Chapter 298
"I worry I'm overstaying my welcome."
"Overstaying? Nonsense. When my son comes to visit, it's only natural to tell him to stay for days on end. If I sent you away too soon, your mother would throw a fit. She'd ask how I could be so heartless."
"You sound like you're speaking from experience."
"Truth be told, when your wife visited a while back, I sent her home after a couple of days and your mother gave me an earful. She couldn't have been more devoted to her own flesh and blood."
The conversation between father and son continued long after dinner, stretching well into the evening.
The complex political talk of the afternoon had vanished entirely.
They chatted about health, strange rumors drifting between Rome and the East, and trivial gossip like the remarriage of an elderly senator.
Even with such mundane topics, the conversation flowed without end.
While Marcus had done most of the talking during the day, it was now Crassus's turn.
Marcus listened quietly, offering the right replies at the right moments to keep the stories coming.
Having found a willing ear after so long, Crassus spoke with unreserved honesty, and Marcus met that sincerity with genuine empathy.
It didn't matter that nothing productive was being discussed.
In fact, the lack of purpose was exactly what made it so valuable.
He was truly glad he had come.
He resolved that next time, he would bring Publius along as well, even if he had to force the issue.
With every tilt of his cup, the song of night insects drifted in.
"Come to think of it, when are you heading back East? You'll be staying in Rome for a while this time, won't you?"
"I originally planned to stay for about a year, but I'll likely have to cut that in half. An interesting report arrived right before I came here."
"Well, considering the size of your territory, the incidents must never cease. Still, didn't you say you set it up to run smoothly without you?"
"I did, but external matters still require my direct orders. I've already dispatched a reply with instructions on how to handle things. Still, it will take quite a while for my letter to cross the sea and reach the Tigris River. It's incredibly inefficient."
"It would certainly be convenient if a device existed that let you converse no matter the distance... but such a thing could only exist in myth. I don't suppose you could try inventing one?"
Crassus asked playfully.
It was meant as a joke, not a serious request.
Marcus, however, seemed to take the remark seriously. He nodded slowly as he replied.
"Such a device will appear someday, though likely not in my lifetime. When that era comes, people will be able to exchange messages in real time from Hispania all the way to the far borders of Persia."
"Haha... Even using horses or birds, a letter takes time to arrive. How could that be possible?"
"It's impossible to explain it in a way you could understand right now, Father. But someday, that era will definitely arrive. And maybe it's not as far off as you think. Given our current pace of development... perhaps in about two hundred years, something close to an early prototype might emerge."
"Two hundred years? Isn't that a bit too soon?"
Two hundred years ago was right around the outbreak of the Punic Wars against Carthage.
To an ancient man accustomed to a glacial pace of technological progress, two centuries could certainly seem like a very brief window.
"You should come visit Rome sometime, just to sightsee. It will be completely different from the city you remember. In the future, the pace of development might be too fast for people to keep up. That's actually what's giving me a headache right now. There will inevitably be masses of people who fall behind and get phased out by progress, and I'm not sure how to handle it..."
"There you go, steering the conversation right back to your worries. I suppose you're just fated never to be free of these burdens."
"It can't be helped. I am the one who chose to live this way."
"Since the topic has come up, let me just say this: don't shoulder too much of the burden. Just do the best you can and leave the rest to the flow of history. In my long life, I've come to realize that for a single individual to try and perfectly control the tides of an era... well, it is a remarkably arrogant notion."
Marcus found himself partly agreeing with those words.
It was true that the waves of an era were often sparked by exceptional individuals.
But once those massive tides rose, they slipped beyond any single person's grasp to sweep across the world.
From that point on, no one could stop them.
Marcus had already witnessed the early signs of this during the Mugunghwa Crisis and the recent stock manipulation attempts.
Because these were still the early stages, he had been able to intervene appropriately, but in the future, the world would not always flow exactly as he wished.
Rapid development could just as easily strip people of their jobs and plunge them into poverty, inciting further social conflict.
"But when those things happen, it's the duty of the one who started that flow to minimize the impact. At least, that is what I believe."
"Well, you have a point there. I suppose you can't help but feel responsible. My own thoughts might just be the stubborn musings of a man who has reached his limits, so you should live true to your own convictions."
Crassus took a pleasant sip of his wine before adding another question.
"By the way, what was this major incident that broke out in the East? You've got me a little curious now."
"It's nothing quite so catastrophic. You've heard of the country called Han, haven't you, Father?"
"Of course I have. Didn't a massive amount of silk and tea pour in from there in the past? Though lately, Roman-made goods have improved so much that their imports seem to have tapered off."
"Their Emperor has died. He actually should have lived for several more years, but he passed away much earlier than I expected."
"Is that so? I recall hearing they were a grand empire rivaling Persia in its prime, or Alexander's Macedonia. If their Emperor is dead, things are bound to get chaotic over there."
In the original timeline, Emperor Xiaoyuan, Liu Shi, should have lived for another five to seven years.
The only plausible explanation for his lifespan being slashed so drastically was his entanglement with Marcus.
To be fair, Marcus had provoked the man endlessly.
He had detonated a series of devastating economic crises for the Han Dynasty, which must have left the Emperor seething with stress.
Still, Marcus had never imagined the man would drop dead years ahead of schedule.
He was genuinely curious about the exact cause of death, but detailed reports hadn't reached him yet.
Inwardly, Marcus suspected it was a lethal combination of extreme stress and high blood pressure.
'Did I really push his blood pressure that high?'
It was true he had made the utterly ridiculous claim that Rome was the original birthplace of silk and tea, but he hadn't expected it to enrage the man to a literal breaking point.
Not that he felt particularly apologetic.
It couldn't be helped.
Looking ahead to the distant future, keeping the Central Plains fragmented was simply the right course of action.
'It isn't as if I have a personal grudge... though maybe I do.'
Come to think of it, back when he lived in Korea, he might have harbored some personal resentment.
Those private feelings might have quietly bled into his actions.
After all, someone had once asked him why he was so determined to trample the Han.
However, Marcus wasn't dismantling the Han just to satisfy a petty grudge.
"For the sake of Rome's stable future, they are a nation that must be kept in check. I cannot just leave them be."
"I don't know much about them. Are they truly such a threat? Then again, considering they border the Xiongnu—who once shook Rome—yet perfectly maintain a great empire, they must possess considerable underlying strength."
"To be frank, the current Han Dynasty poses no threat to us at all. The same will be true in ten years, and even in a hundred. However, the currents of history have a way of flowing in unexpected directions, so we can't afford blind optimism."
China's true strength stemmed from its vast territory, its overwhelming production capacity, and the massive population that those resources sustained.
Even in the late nineteenth century, the Qing Dynasty was no match for the British Empire.
Could the British who won their wars at the time have ever imagined that in less than two hundred years, that gap would completely reverse?
Of course, this was the ancient era, and the Han Dynasty's current production capacity couldn't even compare to Rome's.
Give it a hundred years, and even their population wouldn't stand a chance against Rome's.
Still, he couldn't just sit back and be unconditionally optimistic.
At most, Marcus had less than forty years left to lay the groundwork for the future.
He could leave warnings for his successors, but there was no guarantee his words would be accurately passed down or heeded.
Furthermore, there was a vast gap between Marcus's perspective and the worldview of the people in this era.
Crassus, for instance, had no real grasp of what kind of country the Han Dynasty was.
To him, the Han was nothing more than an exotic and distant topic for conversation.
"Listening to you talk, I'm getting a bit curious. I vaguely recall hearing once that the people from there have eyes so small you can't even see them unless you stare closely at their faces..."
"That is a wildly exaggerated rumor. Regardless, if you'd like to know more about the Han Dynasty, I'll explain it to you."
Swirling his wine cup, Marcus explained everything his father wanted to know.
He spoke of the long, ancient history of the Central Plains, and the Celestial Order centered on the Son of Heaven.
He even broke down the Investiture System—a diplomatic structure entirely foreign to Western civilization.
Crassus listened intently, occasionally tossing in a few follow-up questions.
Upon hearing about the immense power and status the Son of Heaven wielded in the East, Crassus was initially amazed, but his reaction soon shifted to one of pity.
"Do you know roughly how old the Han's Son of Heaven was when he died?"
"He likely hadn't even reached forty. He died less than ten years after taking the throne."
"When he first became monarch, he must have thought he held the entire world in his hands. Honestly, listening to your explanation, he wielded such influence that it would be stranger if he hadn't thought so. And yet, he gained all that power and couldn't even enjoy it for a decade... It just makes the pursuit of power feel all the more hollow."
It was a fact Marcus would only learn later, but Liu Shi's illness had supposedly been sparked by the harsh realization that he did not, in fact, own the entire world.
"It's a tragedy for them, but it works in our favor. Because the Son of Heaven passed away so early, their line of succession has been thrown into complete chaos."
"I take it there is no proper heir?"
"The Crown Prince has barely passed his tenth birthday. Moreover, he lacks the caliber needed to prop up a declining nation."
"So you're saying it will collapse on its own without you lifting a finger. I'm glad to hear that. It means you can stay here a while longer."
Marcus offered a meaningful smile and took a sip of his wine.
It was true that the current Han had over a ninety percent chance of self-destructing even if left entirely alone.
The nation was in turmoil, and with a mere child ascending the throne as the Son of Heaven, the power-hungry nobles would undoubtedly scramble to line their own pockets.
The Former Han might even collapse entirely before Wang Mang could ever stage his rebellion.
Still, Marcus had absolutely no intention of just sitting back and watching it happen.
Unlike the original timeline, a national hero might suddenly emerge to unite the chaotic realm and restore its former glory.
The chances of that happening were astronomically low, but the possibility wasn't exactly zero.
Staring down into his empty wine cup, Marcus spoke in a calm, flat tone, effectively passing a death sentence on the empire fated to be the last unified dynasty of the Central Plains.
"It is hardly an act of mercy to stand by and watch a terminally ill patient suffer until they wish for death. I merely intend to give them a gentle push in the back... so they can depart a little quicker, and with a little less pain."