Qin Shi Huang
| | Qin Shi Huang |
|---|
| Ancestral name ("): | Ying (嬴) |
| Clan name (氏): | Zhao¹ (趙),or Qin² (秦) |
| Given name (名): | Zheng (") |
| King of the State of Qin |
| Dates of reign: | July 247 BCE–221 BCE |
| Official title: | King of Qin (秦王) |
| Emperor of Qin Dynasty |
| Dates of reign: | 221 BCE–Sept. 10, 210 BCE |
| Official name: | First Emperor (始皇帝) |
| Temple name: | None³. |
| Posthumous name: | None4 |
proleptic Julian calendar.
They are not in the proleptic Gregorian calendar.| """ | 1. This clan name appears in the Records of the Grand Historian
written by Sima Qian. Apparently, the First Emperor being born
in the State of Zhao where his father was a hostage, he later
adopted Zhao as his clan name (in ancient China clan names
often changed from generation to generation), but this is
not completely certain.2. Based on ancient Chinese naming patterns, we can infer that
Qin was the clan name of the royal house of the State of Qin,
derived from the name of the state. Other branches of the Ying
ancestral family, enfeoffed in other states, had other clan
names. Qin was thus possibly also the clan name of
the First Emperor.3. The royal house of Qin did not carry the practice of temple
names, which were not used anymore since the establishment
of the Zhou Dynasty, so the First Emperor does not have a
temple name per se. However, his official name "First Emperor"
can somehow be assimilated to a temple name, being the
name under which the emperor would have been honored
in the temple of the ancestors of the dynasty.4. Posthumous names were abolished in 221 BC by the First
Emperor who deemed them inappropriate and contrary
to filial piety. | | | | |
Qin Shi Huang () (November / December
260 BCE "
September 10,
210 BCE), personal name
Zheng, was king of the Chinese
State of Qin from
247 BCE to
221 BCE, and then the first emperor of a unified
China from
221 BCE to
210 BCE, ruling under the name
First Emperor.
Having unified China, he and his prime minister
Lǐ Sī passed a series of major reforms aimed at cementing the unification, and they undertook some
Herculean construction projects, most notably the precursor version of the current
Great Wall of China. For all the
tyranny of his
autocratic rule, Qin Shi Huang is still regarded by many today as the
founding father in Chinese history whose unification of China has endured for more than two millennia (with interruptions).
Qin Shi Huang was born in the Chinese month
zh"ng (正), the first month of the year in the Chinese calendar (in the
3rd century BCE the Chinese year started before the
Winter solstice, and not after as it does today), and so he received the name Zheng ("), both characters were being used interchangeably in ancient China. In Chinese antiquity, people never joined family names and given names together as is customary today, so it is anachronistic to refer to Qin Shi Huang as "Ying Zheng". The given name was never used except by close relatives, therefore it is also incorrect to refer to the young Qin Shi Huang as "Prince Zheng", or as "King Zheng of Qin". As a king, he was referred to as "King of Qin" only. Had he received a posthumous name after his death like his father, he would have been known by historians as "King NN. (posthumous name) of Qin", but this never happened.
After conquering the last independent Chinese state in
221 BCE, Qin Shi Huang was the king of a state of Qin ruling over the whole of China, a previously unprecedented accomplishment. Wishing to show that he was no longer a simple king like the kings of old during the
Warring States Period, he created a new title,
huangdi (皇帝), combining the word
huang (皇) from the legendary Three
Huang (
Three August Ones) who ruled at the dawn of Chinese history, and the word
di (帝) from the legendary Five
Di (
Five Sovereigns) who ruled immediately after the Three
Huang. These Three
Huang and Five
Di were considered perfect rulers, of immense power and very long lives. The word
huang also meant "big", "great". The word
di also referred to the Supreme God in Heaven, creator of the world. Thus, by joining these two words for the first time, Qin Shi Huang created a title on a par with his feat of uniting the seemingly endless Chinese realm, in fact uniting the world (ancient Chinese, like ancient Romans, believed their empire encompassed the whole world, a concept referred to as
all under heaven).
This word
huangdi was rendered in most Western languages as "
emperor", a word which also has a long history dating back to
ancient Rome, and which
Europeans deemed superior to the word "king". Qin Shi Huang adopted the name First Emperor (
Shi Huangdi, literally "commencing emperor"). He abolished posthumous names, by which former kings were known after their death, judging them inappropriate and contrary to
filial piety, and decided that future generations would refer to him as the First Emperor (Shi Huangdi). His successor would be referred to as the Second Emperor (
Er Shi Huangdi, literally "second generation emperor"), the successor of his successor as the Third Emperor (
San Shi Huangdi, literally "third generation emperor"), and so on, for ten thousand generations, as the Imperial house was supposed to rule China for ten thousand generations ("
ten thousand" is equivalent to "forever" in Chinese, and it also means "good fortune").
Qin Shi Huang had now become the First Emperor of the State of Qin. The official name of the newly united China was still "State of Qin", Qin having absorbed all the other states. The names
Zhonghua (中華) or
Zhongguo (中國) were never used officially for the country China until
1912 when the
Republic of China (中華民國) was founded. Contemporaries called the emperor "First Emperor", dropping the "of the State of Qin", which was obvious without saying. However, soon after the emperor's death, his regime collapsed, and China was beset by a
civil war. Eventually, in
202 BCE the
Han Dynasty managed to reunify the whole of China, which now became officially known as the
State of Han (漢國), which can also be translated as the Empire of Han. Qin Shi Huang could no longer be called "First Emperor", as this would imply that he was the "First Emperor of the Empire of Han". The custom thus arose of preceding his name with Qin (秦), which does not refer to the State of Qin anymore, but to the
Qin Dynasty, a dynasty now replaced by the Han Dynasty. The word
huangdi (emperor) in his name was also shortened to
huang, so that he became known as Qin Shi Huang. It seems likely that
huangdi was shortened to obtain a three-character name, which matches the three-character name of Chinese people (it is rare for Chinese people to have a name made of four or more characters).
This name Qin Shi Huang (i.e., "First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty") is the name that appears in the
Records of the Grand Historian written by
Sima Qian, and is the name most favored today inside China when referring to the First Emperor. Westerners sometimes write "Qin Shi Huangdi", which is improper given Chinese naming conventions; it is more conventional to write "Qin Shi Huang" or "First Emperor".
At the time of the young Zheng's birth, China was divided into warring
feudal states. This period of Chinese history is referred to as the
Warring States Period. The competition was extremely fierce and by
260 BCE there were only a handful of states left (the others having been conquered and annexed), but Zheng's state,
Qin, was the most powerful. It was governed by
Legalist philosophy and focused earnestly on military matters.
Zheng was born in
Handan (邯鄲), the capital of the enemy
State of Zhao. He was the son of Zichu (子楚), a prince of the royal house of Qin who served as a hostage in the State of Zhao under an agreement between the states of Qin and Zhao. Zichu later returned to Qin after many adventures and with the help of a rich merchant called
Lü Buwei, and he managed to ascend the throne of Qin, Lü Buwei becoming
chancellor (
prime minister) of Qin. Zichu is known posthumously as
King Zhuangxiang of Qin. According to a widespread story, Zheng was not the actual son of Zichu, but the son of the powerful chancellor Lü Buwei. This tale arose because Zheng's mother had originally been a concubine of Lü Buwei before he gave her to his good friend Zichu shortly before Zheng's birth. However, the story is dubious since the
Confucians would have found it much easier to denounce a ruler whose birth was illegitimate.
Zheng ascended the throne in
247 BCE at the age of 12 and a half, and was king under a
regent until
238 BCE when, at the age of 21 and a half, he staged a palace
coup and assumed full power. He continued the tradition of tenaciously attacking and defeating the feudal states (dodging a celebrated assassination attempt by
Jing Ke while doing so) and finally took control of the whole of China in
221 BCE by defeating the last independent Chinese state, the
State of Qi.
Then in that same year, at the age of 38, the king of Qin proclaimed himself First Emperor (see chapter above).
To avoid the political chaos of the
Warring States Period, Qin Shi Huang and his prime minister
Li Si completely abolished
feudalism. They instead divided the empire into thirty-six
commanderies (郡). Power in the commanderies was in the hands of governors dismissed at will by the central government. Civilian and military powers were also separated to avoid that too much power falls in the hands of a single civil servant. Thus each commandery was run by a
civilian governor (守
shōu) assisted by a
military governor (尉
wèi). The civilian governor was superior to the military governor, a constant in Chinese history. The civilian governor was also reassigned to a different commandery every few years to prevent him from building up a base of power. An
inspector (監
jiàn) was also in post in each commandery, in charge of informing the central government about the local implementation of central policies, reporting on the governors' exercise of power, and possibly resolving conflicts between the two governors.
This administrative system was only an extension to the whole empire of the system already in place in the
State of Qin before the Chinese unification. In the State of Qin, feudalism had been abolished in the
4th century BCE, and the realm had been divided into commanderies, with governors dismissed at will by the ruler.
Qin Shi Huang ordered all the members of the former royal houses of the conquered states to move to
Xianyang ('陽), the capital of Qin, in modern day
Shaanxi province, so they would be kept under tight
surveillance for rebellious activities.
The emperor also developed an extensive network of roads and canals connecting the provinces to accelerate
trade between them and to accelerate military marches to revolting provinces.
Qin Shi Huang and Li Si unified China economically by standardizing the
Chinese units of measurements such as
weights and
measures, the
currency, the length of the
axles of
carts (so every cart could run smoothly in the ruts of the new roads), the
legal system, and so on.
Perhaps most importantly, the
Chinese script was unified. Under Li Si, the
seal script of the state of Qin, which had already evolved organically during the
Eastern Zhou out of the
Zhou dynasty script, was standardized through removal of variant forms within the Qin script itself. This newly standardized script was then made official throughout all the conquered regions, thus doing away with all the regional scripts and becoming the official script for all of China. Contrary to popular belief, Li Si did not invent the script, nor was it completely new at the time. Edicts written in the new script were carved on the walls of sacred mountains around China, such as the famous carved edicts of
Mount Taishan, to let
Heaven know of the unification of
Earth under an emperor, and also to propagate the new script among people. However, the script was difficult to write, and an informal Qin script remained in use which was already evolving into an early form of
clerical script.
Qin Shi Huang also had most previously-existing
books burned (excepting some held in the palace archives). Concomitant with this, he had many scholars executed.
Qin Shi Huang continued military expansion during his reign, annexing regions to the south (what is now
Guangdong province was penetrated by Chinese armies for the first time) and fighting
nomadic tribes to the north and northwest. These tribes (the
Xiongnu) were subdued, but the campaign was essentially inconclusive, and to prevent the Xiongnu from encroaching on the northern frontier any longer, the emperor ordered the construction of an immense defensive wall, linking several walls already existing since the time of the
Warring States. This wall, for whose construction hundreds of thousands of men were mobilized, and an unknown number died, is the precursor version of the current
Great Wall of China. It was built much more north than the current Great Wall which was built only during the
Ming Dynasty, when China had at least twice more inhabitants than in the days of the First Emperor, and when more than a century was devoted to building the wall (as opposed to a mere ten years during the rule of the First Emperor). Very little survives today of the great wall built by the First Emperor.
 |
Imperial tours of Qin Shi Huang |
The emperor died while on a tour to Eastern China, searching for the legendary
Islands of the Immortals (off the coast of Eastern China) and for the secret of
eternal life. Reportedly he died of swallowing mercury pills, which were made by his court scientists and doctors, containing too much
mercury. Ironically, these pills were meant to make Qin Shi Huang
immortal.
His death occurred on
September 10,
210 BCE (
Julian Calendar) at the palace in
Shaqiu prefecture, about two months away by road from the capital Xianyang. Prime minister Li Si, who accompanied him, was extremely worried that the news of his death could trigger a general uprising in the empire, given the brutal policies of the government, and the resentment of the population forced to work on Herculean projects such as the great wall in the north of China or the
mausoleum of the emperor. It would take two months for the government to reach the capital, and it would not be possible to stop the uprising. Li Si decided to hide the death of the emperor, and return to Xianyang.
Most of the imperial entourage accompanying the emperor was left uninformed of the emperor's death, and each day Li Si entered the wagon where the emperor was supposed to be traveling, pretending to discuss affairs of state. The secretive nature of the emperor while alive allowed this
stratagem to work, and it did not raise doubts among
courtiers. Li Si also ordered that two carts containing fish be carried immediately before and after the wagon of the emperor. The idea behind this was to prevent people from noticing the foul smell emanating from the wagon of the emperor, where his body was starting to decompose severely. Eventually, after about two months, Li Si and the imperial court were back in Xianyang, where the news of the death of the emperor was announced.
Qin Shi Huang did not like to talk about death and he never really wrote a
will. After his death, Li Si and the chief
eunuch Zhao Gao persuaded his eighteenth son
Huhai to forge the Emperor's will. They forced his first son
Fusu to commit
suicide, stripped the command of troops from
Meng Tian " a loyal supporter of Fusu " and killed Meng's family too. Huhai became the Second Emperor (Er Shi Huangdi), known by historians as
Qin Er Shi.
Qin Shi Huang was buried in his mausoleum, with the famous
Terracotta Army, near modern day
Xi'an (
Shaanxi province). For 2000 years a secret army of clay soldiers has protected the hidden tomb of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Haung. Until 1974 none knew of its existence; now Chinese archaeologists are gradually unfolding the mystery. To guard him in his afterlife the emperor ordered an army of over 7000 life size clay soldiers to be made. When he died the burial place was as magnificient and bizarre as even the treasure laden tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs. The site measures some three miles across and took 700,000 conscripts to construct it. Many wonders of the tomb were described by a Chinese historian, Sima Quian, writing less than a century of the emperor's death. He wrote of rare jewels and a panorama of Chinese rivers with their waters represented by mercury. But Sima Quian never mentioned the terracotta army, which was discovered by a team of well diggers. It is the detail of the terracotta armies that makes it so valuable. The soldiers were not stamped from moulds but each one was individually modelled from clay. The sculptures represent a standard of art that experts believe was far beyond the craftsmen of the Qin Dynasty. Each man was built with solid legs and a hollow torso. The soldiers were originally armed with bronze spears and bows and arrows. But soon after the burial there was a revolution in China and the rebels broke into the vaults to steal the weapons. All the standing warriors were attached to clay pinths that rested on the tiled floor, which still resembles a modern pavement. The soldier were arranged in battle formation, with 600 clay horses and 100 life-sized working wooden chariots. Chinese archaeologists have been meticulous and patient in their work. The main tomb containing the emperor has yet to be opened and there is still hope that it remains intact. It is said that molten copper was used to seal it. Though a magnetic scan of the site has revealed that a large number of coins are lying in the unopened tomb, occasioning speculation that the royal treasury was interred with the emperor.
Qin Er Shi was not nearly as capable as his father. Revolts against him quickly erupted. His reign was a time of extreme civil unrest, and everything the First Emperor had worked for crumbled away, for a short period. The imperial
palace and state
archives were burned: this has been disastrous for later historians, because after the burning of the books by his father, almost the only written records left were those in the palace archives.
Within four years of Qin Shi Huang's death, his son was dead. Thus did the Qin Dynasty come to an end. It was during Qin Er Shi's "rule" that powerful families came to war, with the strongest of them rising to power and bringing order back to the land, thus starting the next
dynasty of emperors.
The next Chinese dynasty, the
Han Dynasty, rejected
legalism (in favor of
Confucianism) and moderated the laws, but kept Qin Shi Huang's basic political and economic reforms intact. In this way his work was carried on through the centuries and became a lasting feature of Chinese society.
 |
A modern statue of Qin Shi Huang, located near the site of the Terracotta Army |
In traditional Chinese
historiography, the First Emperor was almost often portrayed as a brutal tyrant, superstitious (a result of his interest in
immortality and
assassination paranoia), and sometimes even as a mediocre ruler. Ideological prejudices against the
Legalist State of Qin were established as early as
266 BCE, when Confucian philosopher
Xun Zi compared it later, Confucian historians condemned the emperor who had burned the classics and buried Confucian scholars alive. They eventually compiled the list of the
Ten Crimes of Qin to highlight his tyrannical actions. The famous Han poet and statesman
Jia Yi concluded his essay
The Faults of Qin (過秦論) with what was to become the standard Confucian judgment of the reasons for Qin's collapse. Jia Yi's essay, admired as a masterpiece of
rhetoric and
reasoning, was copied into two great Han histories and has had a far-reaching influence on Chinese
political thought as a classic illustration of Confucian theory. He explained the ultimate weakness of Qin as a result of its ruler's ruthless pursuit of
power, the precise factor which had made it so powerful; for as
Confucius had taught, the strength of a government ultimately is based on the support of the people and virtuous conduct of the ruler.
Because of this systematic Confucian bias on the part of Han scholars, some of the stories recorded about Qin Shi Huang are doubtful and some may have been invented to emphasize his bad character. Some of the stories are plainly fictitious, designed to tarnish the First Emperor's image, e.g. the story of a stone fallen from the sky engraved with words denouncing the emperor and
prophesying the collapse of his empire after his death. This makes it difficult to know the truth about other stories. For instance, the accusation that he had 460 scholars executed by having them buried with only their heads above ground and then decapitated seems unlikely to be completely true, but we have no way to know for certain.
Only in modern times were historians able to penetrate beyond the limitations of traditional Chinese historiography. The political rejection of the Confucian tradition as an impediment to China's entry into the modern world opened the way for changing perspectives to emerge. In the three decades between the fall of the
Qing Dynasty and the outbreak of the
Second World War, with the deepening dissatisfaction with China's weakness and disunity, there emerged a new appreciation of the man who had unified China. In the time when he was writing, when Chinese territory was encroached upon by foreign nations, leading
Kuomintang historian
Xiao Yishan emphasized the role of Qin Shi Huang in repulsing the northern barbarians, particularly in the construction of the Great Wall. Another historian,
Ma Feibai (馬非百), published in
1941 a full-length
revisionist biography of the First Emperor entitled
Qin Shi Huangdi Zhuan (《秦始皇帝傳》). He called Qin Shi Huang one of the great heroes of Chinese history. Ma compared him with the contemporary leader
Chiang Kai-shek and saw many parallels in the careers and policies of the two men, both of whom he admired. Chiang's
Northern Expedition of the late
1920s, which directly preceded the new Nationalist government at
Nanjing was compared to the unification brought about by Qin Shi Huang.
With the coming of the
Communist Revolution in
1949, new interpretations again surfaced. The establishment of the new, revolutionary regime meant another re-evaluation of the First Emperor, this time following
Marxist theory. The new interpretation given of Qin Shi Huang was generally a combination of traditional and modern views, but essentially critical. This is exemplified in the
Complete History of China, which was compiled in September
1955 as an official survey of Chinese history. The work described the First Emperor's major steps toward unification and standardization as corresponding to the interests of the ruling group and the
merchant class, not the nation or the people, and the subsequent fall of his dynasty a manifestation of the
class struggle. The perennial debate of the fall of the Qin Dynasty was also explained in Marxist terms, the
peasant rebellions being a revolt against oppression " a revolt which undermined the dynasty, but which was bound to fail because of a compromise with "
landlord class elements".
Since
1972, however, a radically different official view of Qin Shi Huang has been given prominence throughout China. The re-evaluation movement was launched by
Hong Shidi's biography
Qin Shi Huang. The work was published by the state press to be a mass popular history, and sold 1.85 million copies within two years. In the new era, Qin Shi Huang was seen as a farsighted ruler who destroyed the forces of division and established the first unified, centralized state in Chinese history by rejecting the past. Personal attributes, such as his quest for immortality, so emphasized in traditional historiography, were scarcely mentioned. The new evaluations described how, in his time (an era of great political and social change), he had no compunctions in using violent methods to crush
counter-revolutionaries, such as the "industrial and commercial slave owner" chancellor Lü Buwei. Unfortunately, he was not as thorough as he should have been and after his death, hidden subversives, under the leadership of the chief eunuch Zhao Gao, seized power and used it to restore the old feudal order.
To round out this re-evaluation, a new interpretation of the precipitous collapse of the Qin Dynasty was put forward in an article entitled "On the Class Struggle During the Period Between Qin and Han" by
Luo Siding, in a
1974 issue of
Red Flag, to replace the old explanation. The new theory claimed that the cause of the fall of Qin lay in the lack of thoroughness of Qin Shi Huang's "
dictatorship over the reactionaries, even to the extent of permitting them to worm their way into organs of political authority and usurp important posts."
Qin Shi Huang was ranked #17 in
Michael H. Hart's
list of the most influential figures in history.
* To be sure, Qin Shi Huang could always be seen as relevant in fiction and folklore. During the
Korean War, the play
Song of the Yi River was produced. The play was based on an actual historical event, the attempted assassination of Ying Zheng by Jing Ke of Wei, at the request of the Prince of
Yan, in
227 BCE. In the play Ying Zheng was portrayed as a cruel tyrant and an aggressor and invader of other states. Jing Ke, in contrast, was a
chivalrous warrior and one of his lines was "tens of thousands of injured people are all my comrades." A huge newspaper ad for this play proclaimed: "Invasion will definitely end in defeat; peace must be won at a price." The underdog fighting against the aggression of a cruel and powerful foreign invader and being supported by a sympathetic volunteer from another country was obviously a theme with considerable contemporary relevance.
*
Jorge Luis Borges (
1899"
1986), the
Argentine writer, has written one of his best essays on Qin Shi Huang, 'The Wall and the Books' (
'), included in the 1952 collection Other Inquisitions ('). It muses on the opposition between large-scale construction (the Wall) and destruction (book-burning) that defined his reign, in order to make a point about 'the aesthetic experience'.
*In
1956, the book
Lord of the East portrayed a historical romance set in the Qin Dynasty. Qin Shihaung is and evil tyrant compared to Hitler in the foreward of the book. The story is about the emperor's favorite daughter, who runs away with the relative of Yen. The story uses Qin Shihuang to create the barrier for the young couple.
*The
1963 Japanese movie
Shin No Shikoutei portrays him as a battle-hardened Emperor with his roots in the military. He is shown lounging around a campfire with common men even though he is a king. A female character, Lady Chu, is also created in order to show the Emperor's capability to convince a foil character that his cause is just. He transforms her from an enemy into a loyal
concubine.
*The 1984 book
Bridge of Birds (by
Barry Hughart) portrays him as a power-hungry
megalomaniac who achieved immortality by having his heart removed by an Old Man of the mountain.
*In
1984, the book
The Chinese Emperor, by
Jean Levi was written. The book is a
historical fiction that moves from reality and legal discussions of politics in the Qin, to fantasy, where the First Emperor's Terracotta soldiers were
robots to replace fallible humans.
*The
1996 movie
The Emperor's Shadow uses the various legends about him to make a political statement on
Chinese Communism, and focuses on his relationship with the rebellious musician,
Gao Jianli.
Gao Jianli is historically known as a friend of Jing Ke's. He plays him a song before the assassin sets off on his quest to kill the Emperor.
*The
1995 computer game
depicts a fictional archeological mission to explore the First Emperor's burial site, and he is featured in several voiceovers in
Mandarin.
*The
1999 movie
The Emperor and the Assassin focused on the identity of his father, his heartless treatment of his officials, and betrayal by his childhood lover, paving the way for Jing Ke's
assassination attempt. The director of the film,
Chen Kaige, wished to question the Emperor's motives and whether or not they were meritorious. A major theme in this movie is the struggle between the Emperor's dedication to his family vow or his lover,
Lady Zhao.
*The
2001 Hong Kong TVB drama serial
A Step into the Past, and the book it was based on, presents a whole new perspective on the emperor's story, with
Raymond Lam Fung as Qin Shi Huang. In the show, Qin Shi Huang is actually a person named Zhao Pan from the Kingdom of Zhao who takes over the identity of Ying Zheng and rises to power with the help of a
time traveller from the
21st century. The time traveller also interferes with a lot of important historical events related to the emperor.
*The
2002 movie
Hero, starring
Jet Li, tells the story of
assassination attempts of Qin Shi Huang (played by renowned Chinese actor
Chen Daoming) by legendary warriors. It portrays him as a powerful ruler willing to take any steps to bring unification to his people.
*
Bob Bainborough portrayed Qin Shi Huang in an episode of
History Bites.
*In the
Area 51 book series, Qin Shi Huang is revealed to be an alien exile stranded on Earth during an interstellar civil war. The Great Wall is actually the symbol for 'help' in his language, and the true reason for its construction was in hope that a passing alien ship would find it and rescue him.
*The
video game Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb Portrays
Indiana Jones entering the tomb of Qin Shi Huang to recover an artifact hidden there.
*
Hong Kong Asia Television Limited (ATV) Channel made a TV drama simply called "Qin Shi Huang" (秦始皇) during the
1980s, it was one of ATV's most expensive projects. The series ran roughly 50 episodes, from Qin Shi Huang's youth to his death during his tour. The title song summed up most of the storyline: "Nobody shall be under my foot, nobody shall be equal than me."
* Qin Shi Huang is one of the two playable leaders of
China in the
2005 computer game Civilization IV; the other is
Mao Zedong.
* In
2005 The Discovery Channel ran a special on Qin Shi Huang called
First Emperor: The Man Who Made China* In
The Myth (
2005),
Jackie Chan plays both a modern-day archaeologist and a general under Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang was interested in
immortality and visited
Zhifu Island. These deeds became a very popular story of the emperor sending a Zhifu islander,
Xu Fu (徐福), as the religious leader of
ships with hundreds of young men and women in search of the
pill of immortality. These people never returned, as they knew that if they did return without the "immortality pill", they would surely be executed. The legend claims that they settled down in one of the
Japanese islands.The emperor often took tours to major cities in his empire to inspect the efficiency of the
bureaucracy and to symbolize the presence of Qin's prestige. (It was on one of these tours that he died). Nevertheless, these trips provided opportunities for assassins, the most famous of whom was
Zhang Liang.
Late in life, after his
assassination had been attempted too often for comfort, he grew paranoid of remaining in one place too long and would hire servants to bear him to different buildings in his palace complex to sleep in each night. He also hired several "doubles" to make it less clear which figure was the emperor.
Qin Shi Huang's three great achievements are unifying
Chinese characters, unifying money, and unifying measurement units.
*
Terracotta Army*
To burn the classics and to bury the scholars
