The Eagle and the Dragon question

This book is based on some little-known, but nevertheless accurate, historical facts: the Roman Indian Ocean trade, which features so prominently in the first third of this book, was in fact truly modern in scope and an underpinning of the state budget. And Liqian, in China, may well have had Roman soldiers resettle there @35BC. It was also the place of origin for grape wine-making, at almost exactly the same time, and Gansu province continues today as the Napa Valley of China. It is fact-based fiction, because the real stories are lost. But it could have happened this way...