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Tivoli Gardens, in Copenhagen, is a wonderful place to visit. All that is described in chapter 3 exists, including the Chinese pagoda. The Café Norden (chapter 13) anchors Højbro Plads in Copenhagen and continues to serve some delicious tomato bisque.
Sadly, child stealing plagues China (chapters 8 and 9). More than 70,000 children do, in fact, disappear there each year, the vast majority young boys, sold to families desperate for a son. Including this incredible reality in the story is my way of drawing attention to the problem. There’s an excellent documentary, China’s Stolen Children, that you can watch if you want to learn more.
The debate between Confucianism and Legalism has raged for 3,000 years (chapter 10). One of these two competing philosophies has defined every ruling dynasty, including that of the communists. It is also true that none of Kong Fu-Zi’s original texts have survived. All that remains are later interpretations of his originals. The failures of Mao (chapter 49); the rise and fall of so many corrupt imperial dynasties (chapter 12); the Hundred Flowers Campaign (chapter 45); and the disastrous Cultural Revolution are all reported accurately. Likewise, violent divisions within China’s political structure are common, as are destructive internal civil wars. The battle between the Gang of Four and Deng Xiaoping did occur in the late 1970s (chapter 12). Three of the four in the defeated gang lost their lives. Here, I simply created another war for political control between two new contenders.
Centuries ago, the Ba flourished. The history of hegemony, the Ba, and Legalism are indeed accurately related (chapter 24). Hegemony (chapter 45) is a concept uniquely Chinese, one that has long defined its national conscience in ways the West has difficulty comprehending. And as Karl Tang realizes in chapter 24, totalitarianism is a Chinese innovation.
Antwerp is a wonderful European city with a distinctive Old World feel (chapter 18). I’ve long wanted to include it in one of my stories. The Drie Van Egmond Museum (chapters 25, 27–31), though, is my creation. Since I knew I was going to destroy the building, I thought something fictitious would be a better choice. Interestingly, though, I modeled it after an actual Antwerp museum—which burned while this book was being written.
Lev Sokolov and Cassiopeia Vitt have a history, which is hinted to starting with chapter 36. If you’d like to know the full story of how these two met, and why Cassiopeia owes him, there is a short story, “The Balkan Escape,” which can be downloaded as an e-book original. Check it out.
Eunuchs (chapter 7) are an important part of Chinese history. Nowhere else on the planet did they exert so much political influence. Definitely, there were good (chapter 51) and bad personalities. Their history as told throughout the story is accurate, as is the process of their emasculation (chapters 7 and chapter 33). Associating eunuchs with the Ba is my invention, though most certainly they would have played some role in that movement.
Two tortures are utilized: the first with scalding chili powder (chapter 23), the second with rats (chapter 39). Both were created by the Chinese. The Records of the Historian, or Shiji (chapter 38), remains a vital source of ancient Chinese history. The passages cited throughout the story are faithfully quoted. China’s censoring of the Internet happens every day (chapter 43). An intranet, solely for use within the country, is currently being created.
Quotations from Chairman Mao, or The Little Red Book (chapter 43), is the most printed book in history with some 7,000,000,000 copies. Once, every Chinese carried one. Not anymore.
The sky burial, described in chapters 63 and 82, is a part of death in both Tibet and the western Chinese highlands. The dragon lamp (chapter 4) is real, though found in another Chinese imperial tomb, adapted here to Qin Shi.
Halong Bay, in northern Vietnam (chapter 41), is a stunning locale that I could not resist including. Mao’s tomb (chapters 42 and chapter 43) also fascinates me. The stories of the Chairman’s corpse, the botched embalming, a wax effigy, and the possibility that the body itself is gone are all real. And though it’s much more recent history, what happened in Tiananmen Square, and what happened there in June 1989 (chapter 43) remains a mystery. To this day, no one knows how many people died. Many parents did indeed venture to the site, after the tanks withdrew, looking for their children (chapter 43). And as related in chapter 66, all books and websites that even mention the incident are censored in China.
The terra-cotta warrior museum (chapter 6), near Xi’an, forms an important backdrop for the story. When the traveling warrior exhibit visited the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, I visited twice. I was so enthralled that I purchased a replica, which now stands in my den. I tried to incorporate as much of the Xi’an museum as possible, focusing on the massive Pit 1 (chapter 6) and the intriguing Pit 3 (chapter 53). Of course the imperial library chamber (chapter 10) is my addition. The concept of the chariot facing left and the lack of any warriors displayed on the left side of Pit 3 (chapter 53) is not mine. That came from The Terracotta Warriors: The Secret Codes of the Emperor’s Army by Maurice Cotterell.
Qin Shi’s tomb mound, which rises near the underground army site, is accurately portrayed (chapter 38). The drainage tunnels, dug more than 2,220 years ago, remain in the ground (chapter 55). The description of the tomb interior, quoted in chapter 38, is the only written account that exists. My vision of the interior (chapters 55–57) is imagined, but I tried to stay accurate to not only Shiji but also other known imperial tombs. To this day the Chinese government will not allow any excavation of Qin Shi’s final resting place. The description of Qin Shi in chapter 38 is based on the most popular representation, but it was fashioned centuries after his death. In reality, no one has a clue what the man looked like.
Incredibly, the Chinese did in fact drill for oil 2,500 years ago in the manner described in chapter 21, becoming the only people at the time capable of achieving such a feat. They found not only crude but also natural gas, and learned to use both in their daily lives. China’s current dependency on oil (chapter 17) is a reality, as is its policy of foreign appeasement to obtain massive quantities. Its lack of reserves is a strategic weakness, as is the fact that a simple naval blockade of two straits, far from the country, could bring the Chinese to their knees (chapter 17).
The debate between biotic and abiotic oil is real, and continues to this day. Does oil come from decaying organisms or is it naturally produced by the earth? One source is finite, the other infinite. The Russians, at Stalin’s prodding, pioneered the abiotic theory in the 1950s and continue to find oil, utilizing the concept, in places where fossil fuels could never exist (chapters 15 and chapter 17). Likewise, as Stephanie Nelle points out in chapter 15, wells in the Gulf of Mexico are depleting at an astoundingly slow rate, one that has confounded American experts. Diamondoids, or adamantanes (chapter 44), were first isolated from Czech petroleum in 1933, then from U.S. samples in the late 1950s. Of late, these amazing compounds have shown promising applications in nanotechnology. I adapted them as proof of abiotic oil since diamondoids can form only under extreme heat and pressure, the kind experienced deep within the earth, far away from where any fossil fuels may lay.
And what of this long-standing myth of finite oil?
“Fossil fuel” is nothing more than a theory, created in 1757 by a Russian scientist named Mikhail Lomonosov. In proceedings before the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Lomonosov wrote, Rock oil originates as tiny bodies of animals buried in the sediments which, under the influence of increased temperature and pressure, acting during an unimaginably long period of time, transform into rock oil.
Many scientists question this claim, but, over time, we have simply come to believe that oil originates solely from organic compounds.
In 1956 the senior petroleum exploration geologist for the USSR said, The overwhelming preponderance of geological evidence compels the conclusion that crude oil and natural petroleum gas have no intrinsic connection with biological matter originating near the surface of the Earth. They are primordial materials which have been erupted from great depths.
But few people listened to those words.
Raymond Learsy, in his 2005 book Over a Barrel, wrote, Nothing lasts: not fame, fortune, beauty, love, power, youth, or life itself. Scarcity rules. Accordingly, scarcity—or more accurately, the perception of scarcity—spells opportunity for manipulators. The best example of this is OPEC, which continues to extract obscene profits from a scarcity of its own creation.
Learsy, though, leaves no doubt.
He, and many others, the Russians included, are absolutely convinced.
Oil is not scarce. We only fear that it is.
