The fast American cruiser, the USS Charleston, sliced through the murky, yellow-brown waters of the Yangtze, a gleaming white anomaly in a landscape of ancient, timeless green. At its prow stood President Theodore Roosevelt, a man who seemed to be a force of nature in his own right. He stood with his hands on his hips, his jaw set, taking in the sights of the Chinese interior not as a tourist, but as a surveyor measuring a rival's domain. The air was thick with the smell of coal smoke, damp earth, and the palpable energy of a nation in violent, chaotic transformation.
When the cruiser finally docked at the specially constructed pier deep within the Three Gorges, the scene that greeted him was a carefully orchestrated symphony of power. Ranks of Imperial Guards, thousands of them, stood in perfect, silent formations, their uniforms immaculate, their rifles held at a precise angle. They were not a welcoming party; they were a living wall, a statement of absolute order and discipline.
As Roosevelt descended the gangplank, followed by his small contingent of aides and Secret Service agents, he was met not by a subordinate minister or a military governor, but by the Dragon Emperor himself.
Qin Shi Huang stood at the end of the pier, dressed in a simple but exquisitely tailored dark silk robe that billowed slightly in the river breeze. He projected an aura of calm, ancient authority, a stark contrast to Roosevelt's restless, kinetic energy. The two most powerful men on earth stood face-to-face for the first time.
Their handshake was a moment of immense, unspoken weight, a physical connection between two opposing poles of power and ideology. Roosevelt, a man accustomed to judging others by the strength of their grip, found the Emperor's hand surprisingly cool and firm. He looked into the Emperor's eyes and saw not the haughty arrogance of a monarch, but an unnerving, ancient depth, a gaze that seemed to see more than it should.
Qin Shi Huang, in turn, felt the raw, vibrant force of will emanating from the American president. At the same time, his own heightened senses, augmented by the invisible "Dragon's Spores" he had dusted upon his robes, scanned Roosevelt for any sign of an unnatural energy signature. He found nothing. There was immense personal power here, the charisma of a born leader, but nothing that suggested a power beyond the mortal coil. The discovery was both a relief and a puzzle.
"Mr. President," Qin Shi Huang said, his voice a calm, resonant baritone with flawless English. "Welcome to the future of China."
With that, the tour of power began. It was not a tour of palaces or temples. It was a tour of raw, brutal, industrial might. QSH led Roosevelt to a high overlook, a viewing platform built into the side of a cliff, that gave them a breathtaking, panoramic view of the dam construction site.
The scale of the project was almost impossible for the human mind to comprehend. A hundred thousand laborers, their blue-clad forms a moving river of humanity, swarmed over the landscape. They were carving a new geography into the earth with little more than picks, shovels, and sheer, unceasing effort. The air rang with the rhythmic clang of hammers on steel, the shouts of foremen, and the percussive, ground-shaking thud of dynamite blasts echoing through the gorges.
"An impressive display of manpower, Your Majesty," Roosevelt said, his voice carrying easily over the din.
"It is a display of national will, Mr. President," QSH corrected him smoothly. He gestured to a line of new, smoke-belching steam shovels and massive, gear-driven rock crushers that were working alongside the laborers. "Of course, we are not without our modern tools. We learned a great deal from the advice provided by your Mr. Hoover. He has been a most… invaluable asset to our efforts."
The words were polite, but the message was as sharp and as clear as a shard of glass. A reminder of the fifty-one American hostages held just out of sight, their lives hanging on the outcome of this very meeting.
Roosevelt did not take the bait. He shifted the conversation from power to philosophy. "A nation's greatness is not measured solely in the monuments it builds, Your Majesty, but in how it values the men who build them. In America, we believe in the dignity of the individual laborer, in his right to a fair wage and a safe life."
"A noble sentiment," QSH countered, his lips curling in a faint, dismissive smile. "But the dignity of a single man is a small, fleeting thing when weighed against the security of an entire nation from a thousand years of devastating floods. I offer my people order. I offer them security. I offer them a grand, collective purpose that lifts them beyond their own small lives. You offer them a chaotic and divisive liberty that, from what I have studied of your nation, leads primarily to labor riots, political corruption, and the worship of money."
It was a duel of irreconcilable worldviews, fought with ideologies instead of swords, on a stage of breathtaking scale.
The final act of the tour was the most potent. QSH led Roosevelt and his party to the entrance of a massive cavern carved into the mountainside, its entrance sealed by a huge, reinforced steel door. At the Emperor's command, the door ground open, revealing the cavernous, brightly lit interior of the secret X-Laboratory.
And in the center of the cavern sat the landship.
The American Secret Service agents instinctively tensed, their hands moving towards their concealed weapons. Roosevelt himself stood frozen for a moment, his face a mask of professional, dispassionate interest, but his mind was reeling. He was a military historian. He understood, in an instant, the strategic implications of what he was seeing. A self-propelled, armored gun platform, immune to machine-gun fire, capable of crossing trenches. It was a weapon that would make every defensive strategy currently employed by the armies of the West obsolete. It was a weapon from the future.
"An experimental agricultural tractor," QSH said blandly, enjoying the stunned silence of the Americans. "We are developing it to help our farmers clear difficult terrain."
Roosevelt knew it was a lie, and he knew that the Emperor knew he knew it was a lie. The machine was a deliberate, calculated revelation of power, the Emperor's ultimate trump card. It was a way of saying, This is what we can do in secret. Imagine what else we have that you do not know about.
Qin Shi Huang believed he was dominating the initial phase of the summit. He had displayed his Empire's immense power of will, he had subtly reminded his guest of the hostage situation, he had intellectually sparred with him on the nature of governance, and he had concluded with a technological shock that had clearly shaken the American delegation.
He turned to Roosevelt, a host concluding a successful tour. "The day grows long, Mr. President. I trust the display has been… illuminating. Now, I invite you to join me for a private dinner in my personal carriage on the Imperial train. I believe it is time that we moved from demonstrations to discussion." He gave another of his thin, knowing smiles. "Now that you have seen what my nation is building, let us speak of the new shape of the world that we will build together."
The carefully choreographed pleasantries were over. The initial probing and posturing were done. The real battle, the one that would be fought with words and will across a dining table, was about to begin.