He bluffed his way through the gullible

Subterfuge, conceit, intrigue are human traits as old as human civilization itself. Zeus used them to seduce maidens and overpower rival gods. The Bible, starting from the Book of Genesis, is replete with them, so are the ancient texts of ancient lands like India, Persia and Mesopotamia. Chinese texts too have the share of these human traits: A Dream of Red Mansions comes readily to mind.

Eight centuries before one of China's four classics was written, at the turn of the century before last, to be precise, a deceit of continental proportions was played out in Europe. Erik the Red fooled people in Denmark into believing that in the north, a little across the sea was a land green and fertile, a contrast to the mostly cold climes of the Scandinavian country. His fellow Danes swallowed his bait hook, line and sinker, and paid him handsomely to buy pieces of land on what later came to be known as Greenland. Yet he is credited as the man who founded the first human (Norse) settlement on the second-largest island in the world. (His aptly named son Lief Erikson is widely believed to have discovered Greenland, though.)

Those were different times in a world far different from the one we live in today. And yet we have a man who has visited China several times in recent years claiming to be a member of one of the most famous banking families in the world and succeeded, until now, in making the rich and powerful believe in his claims. The Rothschilds, as one of the wealthiest families in the world, have been in the limelight for a century and a half but still continue to remain somewhat of a mystery to outsiders. Recently, the Rothschilds made the headlines following the publication of Currency Wars, which claimed the family has deeply influenced the developments in Europe.