Tang Brick

Tang Brick is the breakout work of web novelist Jieyu 2. Serialized on Qidian since September 2012, the completed novel runs to roughly 4.46 million characters. It tells the story of Yun Ye, a young man from the modern era who unexpectedly travels back to the second year of the Zhenguan era in the early Tang dynasty and wakes up with nothing on the barren northwestern frontier, accompanied only by an equally stranded wild horse. He knows nothing of politics or warfare and cannot bend the world to his will or rule by decree, yet with a head full of modern knowledge and a streak of unorthodox cunning, he works his way from making salt, smelting steel, crafting soap, and experimenting with perfume to bringing "auspicious omens" like the potato into the Tang, steadily establishing himself amid the court and streets of the Zhenguan years. In the book, Yun Ye frequently interacts with historical figures such as Li Shimin, Empress Zhangsun, Cheng Yaojin, Li Jing, Fang Xuanling, and Li Chengqian, with both the scheming and probing of the court and the everyday bustle of Chang'an's streets. With a light, humorous, unhurried style, the author brings a "not-so-serious" Tang to vivid life: no regrets over what the histories omit, no century-long humiliation to lament, only the valor of iron horses and gleaming weapons, emperors who swallow the sun and moon, generals tempered by a hundred battles, and lofty scholars in tall hats and broad sashes. Grounded in solid historical knowledge and brisk in style, the work is regarded as one of the representative titles of the "time-travel farming" genre in web literature. It won the bronze prize at the first Biennial Web Literature Awards and was adapted into a web series of the same name.