China's First Emperor

The Legacy of Shi Huangdi

Qin Shi Huangdi has always been remembered as the emperor who built the Great Wall of China. Estimates of the wall's length vary because it has many sections and branches, but it's over 4,000 miles long. And in the 20th century the world learned that the Great Wall was not the only marvel that Shi Huangdi left behind.

In 1974, farmers digging a well near the First Emperor's tomb stumbled across the gravesite of an entire army made of terra-cotta (a type of ceramic clay). Archaeologists found four underground chambers containing some 7,000 life-sized soldiers and horses. The figures are very detailed, and no two are alike. It is believed that they were modeled after the First Emperor's real army and were intended to serve him in the afterlife. Forgotten for more than 2,000 years, the terra-cotta army is now considered the Eighth Wonder of the World.

 The Life of Ying Zheng

The First Emperor of China was afraid. Three times his enemies had tried to kill him, and he lived in dread of the next attempt. He travelled in two carriages to confuse assassins, and never spent the night in the same place twice in a row; in fact, he had built hundreds of palaces around his capital so he would always have somewhere to sneak for an uneasy night's sleep. He kept his musicians busy writing songs about immortality, sent explorers out in search of a potion of eternal life, and turned to alchemists with the same hope.

In the end the emperor died, like any other mortal. But that was not quite the end of the story.

The First Emperor was born in 259 BC. His name was Ying Zheng. Officially his father was Zhuang Xiang, the future king of Qin, one of China's seven feudal states. But Zheng's mother had previously been the concubine of a wealthy merchant named Lu Buwei, and rumor had it that Zheng was really Lu Buwei's son.

In 246 BC, when Zheng was 13, his father became king but soon died, leaving Zheng to ascend the throne. His mother and Lu Buwei served as regents. During this time, Zheng's mother, Zhao Ji, had an affair with a man named Lao Ai, whom she and Lu Buwei passed off as a eunuch. When King Zheng learned the truth, Lao Ai tried to lead a revolt against the king, but he failed. King Zheng -- now in his early 20s -- had the false eunuch executed, and removed his mother and Lu Buwei from power. Later, accused of involvement in another plot against the king, Lu Buwei committed suicide by taking poison.

After the sex scandal, King Zheng personally took charge of his kingdom and set about expanding it. He was a fierce military leader and a clever diplomat, and before he was 40 he had unified the previously warring Chinese states. He gave his empire a single currency, a standardized system of weights and measurements, and a common written language. He was also responsible for the construction of the Great Wall of China, which remains one of the largest man-made objects in existence.

A ruthlessly brutal dictator, Zheng sought to control the minds of his people by killing scholars and burning most of the books in China. No longer content to be called "king," he gave himself the title Shi Huangdi, "First August God," or First Emperor. His son would be the Second Emperor, and so on for 10,000 generations... at least, that was his plan.

The End of the Qin Dynasty

The First Emperor died in 210 BC of natural causes. His rightful successor was his son Fu Su. But Fu Su had two powerful enemies: the First Emperor's most trusted adviser, Li Si, who had masterminded the burning of the books -- which Fu Su opposed -- and the chief eunuch, Zhao Gao. Knowing that Fu Su's rise to power would mean their downfall, the two men kept the First Emperor's death a secret and convinced Fu Su that his father wanted him to commit suicide. The crown prince obeyed, and the two conspirators put Shi Huangdi's younger son Hu Hai on the throne as Er Shi, or Second Emperor.

At Er Shi's command, the First Emperor's childless concubines and maids were buried alive in the First Emperor's vast underground tomb. Workers who had built the tomb met the same fate. The Second Emperor went on to slaughter other members of the royal family, government officials and their families, and anyone else he saw as a threat -- including Li Si. Within three years the Qin empire fell apart, and Zhao Gao forced Er Shi to commit suicide.

The influential eunuch then put a new emperor, Er Shi's nephew Ziying, on the throne, but soon Zhao Gao was assassinated and all members of the Qin family, including Ziying, were killed. That was the end of the Qin dynasty. But not quite the end of the First Emperor's story.