Today is a special day: I finally finished reading the Chinese version of this book. Its vision, mindset, and way of thinking, calm and rational with profound knowledge, are admirable in countless ways. A serious work and a good one at that. It is hard to imagine anyone studying Chinese history could skip this book. Reading it is difficult, writing it must have been incredibly challenging. It took me two months to read it half in Chinese and half in English, and even two years may not be enough to fully grasp its content.