I can remember it clearly. It all started when I was a young boy, living with my family in Chang'an.

My oldest brother had become a trader on the Silk Road, claiming he wanted to travel the world. If my family had known what was going on in the West, we wouldn't have let him go.

The disease was terrible. My brother had just come back from Rome, and had brought the plague with him. They locked him out of the capital, and locked him away with the others like him. The disease ate his body, and he slowly suffered and died .

The plague was just the beginning. Because of the plague, our people and traders died. There was no one to take out goods to the West, so our economy declined rapidly.

The inequality in our society hit it's breaking point. The poor became angry. The wealthy leaders of our society began to buy their land, forcibly. Our land was almost sold, but we were lucky and managed to keep it.