A Thought:
The old man’s horse running away resulted, after a succession of twists and turns of fate, in his son’s legally evading the draft, or an impressment, where nine tenths of the draftees would perish in war. Hereafter this common horse might have led continuously to more so-called historical points of divengence, one after another, some even instrumental in helping shape the world as we know today. What a perfect interpretation of William Cowper’s famous hymnic lines “God moves in a mysterious way / His wonders to perform”!
Incidentally, this short story from a classical text of China’s Han dynasty is good materials for alternative historians to draw on: what would have happened in history, or what today’s world would be like, if that horse hadn’t “wandered into the land of the Hu tribesmen” in the first place?
