Bọn Tàu: trùm hàng giả

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Yifan, a fantasy (khả năng tưởng tượng, ý nghĩ kỳ quặc) novelist (tiểu thuyết gia), was browsing Chinese Wikipedia looking for inspiration (cảm hứng sáng tác) in history, when he first learned of the great silver mine (mỏ bạc trù phú) of Kashin. Originally opened by the principality (công quốc, xứ sở của hoàng thân) of Tver, an independent (độc lập) state from the 13th to 15th centuries, it grew to be one of the world’s biggest, a city-sized early modern industry worked by some 30,000 slaves (nô lệ) and 10,000 freedmen. Its fabulous (ngoa ngoắt, khó tin, phóng đại, quá cao) wealth made it a vital resource to the princes (hoàng thân) of Tver, but also tempted (bị cám dỗ) the powerful dukes (công tước) of Moscow, who attempted to seize (chiếm giữ) the mine in a series of wars that sprawled (lan ra) across the land that is now Russia from 1305 to 1485. “After the fall of the Principality of Tver, it continued to be mined by the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor regime until the mine was closed in the mid-18th century due to being exhausted,” the entry said.

Yifan went down the rabbit hole (lạc vào mê cung) on the Kashin mine and the Tver-Moscow War, learning about battles (trận đánh), the personalities of aristocrats (quý tộc) and engineers, and more history surrounding the forgotten mine. There were hundreds of related articles describing this obscure (ít được biết tới) period of Slavic history in the dull, sometimes suggestive, tone of the online encyclopedia.

It was only when he tried to go deeper that something started to seem off. Russian-language versions of articles related to the period were shorter than the Chinese equivalents, or nonexistent. The footnote (chú thích) supporting a passage on medieval (trung cổ) mining methods referred to an academic paper on automated mining in the 21st century. Eventually, he realized that there was no such thing as the great silver mine of Kashin (which is an entirely real town in Tver Oblast, Russia). Yifan had uncovered one of the largest hoaxes (trò chơi khăm) in Wikipedia’s history.

...Over more than 10 years, the author wrote several million words of fake (giả) Russian history, creating 206 articles and contributing to hundreds more. She imagined richly detailed war stories and economic histories, and wove them into real events in language boring enough to fit seamlessly into the encyclopedia. Some netizens are calling her China’s Borges.

She’s come to be known as “Zhemao,” after one of her aliases. According to a now-deleted profile, Zhemao was the daughter of a diplomat (viên chức ngoại giao) stationed (đóng quân) in Russia, has a degree in Russian history, and became a Russian citizen after marrying a Russian.

She began her career in fictional history in 2010, creating articles with false stories related to the real figure of Heshen, a famously corrupt Qing Dynasty official. She turned her attention to Russian history in 2012, editing existing articles on Czar Alexander I of Russia.

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