Peter Stuyvesant

Qin Shi Huangdi (秦始皇帝 Pinyin: Qín Shǐ Huángdì) (v. -259 - September 10th -210) was initially the king of Qin of -247 with -221, then the unifier of the empire of China, and consequently the emperor founder of the Dynastie Qin (-221 with -210).

Origin of the name

Its family name was Ying (嬴) and its first name Zheng (政), selected says one because homonym of the month of its birth (正), the first of the Chinese year. The personal name of the sovereign not being, by respect, employee of alive sound, it was thus for its contemporaries “king de Qin”. The historians mention it nevertheless like “king Zheng de Qin”. In 221 av J.C, it took officially the title of “First majestic sovereign” (Shi Huangdi 始皇帝), in reference to the ancient sovereigns Sanhuangwudi.

Origin

August 1st

King de Qin

See also: Qin

August 1st

People in slavery

August 1st

A frightening army

Strong of more than one century of experiment and traditions, the army of the future emperor counts in his rows with most extremely of the war nearly a million men. It was equipped with astonishing weapons for the time, like a Baliste with repetition, which sent two to three bronze squares a second.

The generals who framed it were not resulting from the nobility, but selected among the soldiers. Qin Shi Huang wanted to limit the capacity of the nobility and had thus created a Méritocratie .

Attempted murder

August 1st

The influence of the legism

See also: Légisme

Its reign was placed under the sign of the philosophy legist inspired by Han Fei Zi. He was an authoritative sovereign not suffering from dispute. It ordered a repression forces against the confucéens, enemies of long time of the legism, shown to conspire against him. They were stopped then buried alive on the same hill where it decided to burn their writings. Indeed, under the influence of its Prime Minister, a main effort had made it possible to fight illiteracy. The Chinese thus spoke several dialects but wrote only one language. People judged the new laws with the ell of the old ones and in particular those of the confucéens. This is why Qin Shi Huang decided to burn all the specimens of them, except one which was to remain in the imperial library.

This incident, remained famous in the history, inspired with Mao Zedong the slogan “Burns the books and buries the well-read men” (Fenshu kengru 焚書坑儒) at the time of the Cultural revolution. As from the years 1970, Qin Shi Huang was presented besides in the handbooks of history under the favorable aspect of a sovereign progressist fighting against the forces reactionaries.

Formation of a new empire

It reigned as a sanguinary Master with the disproportionate ambition. For this reason, and at the cost of million victims, it ordered a policy of unification of China. It conquered the seven kingdoms which between-had torn for five centuries. It made protect its new empire by connecting the existing wall sections to form the first great wall. It created a gigantic highway network with three ways (the center lane being reserved for the emperor) elevated (to avoid the floods), which connected the capital to all the provinces of the empire. Then it unified the weights and measures, the languages and the writing.

An authoritative emperor

Among the most spectacular facts, one can quote several examples of irrational companies which show its design of the capacity and the place that it estimated to have in the history.

Digging of the Large Channel of North

August 1st

Construction of the Wall of China

See also: Wall of China

August 1st It is under the reign of Qin Shi Huang that the first 2000 kilometers of the wall were built. It made it build because it was afraid of the barbarians of north called Xiongnu (the wall is built of west is in the north of China).

Unification of the writing and the language

At the time, each part of China had a language and a different writing: each “people” had his dialect. Qin Shi Huang unified the language and the writing, but there exist still today several spoken languages in China.

Construction of the highway network

Qin Shi Huang made increase the roads: it created an highway network with three ways, the way of the medium being reserved him. It raised the roads to avoid the floods. Each road left the capital (at the time Xi' year) and passed in all the Chinese provinces.

Search immortality

At the end of its life, Qin Shi Huang was obsessed by death. He wanted that the doctors and scientists find an elixir of immortality to him. He heard of people “the immortal ones” living on a mountain to forty kilometers of his palate. The latter were supposed to have a secrecy which can transmit itself to a person such as him, probably, according to its magicians, in the form of a elixir of immortality. Afterwards many unfruitful attempts to make come the immortal ones to the palate (construction of a rectilinear road of the palate to the mountain, then construction of a way of 36.000 steps of the base at the top of the mountain, finally, displacement in person of the emperor), upset, it made paint the mountain in red (color of the convicts). But, noncontent with the violence of its revenge, it made neither more nor less than to shave the mountain, by causing with the passage the death of 700.000 workmen.

He heard later of other immortal alive in islands off China (currently Japan). It ordered the construction of a gigantic ship of 200 meters to bring back these people to China. The ship never returned.

Died supposed

The emperor, always haunted by immortality, called upon a magician. This one manufactured famous “the red pearls to him” of cinnabar (the mercury sulfide) supposed to give him, each one, six years of life. Thus made mercury, the “red pearls” were probably the cause of its death.

Funeral

See also: Mausoleum of the emperor Qin

One owes him the Mausolée of Xi' year which extends on approximately 56 km ², a Tumulus high of 115m with 1,5 kilometer recovering a pit containing some eight thousand statues of soldiers and terra cotta horses.

Not wanting to be alone after death, Qin Shi Huang ordered that all its army either carved out of ground and or buried with him. It thus made build thousands of soldiers, horses and tanks, all different from/to each other (aspect, clothing, position of the arms) and a little larger than natural, a soldier measuring between 1,72m and 2m. In 1974, peasants found these statues by digging a well in their field. They called then upon archeologists. One can now visit the mausoleum, which is regarded as the eighth wonder of the world.

The heritage of Qin Shi Huang

Qin Shi Huang bequeathed to its people a unified empire, as well in the military and political administration, as in the cultural fields which will form with the court of the centuries what one names today China. This empire lasted more than twenty centuries. As one saw higher, such a destiny encouraged political recoveries. In a made speech with Xi' year, Mao Zedong did not hesitate to be compared with the " first empereur" , and thus to want to rehabilitate the Légisme. The name of its dynasty, deformed, arrived to Occident and was at the origin of the name of the Empire of the medium in the European languages (China in French).
The tradition allots the invention of the imperial cap to him mianliu (冕旒) with curtain of fringes partially dissimulating the face, visible on the portraits of the sovereigns of Antiquity and range by the statues of divinities.

The title of the Qin emperor

In 221 av. J. - C., king de Qin adopted the title of Shi Huangdi, or “first emperor”, creating for the occasion the word Huangdi , often translated into French by “emperor”, taken again by all the sovereigns of China who came after him. This term is the association of Huang , “supreme” or “majestic”, and of Di , “sovereign”, in reference to the three Majestic and five Emperors, first mythical sovereigns of China. It carried the title of Shi Huangdi during all its reign. His/her son was er Huangdi , “Second emperor”. The history wanted that the series stopped there.

At the time of the advent of the Dynasty Han, Shi Huangdi (“First Emperor”) was considered to be unacceptable by Han which did not recognize it like the first of their line. They thus called it “First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty”, that is to say Qin Shi Huangdi . Nevertheless, the majority of the names of anybody Chinese are of two or three Sinogramme S; the di was thus finally removed to give Qin Shi Huang . His/her son and successor became Qin Ershi .

The use in China east thus to today call indeed the first emperor Qin Shi Huang , even if one finds sometimes Qin Shi Huangdi , more used abroad.

Recently

Eighty one of these statues were recently transferred in France. They were visible during 10 days with the park expo of Caen.

See too

  • Art and Histoire of China , Volume 2, F. Blanchon, Presses of the University Paris-Sorbonne

  • the Jade disc of Jose Frèches (especially Volumes 2 and 3) who is the fictionalized history of the first emperor of China

Internal bonds

Zh-classical: 秦始皇帝 Zh-yue: 嬴政

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