dictator, associated himself with the First Emperor and promoted him as his glorious precursor.
Born a prince of the royal family of the Kingdom of Qin, Zheng, as the future emperor was named, was raised in honorable captivity. His father, Prince Zichu of Qin, was then serving as a hostage to the enemy state of Zhaou, under a peace agreement between the two kingdoms. Subsequently released, Zichu returned to Qin and assumed the crown, with his son Zheng as his heir.
In 245 BC , Zichu died and the thirteen-year-old Zheng acceded to the throne. For the next seven years he ruled with a regent, until in 238 BC he seized full control in a palace coup. From the beginning, Zheng showed a new ruthlessness: he regularly executed prisoners of war, contrary to the established etiquette of the time.
Zheng now vied for power with the other Chinese kingdoms, creating a powerful army. When he had come to the throne, Qin had been a vassal state of the Kingdom of Zhaou. In a sequence of military victories, six kingdoms fell to Zhengâs forces: the Han (230), Zhaou (228), Wei (228), Chu (223), Yan (222) and Qi, the last independent Chinese kingdom, in 221 BC . A superb commander, Zheng was also a skilled diplomat, especially in exploiting divisions among his enemies. He now stood unchallenged within a unified China. To commemorate this feat he took a new name that reflected his unparalleled status: Qin Shi Huangdi, âThe First August Emperor of Qin.â
Qin Shi Huangdi now created a strong centralized state across his territories. In an extension of existing practice in the Kingdomof Qin, the old feudal laws and structures that had remained in much of China were abolished, to be replaced by centrally appointed officials and a new administrative apparatus. Standardization of the Chinese script, currency, weights and measures changed the spheres of economics, law and language, with a unified system of new roads and canals, to weld China together as a cohesive national unit.
There was, however, a price to be paidâborne by the ordinary people of China. A million men were put to work as forced labor to build some 4700 miles of roads. Qin Shi Huangdi would have his edicts carved in vast letters on mountain rock faces. As his projects of national unity became ever more ambitious, so too did the human toll they exacted. One such project was to link up the numerous independent frontier walls that barricaded northern China from the threat of hostile tribes. This effectively created a forerunner to the Great Wall of China, but it cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
At the same time, Qin Shi Huangdi was unwilling to accept any limits on his own powerâin contradiction to the Confucian belief that a ruler should follow traditional rites. So he outlawed Confucianism and persecuted its adherents brutally. Confucian scholars were buried alive or beheaded; a similar fate befell the follower of any creed that might challenge the emperorâs authority. All books not specifically approved by the emperor were banned and burned; intellectual curiosity of any kind was to be replaced by unswerving obedience.
As he grew older, Qin Shi Huangdi became obsessed with his own death. He regularly dispatched expeditions in search of an âelixir of lifeâ that might make him immortal. He grew ever more fearful of challenges to his position, and with good reason, as he was the target of several assassination plots. The emperorâs efforts to counter such a fate became ever more paranoid and bizarre.At random, servants in the imperial household would be ordered to carry him in the middle of the night to an alternative room to sleep. Numerous doubles were deployed to confuse any would-be assassins. A close watch was kept, and anyone suspected of disloyalty was instantly removed.
Ultimately, it was Qinâs pursuit of immortality that was his downfall. It was widely believed that a man might live longer by drinking precious metals,
Born a prince of the royal family of the Kingdom of Qin, Zheng, as the future emperor was named, was raised in honorable captivity. His father, Prince Zichu of Qin, was then serving as a hostage to the enemy state of Zhaou, under a peace agreement between the two kingdoms. Subsequently released, Zichu returned to Qin and assumed the crown, with his son Zheng as his heir.
In 245 BC , Zichu died and the thirteen-year-old Zheng acceded to the throne. For the next seven years he ruled with a regent, until in 238 BC he seized full control in a palace coup. From the beginning, Zheng showed a new ruthlessness: he regularly executed prisoners of war, contrary to the established etiquette of the time.
Zheng now vied for power with the other Chinese kingdoms, creating a powerful army. When he had come to the throne, Qin had been a vassal state of the Kingdom of Zhaou. In a sequence of military victories, six kingdoms fell to Zhengâs forces: the Han (230), Zhaou (228), Wei (228), Chu (223), Yan (222) and Qi, the last independent Chinese kingdom, in 221 BC . A superb commander, Zheng was also a skilled diplomat, especially in exploiting divisions among his enemies. He now stood unchallenged within a unified China. To commemorate this feat he took a new name that reflected his unparalleled status: Qin Shi Huangdi, âThe First August Emperor of Qin.â
Qin Shi Huangdi now created a strong centralized state across his territories. In an extension of existing practice in the Kingdomof Qin, the old feudal laws and structures that had remained in much of China were abolished, to be replaced by centrally appointed officials and a new administrative apparatus. Standardization of the Chinese script, currency, weights and measures changed the spheres of economics, law and language, with a unified system of new roads and canals, to weld China together as a cohesive national unit.
There was, however, a price to be paidâborne by the ordinary people of China. A million men were put to work as forced labor to build some 4700 miles of roads. Qin Shi Huangdi would have his edicts carved in vast letters on mountain rock faces. As his projects of national unity became ever more ambitious, so too did the human toll they exacted. One such project was to link up the numerous independent frontier walls that barricaded northern China from the threat of hostile tribes. This effectively created a forerunner to the Great Wall of China, but it cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
At the same time, Qin Shi Huangdi was unwilling to accept any limits on his own powerâin contradiction to the Confucian belief that a ruler should follow traditional rites. So he outlawed Confucianism and persecuted its adherents brutally. Confucian scholars were buried alive or beheaded; a similar fate befell the follower of any creed that might challenge the emperorâs authority. All books not specifically approved by the emperor were banned and burned; intellectual curiosity of any kind was to be replaced by unswerving obedience.
As he grew older, Qin Shi Huangdi became obsessed with his own death. He regularly dispatched expeditions in search of an âelixir of lifeâ that might make him immortal. He grew ever more fearful of challenges to his position, and with good reason, as he was the target of several assassination plots. The emperorâs efforts to counter such a fate became ever more paranoid and bizarre.At random, servants in the imperial household would be ordered to carry him in the middle of the night to an alternative room to sleep. Numerous doubles were deployed to confuse any would-be assassins. A close watch was kept, and anyone suspected of disloyalty was instantly removed.
Ultimately, it was Qinâs pursuit of immortality that was his downfall. It was widely believed that a man might live longer by drinking precious metals,
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