Liu Di hesitated.
Then the little boy said, "Big brother, I really envy you."
The boy's eyes were pitch-black, glinting with cunning. He scrutinized Liu Di carefully, as though greedily absorbing every detail about him and storing it away in his mind.
Liu Di concluded that although this boy was young, he was extraordinarily calculating!
Then Liu Di asked, "Who are you?"
"Oh!"
The little boy pointed at Empress Dowager Xiaoyuan beside him. "I'm the Empress Dowager's nephew, Wang Mang."
Liu Di's heart tightened.
At the end of the Western Han, Empress Dowager Xiaoyuan became Grand Empress Dowager. Much like ruling from behind a curtain, she unabashedly promoted members of her own Wang family.
This allowed the grown Wang Mang to wield overwhelming power over the court.
In the end, he rebelled and usurped the Han dynasty!
He established the Xin dynasty!
After being enfeoffed as a king, Wang Mang introduced countless baffling measures. For instance, he invented calipers that would not exist until after the nineteenth century, abolished slavery, invented loans, introduced low-rent housing, advocated equal land distribution, implemented a unified currency system, and promoted strengthening the nation through technology!
These ideas were incredibly advanced for that era!
Many of those measures would not be recognized until thousands of years later.
Later generations called Wang Mang history's first transmigrator!
Yet in the end, Wang Mang's dynasty was brought down by the rebel army of Liu Xiu!
Liu Di sighed.
The child had just mentioned having special dreams. Could he truly see the future?
Who could have imagined that this tiny child would one day bring an end to the Western Han's 210-year history?
But.
None of this had anything to do with him. The wheels of history would follow their own course.
Liu Di paused only briefly. He gave