IN THE EIGHTH century CE, a sage of the Tibetan Tubo Dynasty offered advice to the Tibetan Emperor Trisong Detsen that there were four ways that the future development of the Tibetan people could head: along the road of Buddhism in the East, the road of forestry in the south, the road of highland barley in the west, or along the road of steel in the north.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, a thousand-year dream was forged into something of a poetic legend, transcending the Tibetan King Gesar of the Kingdom of Ling.
Xu Jian
