“Everyone else who transmigrates is breaking off engagements, but I’m here to drop out of school.”

Henry Benson didn’t linger after finishing his business, swinging himself onto a yellow pony used for transportation—it had no name; after all, who among respectable people would bother naming their mount?

Right next to the official academy was the south gate. After passing through the city gate and looking back, he could still see the three characters “长平县” in the center of the two-zhang-high wall.

When Henry Benson first arrived, he thought it was the Changping from the famous Qin-Zhao Battle of Changping, but later realized it wasn’t.

This county belonged to Zuofengyi, one of the Three Adjuncts of the Former Han, and was formerly called Changling County. Only three years ago was it renamed Changping, located roughly east of present-day Xianyang, Shaanxi Province.

So the walls were ancient, but the characters were brand new, just as Wang Mang wished—the new emperor treated the empire like a house renovation, hammering and painting over everything, erasing all traces of the old Han.

Thus, Wang Mang changed the entire official system and place names: for example, prefects became “Dayin,” county magistrates became “Xianzai,” and the Three Adjuncts became the Six Commandants.

Henry Benson had already figured out Wang Mang’s renaming obsession: always do the opposite. “Ling” means high, so he changed it to “Ping,” as in “How can one pacify the world with a flat chest?”

There was a place called Wuxi in the Yangzhou Inspectorate, but Wang Mang disliked the word “Wu” (meaning “none”), so he changed it to its opposite, “Youxi” (“having tin”).

But after asking merchants from east of the Pass, Henry Benson was disappointed to find that Changshan was still Changshan—it hadn’t been renamed Shijiazhuang!

Lanling was only renamed “Landong,” not Zaozhuang.

“So much for Wang Mang being a predecessor transmigrator! If he really was, he’d have left some secret codes in the place names, right?”

Henry Benson stopped his wild thoughts, spurred his horse south, and left the county town.

In his previous life, he was already feeling weak at thirty, but now, having a seventeen-year-old body again felt amazing. Best of all, he was free from severe nearsightedness—the world was clear once more.

After leaving the city, Henry Benson looked east and could see a massive, truncated hill standing three li away, its base lush with pines and cypresses, temple buildings winding around it.

But that wasn’t really a mountain—it was Changling, the mausoleum of Liu Bang, the founding emperor of Han. Although Wang Mang had changed all the old names, he hadn’t dug up the Liu family’s ancestral tomb. That’s because, when he usurped the Han, he played a trick: he had people present him with golden tablets and bronze tallies, claiming that “the Red Emperor manifested and passed the Han realm to Mang.”

So this abdication—was it really Liu Bang himself passing the empire to Wang Mang?

It’s said that Wang Mang even accepted the golden decree in front of the High Emperor’s spirit. To Henry Benson, this was like dancing on a grave. If Liu Bang knew in the afterlife, he’d probably be so angry he’d burst from his coffin.

Afterward, Wang Mang made Changling and the High Temple the “Wenzu Temple” of the new dynasty, keeping the ancestral sacrifices going.

After passing Changling and following the dusty road south, he entered “Linqu Township,” where Henry Benson’s family lived.

……

The Chengguo Canal, stretching hundreds of li, crossed the northern Wei plain, irrigating tens of thousands of acres. The best fields of Changling were all concentrated along the canal. Although they couldn’t compare to the gold-priced fields around the capital, they were still extremely valuable.

Along the ever-flowing Chengguo Canal from east to west were the township’s eight “li” (neighborhoods), simply named: First Li, Second Li, Third Li… up to Eighth Li, inhabited by various clans who had migrated from Qi two hundred years ago.

Most Qin and Han “li” were small farming families of five to eight households, but there were exceptions. The immigrants from east of the Pass, when first relocated, couldn’t communicate with the Qin locals, so to survive in a strange land, they had to stick together. Hundreds of families gathered, forming clans, much like the Hakka people in later southern China, with a strong sense of kinship.

Passing by First Li, he could see from afar the grand ancestral hall built by the First Clan. He also encountered two young men of the First Clan riding to the county town. Henry Benson stopped his horse and saluted, but they only nodded indifferently, their attitude extremely arrogant, as if Henry Benson owed them the courtesy.

This made Henry Benson’s attendant and servant, George Benson, spit at their backs and curse, “That First Clan still thinks they’re the main branch! They didn’t even return the young master’s salute!”

Henry Benson only frowned and stopped his servant. “George Grant, save the cursing for when we get home.”

He called his servant George Grant because his round, cheerful face looked like the “Five Blessings” doll—sturdy and robust.

To make things easier to remember, Henry Benson had labeled all his distant relatives. The First Clan was undoubtedly the most arrogant. As descendants of Tian Guang, the legitimate son of the King of Qi, they ranked first in the migration, with the most people and land. During Emperor Wu’s reign, their family had bought official positions, producing two county magistrates. Although their official rank had declined, and the clan head was now only a township elder, they still looked down on the other families as lesser branches.

Riding west, the other families each had their own characteristics.

The Second Clan was the shortest-lived—during Emperor Wu’s crackdown on powerful families, the Second Clan was implicated for associating with the famous knight Guo Jie, labeled as criminal, and exiled to open up land in Fangling, Hanzhong, losing contact with their relatives. As a result, only seven of the eight great clans remained common knowledge in the township.

The Third Clan was the smallest—for some reason, they almost always had only one son per generation, so their numbers were few: no more than ten households, less than a hundred people, dependent on the First Clan.

The Fourth Clan was the shrewdest—this family took a different path and went into business. How could merchants not be shrewd?

The The Benson Family were the fiercest—Henry Benson’s family was famous for their toughness, as Henry Benson’s grandfather had a military background, having fought in the Western Regions with Chen Tang in his youth and knowing a bit of battle tactics. In disputes over irrigation during busy farming seasons, no one in the township could beat them.