while his eyes stayed bright, without the slightest transmigrator panic or complaint, and instead brimming with the eagerness of “finally, a hard problem to solve.”
“The 5th year of Zhenguan… Li Shimin has been emperor for just 5 years, and the matter of the Xuanwu Gate Incident still hasn’t fully passed, Jieli Khan of the Turks hasn’t been defeated yet, Goguryeo is eyeing Liaodong like a tiger watching prey, the Guanlong faction and the Shandong aristocratic clans are fighting fiercely in the shadows, and the common people are so crushed by taxes they can barely breathe, to the point that even an iron wok counts as a rare luxury… but… this is the best era!”
He padded barefoot over the wet, icy mud and went to the corner to rummage out a broken wooden chest, and inside, aside from a patched hemp robe piled with patches, there was also a damaged bamboo scroll tied with hemp rope; when he spread it open, it was Qimin Yaoshu, but unfortunately only the “Planting Grain” and “Raising Silkworms” sections remained, with blurry characters, countless holes eaten through by insects, and pages so brittle they would crumble at a touch.
“Agriculture is the foundation,” he said as he rubbed the bamboo scroll, his mind rapidly pulling up the agronomy knowledge he learned in college, “and it’s fine if there’s no chemical fertilizer and no pesticides, because we can do crop rotation, composting, seed selection, and intercropping… first stay alive, then figure out how to change the world.”
He walked into the yard and let the rain drench him from head to toe, and as his gaze swept over the weed-choked vegetable plot, the chicken coop collapsed on one side, the iron hoe so rusted it was nearly unusable, and that half-mu of land hardened into a packed slab, his mental suanpan clicked and clacked.
“A 2-year plan… the 1st year, I’ll first manage to feed myself; the 2nd year, I’ll have some surplus to trade for money; the 3rd year… I’ll open a restaurant, build workshops, and enter Chang’an!”
He bent down to pick up a shard of broken pottery and scratched three zones into the mud, and when the rain washed the writing away, he squatted there and rewrote it over and over:
To the east was the planting area, where he would divert mountain spring water, dig a few small ditches, and try drought-tolerant crops; was millet’s yield too low, then he would switch to sorghum and beans, run a bean-and-millet rotation, and since beans fixed nitrogen and also enriched the soil, it would kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
To the west was the breeding area, where he would build a sturdier chicken coop and pigpen, because raising chickens meant eggs, and chicken manure could be collected as fertilizer; pig manure, once fermented, was good fertilizer too, and that way he could form a small ecological cycle.
To the north was the workshop area, where he would build a stove, set up several big water vats, and put together a drying rack for making soy sauce, curing meat, and brewing liquor… food was the people’s heaven, and yet in Great Tang, the common folk hadn’t even seen stir-frying!
He thought of the half piece of pickled vegetables the neighboring Granny brought yesterday, bitter and astringent and hard to swallow, while what churned in his belly was the rich soy-braised aroma of Dongpo Pork, the tangy heat of Kung Pao Chicken, and the tender freshness of tomato-and-egg stir-fry… but what a shame, because chili peppers hadn’t reached China yet, and tomatoes were a thing of centuries later; but… he could brew soy sauce himself, he could make vinegar himself, he could press vegetable oil from flaxseed (that is, sesame), and he could even find a way to cast an iron wok himself!
“If there are no conditions, then I’ll create the conditions,” he muttered softly, “and isn’t that what gewu zhizhi means?”
The rain slowly eased, and a bit of light seeped through the eastern sky as the clouds split with a golden edge and sunlight faintly began to break through.
Du Heng returned to the room and pulled out that iron hoe rusted beyond recognition, and the hoe head was as blunt as a lump of iron while the handle was split with cracks; he found a whetstone, sat on the threshold, and began grinding bit by bit, with sparks crackling “pitter-patter” on the stone like the flame igniting in his heart, burning stronger and stronger.
“I don’t have a cheat, but I have a head full of knowledge; I don’t have a system, but I have two hands that can work; I don’t have superpowers, but I have the grit to refuse defeat.”
He remembered what his university advisor once said: “The essence of engineering isn’t showing off tricks and flashy skills, but solving real problems.”
Now, his biggest problem was… survive, and live better and better.
“Li Shimin needs capable people, the common people need full bellies, and I… I need a fulcrum,” he said as he looked toward Chang’an, the corners of his mouth lifting into the confident smile unique to modern youth, “and the lever principle says that as long as the fulcrum is stable enough, you can pry up the Earth, and Great Tang is the Earth I’m going to pry.”
“Zhangsun Wuji? Five Surnames and Seven Great Clans? Just wait… your era should change.”
“And I, Du Heng… not only am I going to marry a princess, I’m going to change this world!”
Morning light finally broke through the clouds and fell on his lean yet upright back, and rain ran down from his hair, mixed with sweat and soil, yet it did nothing to hide the sharpness in his eyes.
In the distance, Zhongnan Mountain lay wrapped in cloud and mist, and the outline of Chang’an City was faintly visible through the haze.
The gears of the Zhenguan Golden Age began to turn in silence at this very moment.
And the first finger that pushed it gripped a freshly sharpened iron hoe, ready to break ground on that first furrow of wasteland.
Just as he shouldered the iron hoe and was about to head to the fields, he heard footsteps outside the yard gate, and when he craned his head to look, it was the neighboring Granny, still carrying a bowl of steaming hot millet porridge in her hands.
“Heng boy, it just rained so hard, so why are you still running outside, and hurry in and drink a bowl of porridge to warm yourself up,” Granny said with a smile as she walked in and handed him the bowl, “because I saw your place looking so empty and quiet, and there isn’t even a bit of warmth on the stove, so you surely haven’t eaten, right?”
Du Heng took the bowl of porridge, warmth spreading through his heart, and though the porridge was thin, it was full of Granny’s care; he cupped the bowl and drank in big gulps, and once the hot porridge hit his stomach, the chill and hunger in his body faded a fair bit.
“Thank you, Granny!” Du Heng put down the bowl and scratched his head in embarrassment, “and when I grow grain later and make good food, I’ll definitely bring it to you first for a taste.”
Granny’s eyes creased into a thin line as she smiled, and she said, “You child, you just have a sweet tongue, and living your life well beats everything; oh right, if that half-mu of yours is hard to work, tell Granny, and I’ll have your grandpa lend you a hand.”
“No, no, Granny, I can do it myself!” Du Heng waved his hands again and again, “because I’ve already figured out how to handle it, so just wait and see me farm the land well and even make good food!”
Seeing how confident he was, Granny didn’t say more, and after a few more reminders like “don’t catch a chill” and “eat properly,” she slowly headed home.
Du Heng saw Granny off, then shouldered the sharpened iron hoe and strode toward his family’s fields, and the soil was soaked through by the rain and had softened a lot, so he swung the iron hoe and started breaking ground one stroke after another; even though he ended up drenched in sweat and his arms ached fiercely, he kept smiling the whole time.
He knew that with this first swing of the hoe, he wasn’t just reclaiming land, but laying down the first solid foundation for his own future in this era, and the wind beneath Zhongnan Mountain carried the scent of earth as it brushed his hems like it was cheering him on, while his Great Tang journey also officially began amid stroke after stroke of hard tilling.