Gao Jian was momentarily speechless.
Good grief. One sentence had denied the existence of the modern nation of Australia.
Never mind the Aboriginal Australians-what about the Chinese students studying there? Were they floating out at sea?
Unfortunately, no matter how much Gao Jian insisted, Zheng He kept denying Australia's existence. Eventually, Gao Jian grew so frustrated that he grabbed Zheng He by the shoulders and shook him repeatedly.
"Lord Zheng, snap out of it. This is a virtual game, and you're a person from the real world. The historical Zheng He might genuinely not have known Australia existed, but from our real-world perspective, Australia does exist."
"I know the difference. There simply is no such place!"
Zheng He was dizzy from all the shaking, but he still stood by his view.
"If Australia doesn't exist, where did the United Kingdom send its convicts back then?"
"They threw them into the sea to drown."
"What about photos of Australia, Australians, and flight routes from China to Australia?"
"Fabricated."
"The Australians I see online are fabricated too?"
"They're actors hired by the government."
Gao Jian was utterly floored.
He decided to stop discussing the subject with him. It was as though an ideological brand had been stamped into Lord Zheng's brain. He kept rejecting Gao Jian's views, and his excuses were absurd.
As they talked, they soon crossed half of Beijing, even passing the Railway Bureau. Gao Jian decided to change the subject. "Lord Zheng, how was Great Ming's Industrial Revolution driven forward? What triggered it?"
Once they stopped discussing Australia, Lord Zheng became eloquent again. "No one triggered it. It arose spontaneously."
He continued, "The forces of production determine the relations of production. Once productive forces develop to a certain level, the relations of production naturally change. With the rise of