Qin Shi Huang

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Qin Shi Huang
秦始皇
Lintong, Xi'an[8]
Issue
  • Prince Fusu
  • Prince Huhai
  • Prince Gao
  • Prince Jianglü
Names
Regnal name
Shi Huangdi (始皇帝)
DynastyQin
FatherKing Zhuangxiang
MotherQueen Dowager Zhao

Qin Shi Huang (

king" (wáng 王) borne by the previous Shang and Zhou
rulers, he assumed the invented title of "emperor" (huángdì 皇帝), which would see continuous use by monarchs in China for the next two millennia.

Born in Handan, the capital of

Ordos Loop from the nomadic Xiongnu, although the Xiongnu later rallied under Modu Chanyu
.

Qin Shi Huang also worked with his minister

fifth tour of eastern China.[10]

Qin Shi Huang has often been portrayed as a tyrant and strict Legalist—characterizations that stem partly from the scathing assessments made during the Han dynasty that succeeded the Qin. Since the mid-20th century, scholars have begun questioning this evaluation, inciting considerable discussion on the actual nature of his policies and reforms. According to the sinologist Michael Loewe "few would contest the view that the achievements of his reign have exercised a paramount influence on the whole of China's subsequent history, marking the start of an epoch that closed in 1911".[11]

Names

Qin Shi Huang
Hanyu Pinyin
Shǐ Huángdì
Bopomofoㄕˇ ㄏㄨㄤˊ ㄉㄧˋ
Wade–GilesShih3 Huang2-ti4
Tongyong PinyinShǐh Huángdì
IPA[ʂɻ̩̀ xwǎŋ.tî]
Old Chinese
Baxter–Sagart (2014)* l̥əʔ ɢʷˤaŋ tˤek-s

Modern Chinese sources often give the personal name of Qin Shi Huang as Ying Zheng, with

the Ying family
.

The rulers of

kings from the time of King Huiwen in 325 BC. Upon his ascension, Zheng became known as the King of Qin[12][13] or King Zheng of Qin.[15][16] This title made him the nominal equal of the rulers of Shang and of Zhou, the last of whose kings had been deposed by King Zhaoxiang of Qin
in 256 BC.

Following the surrender of

Peter Boodberg[citation needed] or Edward Schafer[22]—sometimes translate it as "thearch" and the First Emperor as the First Thearch.[23]

The First Emperor intended that his realm would remain intact through the ages but, following its overthrow and replacement by

Han
after his death, it became customary to prefix his title with Qin. Thus:

As early as Sima Qian, it was common to shorten the resulting four-character Qin Shi Huangdi to 秦始皇,[28] variously transcribed as Qin Shihuang or Qin Shi Huang.

Following his elevation as emperor, both Zheng's personal name 政 and possibly its homophone 正

mod. Bìxià, lit. "Beneath the Palace[31] Steps") in person and "Your Highness" (上) in writing.[17]

Birth and parentage

According to the

Chinese lunar calendar;[33] the clan name of Zhao came from his father's lineage and was unrelated to either his mother's name or the location of his birth.[citation needed] (Song Zhong says that his birthday, significantly, was on the first day of Zhengyue.[34]) Lü Buwei's machinations later helped Yiren become King Zhuangxiang of Qin[35]
in 250 BC.

However, the

concubine and had already become pregnant by him, and the baby was born after an unusually long period of pregnancy.[36] According to translations of the Annals of Lü Buwei, Zhao Ji gave birth to the future emperor in the city of Handan in 259 BC, the first month of the 48th year of King Zhaoxiang of Qin.[37]

The idea that the emperor was an

illegitimate child, widely believed throughout Chinese history, contributed to the generally negative view of the First Emperor.[24] However, a number of modern scholars have doubted this account of his birth. Sinologist Derk Bodde wrote: "There is good reason for believing that the sentence describing this unusual pregnancy is an interpolation added to the Shih-chi by an unknown person in order to slander the First Emperor and indicate his political as well as natal illegitimacy".[38] John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, in their translation of Lü Buwei's Spring and Autumn Annals, call the story "patently false, meant both to libel Lü and to cast aspersions on the First Emperor".[39] Claiming Lü Buwei—a merchant—as the First Emperor's biological father was meant to be especially disparaging, since later Confucian society regarded merchants as the lowest of all social classes.[40]

Reign as King of Qin

Regency

A portrait painting of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, from an 18th-century album of Chinese emperors' portraits

In 246 BC, when

King Zhuangxiang died after a short reign of just three years, he was succeeded on the throne by his 13-year-old son.[41] At the time, Zhao Zheng was still young, so Lü Buwei acted as the regent prime minister of the State of Qin, which was still waging war against the other six states.[24] Nine years later, in 235 BC, Zhao Zheng assumed full power after Lü Buwei was banished for his involvement in a scandal with Queen Dowager Zhao.[42][43]

Tunliu and surrendered to the state of Zhao. Chengjiao's remaining retainers and families were executed by Zhao Zheng.[45]

Lao Ai's attempted coup

As King Zheng grew older, Lü Buwei became fearful that the boy king would discover his liaison with his mother,

seal and mobilized an army in a coup attempt.[46] When notified of the rebellion, King Zheng ordered Lü Buwei to let Lord Changping and Lord Changwen attack Lao Ai. Although the royal army killed hundreds of rebels at the capital, Lao Ai successfully fled the battlefield.[47]

A price of 1 million

chancellor
.

First assassination attempt

Further information: Jing Ke
Eastern Han

King Zheng and his troops continued their conquest of the neighbouring states. The

Crown Prince Dan of Yan plotted an assassination attempt against King Zheng, recruiting Jing Ke and Qin Wuyang for the mission in 227 BC.[35][10]

The assassins gained access to King Zheng by pretending a diplomatic gifting of goodwill: a map of Dukang and the severed head of

Fan Wuji.[10] Qin Wuyang stepped forward first to present the map case but was overcome by fear. Jing Ke then advanced with both gifts, while explaining that his partner was trembling because "[he] had never set eyes on the Son of Heaven
". When the dagger unrolled from the map, the king leapt to his feet and struggled to draw his sword – none of his courtiers was allowed to carry arms in his presence. Jing Ke stabbed at the king but missed, and King Zheng slashed Jing Ke's thigh. In desperation, Jing Ke threw the dagger but missed again. He surrendered after a brief fight in which he was further injured. The Yan state was conquered in its entirety five years later.

Second assassination attempt

Further information: Gao Jianli

Gao Jianli was a close friend of Jing Ke, and wanted to avenge his death.[48] As a famous lute player, he was summoned to play for King Zheng. Someone in the palace recognized him and guessed his plans.[49] Reluctant to kill such a skilled musician, the emperor ordered his eyes put out, and then proceeded with the performance. The king praised Gao Jianli's playing and even allowed him closer. The lute had been weighted with a slab of lead, and Gao Jianli swung it at the king but missed. The second assassination attempt had failed; Gao Jianli was executed shortly after.

Unification of China

Main article: Qin's wars of unification
Qin's unification of the Seven Warring States.

In 230 BC, King Zheng began the final campaigns of the Warring States period, setting out to conquer the remaining six major Chinese states and bring China under unified Qin control.

The state of Han, the weakest of the Warring States, was the first to fall in 230 BC. In 229 BC, Qin armies invaded Zhao, which had been severely weakened by natural disasters, and captured the capital of Handan in 228 BC. Prince Jia of Zhao managed to escape with the remnants of the Zhao army and established the short-lived state of Dai, proclaiming himself king.

In 227 BC, fearing a Qin invasion, Crown Prince Dan of Yan ordered a failed assassination attempt on King Zheng. This provided casus belli for Zheng to invade Yan in 226 BC, capturing the capital of Ji (modern Beijing) that same year. The remnants of the Yan army, along with King Xi of Yan, were able to retreat to the Liaodong Peninsula.

After Qin besieged and flooded their capital of Daliang, the state of Wei surrendered in 225 BC. Around this time, as a precautionary measure, Qin seized ten cities from Chu, the largest and most powerful of the other Warring States. In 224 BC, Qin launched a full-scale invasion of Chu, capturing the capital of Shouchun in 223 BC. In 222 BC, Qin armies extinguished the last Yan remnants in Liaodong and the Zhao rump state of Dai. In 221 BC, Qin armies invaded the state of Qi and captured King Jian of Qi without much resistance, bringing an end to the Warring States period.

By 221 BC, all Chinese lands had been unified under the Qin. To elevate himself above the feudal Zhou kings, King Zheng proclaimed himself the First Emperor, or Shi Huang Di (始皇帝), creating the title of huangdi, which would be used as the title of the Chinese sovereign for the next two millennia. Qin Shi Huang also ordered the Heshibi to be crafted into the Heirloom Seal of the Realm, which would serve as a physical symbol of the Mandate of Heaven, and would be passed from emperor to emperor until its loss in the 10th century CE.

During the year 215 BC, in an attempt to expand Qin territory, Qin Shi Huang ordered

military campaigns against the Yue tribes, which annexed various regions in modern Guangdong Province and Vietnam.[50]

Reign as Emperor of Qin

Administrative reforms

Further information: Administration of territory in dynastic China § Qin dynasty (221–206 BC)
Map of the Qin dynasty and its administrative divisions

In an attempt to avoid a recurrence of the political chaos of the

hereditary rights.[52]

Economic reforms

Qin Shi Huang and

Chinese script was unified. Under Li Si, the seal script of the state of Qin became the official standard, and the Qin script itself was simplified through removal of variant forms. This did away with all the regional scripts to form a universal written language for all of China, despite the diversity of spoken dialects.[52]

Monumental statuary

According to Chinese records,[53] after unifying the country in 221 BCE, Qin Shuhuang confiscated all the bronze weapons of the conquered countries, and cast them into twelve monumental statues, the Twelve Metal Colossi, which he used to adorn his Palace.[54] Each statue was said to be 5 zhang [11.5 meters] in height, and weighing about 1000 dan [about 70 tons].[55] Sima Qian considered this as one of the great achievements of the Emperor, on a par with the "unification of the law, weights and measurements, standardization of the axle width of carriages, and standardization of the writing system".[53][56] During 600 years, the statues were commented upon and moved around from palace to palace, until they were finally destroyed in the 4th century CE, but no illustration has remained.[57][58]

Philosophy

Main articles: Legalism (Chinese philosophy) and Burning of books and burying of scholars
Part of a series on
Chinese legalism
Relevant articles
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Huang-Lao
Early figures
Founding figures
Han figures
Later figures

While the previous Warring States era was one of constant warfare, it was also considered the golden age of free thought.[59] Qin Shi Huang eliminated the Hundred Schools of Thought, which included Confucianism and other philosophies.[59][60] With all other philosophies banned, legalism became the mandatory ideology of the Qin dynasty.[52]

Beginning 213 BC, at the instigation of Li Si and to avoid scholars' comparisons of his reign with the past, Qin Shi Huang ordered most existing

Classic of History was to be punished especially severely. According to the later Records of the Grand Historian, the following year Qin Shi Huang had some 460 scholars buried alive for possessing the forbidden books.[24][61] The emperor's oldest son Fusu criticised him for this act.[63] The emperor's own library did retain copies of the forbidden books, but most of these were destroyed when Xiang Yu burned the palaces of Xianyang in 206 BC.[64]

Recent research suggests that this "burying Confucian scholars alive" is a Confucian martyrs' legend. More probably, the emperor ordered the execution (坑 kēng) of a group of alchemists who had deceived him. In the subsequent Han dynasty, the Confucian scholars, who had served the Qin loyally, used this incident to distance themselves from the failed regime. Kong Anguo (孔安國 c. 165 – c. 74 BC), a descendant of Confucius, described the alchemists (方士 fāngshì) as Confucianists (儒 rú) and entwined the martyrs' legend with his story of discovering the lost Confucian books behind a demolished wall in his ancestral house.[65]

Qin Shi Huang also followed the theory of the

Zhou had ruled by the power of fire, associated with the colour red. The new Qin dynasty must be ruled by the next element on the list, which is water, Zhao Zheng's birth element. Water was represented by the colour black, and black became the preferred colour for Qin garments, flags, and pennants.[24] Other associations include north as the cardinal direction, the winter season and the number six.[66] Tallies and official hats were 15 centimetres (5.9 inches) long, carriages two metres (6.6 feet) wide, one pace (步; Bù) was 1.4 metres (4.6 ft).[24]

Third assassination attempt

Further information: Zhang Liang (Western Han)

In 230 BC, the state of Qin had defeated the state of

Qin Shi Huangdi's third imperial tour.[67] At a signal, the muscular assassin hurled the cone at the first carriage and shattered it. However, the emperor was travelling with two identical carriages to baffle attackers, and he was actually in the second carriage. Thus the attempt failed,[68] though both men were able to escape the subsequent manhunt.[46]

Public works

Qin dynasty twin bronze dragons, found near Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.

Great Wall

Main article: Great Wall of China

Numerous state walls had been built during the previous four centuries, many of them closing gaps between river defences and impassable cliffs.[69][70] To impose centralized rule and prevent the resurgence of feudal lords, the Emperor ordered the destruction of walls between the former states, which were now internal walls dividing the empire.

However, to defend against the northern Xiongnu nomadic tribes, who had beaten back repeated campaigns against them, he ordered new walls to connect the fortifications along the empire's northern frontier. Hundreds of thousands of workers were mobilized, and an unknown number died, to build this precursor to the current Great Wall of China.[71][72][73] Transporting building materials was difficult, so builders always tried to use local materials: rock over mountain ranges, rammed earth over the plains. "Build and move on" was a guiding principle, implying that the Wall was not a permanently fixed border.[74] There are no surviving records specifying the length and course of the Qin walls, which have largely eroded away over the centuries.

Lingqu Canal

Main article: Lingqu

In 214 BC the Emperor began the project of a major canal allowing water transport between north and south China, originally for military supplies.

Dujiangyan Irrigation System.[75]

Elixir of life

Epang Palace (阿房宫) of Qin Shi Huang in Xi'an, destroyed in 206 BCE

As he grew old, Qin Shi Huang desperately sought the fabled elixir of life which supposedly confers immortality. In his obsessive quest, he fell prey to many fraudulent elixirs.[76] He visited Zhifu Island three times in his search.[77]

In one case he sent Xu Fu, a Zhifu islander, with ships carrying hundreds of young men and women in search of the mystical Penglai mountain.[68] They sought Anqi Sheng, a thousand-year-old magician who had supposedly invited Qin Shi Huang during a chance meeting during his travels.[78] The expedition never returned, perhaps for fear of the consequences of failure. Legends claim that they reached Japan and colonized it.[76]

It is also possible that the Emperor's book burning, which exempted

alchemical works, could be seen as an attempt to focus the minds of the best scholars on the Emperor's quest.[79] Some of those buried alive were alchemists, and this could have been a means of testing their death-defying abilities.[80]

The emperor built a system of tunnels and passageways to each of his over 200 palaces, because traveling unseen would supposedly keep him safe from evil spirits.

Final years

Death

Imperial tours of Qin Shi Huang

In 211 BC a large meteor is said to have fallen in Dongjun in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, and someone inscribed the seditious words "The First Emperor will die and his land will be divided" (始皇死而地分).[81] The Emperor sent an imperial secretary to investigate this prophecy. No one would confess to the deed, so all living nearby were put to death, and the stone was pulverized.[33]

During his

fifth tour of Eastern China, the Emperor became seriously ill in Pingyuanjin (Pingyuan County, Shandong), and died in July or August 210 BC at the palace in Shaqiu prefecture (沙丘平台, Shāqiū Píngtái), about two months travel from the capital Xianyang,[82][83] at the age of 49.[84]

The cause of Qin Shi Huang's death remains unknown, though he had been worn down by his many years of rule.[85] One hypothesis holds that he was poisoned by an elixir containing mercury, given to him by his court alchemists and physicians in his quest for immortality.[86][84]

Succession

Upon witnessing the Emperor's death, Imperial Chancellor Li Si feared the news could trigger a general uprising during the two months' travel for the imperial entourage to return to the capital Xianyang.[10] Li Si decided to hide the emperor's death: the only members of the entourage to be informed were a younger son, Ying Huhai, the eunuch Zhao Gao, and five or six favourite eunuchs.[10] Li Si ordered carts of rotten fish to be carried before and behind the wagon of the Emperor, to cover the foul smell of his body decomposing in the summer heat.[10] Pretending he was alive behind the wagon's shade, they changed his clothes daily, brought food, and pretended to carry messages to and from him.[10]

After they reached Xianyang, the death of the Emperor was announced.[10] Qin Shi Huang had not liked to talk about his death and had never written a will.[87] Although his eldest son Fusu was first in line to succeed him as emperor, Li Si and the chief eunuch Zhao Gao conspired to kill Fusu, who was in league with their enemy, general Meng Tian.[87] Meng Tian's brother, a senior minister, had once punished Zhao Gao.[88] Li Si and Zhao Gao forged a letter from Qin Shi Huang commanding Fusu and General Meng to commit suicide.[87] The plan worked, and the younger son Hu Hai started his brief reign as the Second Emperor, later known as Qin Er Shi or "Second Generation Qin".[10]

Family

Further information:
Qin dynasty family tree

The following are some family members of Qin Shi Huang:

Qin Shi Huang had about 50 children (about 30 sons and 15 daughters), but most of their names are unknown. He had numerous concubines but appeared to have never named an empress.[92]

Legacy

Mausoleum and Terracotta Army

Main article: Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor
See also: Terracotta Army and Qin bronze chariot
Lifelike terracotta soldier statues from the Terracotta Army, discovered near modern Xi'an, which was meant to guard the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor

The Chinese historian Sima Qian, writing a century after the First Emperor's death, wrote that it took 700,000 men to construct the emperor's mausoleum. British historian John Man points out that this figure is larger than the population of any city in the world at that time and he calculates that the foundations could have been built by 16,000 men in two years.[93] Sima Qian never mentioned the terracotta army, but he did mention that the Qin Emperor built monumental bronze statues for his palace.[94] The terracotta statues were discovered by a group of farmers digging wells on 29 March 1974.[95] The soldiers were created with a series of mix-and-match clay molds and then further individualized by the artists' hand. Han Purple was also used on some of the warriors.[96] There are around 6,000 Terracotta Warriors and their purpose was to protect the Emperor in the afterlife from evil spirits.[97] Also among the army are chariots and 40,000 real bronze weapons.[98]

One of the first projects which the young king accomplished while he was alive was the construction of his own tomb. In 215 BC Qin Shi Huang ordered General Meng Tian to begin its construction with the assistance of 300,000 men.[24] Other sources suggest that he ordered 720,000 unpaid laborers to build his tomb according to his specifications.[41] Again, given John Man's observation regarding populations at the time (see paragraph above), these historical estimates are debatable. The main tomb (located at 34°22′53″N 109°15′13″E / 34.38139°N 109.25361°E / 34.38139; 109.25361) containing the emperor has yet to be opened and evidence suggests that it remains relatively intact.[99] Sima Qian's description of the tomb includes replicas of palaces and scenic towers, "rare utensils and wonderful objects", 100 rivers made with mercury, representations of "the heavenly bodies", and crossbows rigged to shoot anyone who tried to break in.[100] The tomb was built at the foot of Mount Li, 30 kilometers away from Xi'an. Modern archaeologists have located the tomb, and have inserted probes deep into it. The probes revealed abnormally high quantities of mercury, some 100 times the naturally occurring rate, suggesting that some parts of the legend are credible.[86] Secrets were maintained, as most of the workmen who built the tomb were killed.[86][101]

Reputation and assessment

A posthumous depiction of Qin Shi Huang, painted during the late Qing dynasty

Traditional Chinese

Xunzi disparaged it.[citation needed] Later Confucian historians condemned the emperor, alleging that he burned the classics and buried Confucian scholars alive. [102] They eventually compiled a list of the Ten Crimes of Qin to highlight his tyrannical actions.[103]

The famous Han poet and statesman Jia Yi concluded his essay The Faults of Qin (過秦論, Guò Qín Lùn) 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.[104] He attributed Qin's disintegration to its internal failures.[105] Jia Yi wrote that:

Qin, from a tiny base, had become a great power, ruling the land and receiving homage from all quarters for a hundred odd years. Yet after they unified the land and secured themselves within the pass, a single common rustic could nevertheless challenge this empire... Why? Because the ruler lacked humaneness and rightness; because preserving power differs fundamentally from seizing power.[106]

In more modern times, assessments of the Emperor that differed from those of traditional Chinese historiography began to emerge. The reassessment was spurred on by the weakness of China in the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century. At that time, some began to regard Confucian traditions as an impediment to China's entry into the modern world, opening the way for changing perspectives.

At a time when foreign nations encroached upon Chinese territory, 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

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

class struggle. The perennial debate about 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".

Statue of Emperor Qin Shi Huang in Handan

Since 1972, however, a radically different official view of Qin Shi Huang in accordance with Maoist thought has been given prominence throughout China. Hong Shidi's biography Qin Shi Huang initiated the re-evaluation. The work was published by the state press as a mass popular history, and it sold 1.85 million copies within two years. In the new era, Qin Shi Huang was seen as a far-sighted 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 approvingly how, in his time (an era of great political and social change), he had no compunctions against using violent methods to crush counter-revolutionaries, such as the "industrial and commercial slave owner" chancellor Lü Buwei. However, he was criticized for not being as thorough as he should have been, and as a result, after his death, hidden subversives under the leadership of the chief eunuch Zhao Gao were able to seize power and use it to restore the old feudal order.

To round out this re-evaluation, Luo Siding put forward a new interpretation of the precipitous collapse of the Qin Dynasty in an article entitled "On the Class Struggle During the Period Between Qin and Han" 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."

Mao Zedong was reviled for his persecution of intellectuals.[107] On being compared to the First Emperor, Mao boasted:

He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive... You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold. When you berate us for imitating his despotism, we are happy to agree! Your mistake was that you did not say so enough.[108]

Tom Ambrose characterises Qin Shi Huang as the founder of "the first police state in history".[109]

Notes

  1. ^ This 19th-century posthumous depiction is from a Korean book now kept in the British Library.[1] It is based on a portrait of Qin Shi Huang from the Sancai Tuhui.[2]
  2. ^ Volume 90 of Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era (8th century) indicates that he died on the yichou day of the 6th month of the 38th year of his reign (starting from his tenure as King of Qin), which corresponds to 11 July 210 BCE on the proleptic Julian calendar (始皇以六月乙丑死于沙丘...). Volume 6 of Records of the Grand Historian (1st century BC) indicates that he died on the bingyin day of the 7th month of his 38th year. While there is no bingyin day in that month, there is a bingyin day in the previous month, which corresponds to 12 July 210 BCE on the proleptic Julian calendar (七月丙寅，始皇崩于沙丘平台。) Older methods of calculation give 18 July.[3] A few modern sources give 10 September,[4][5] the bingyin day of the 8th month on the proleptic Julian calendar. Modern authors usually don't use specific dates.[6][7]
  3. ^ Volume 05 of Records of the Grand Historian indicated that King Zhuangxiang died on the bingwu day of the 5th month of the 4th year of his reign. Using the Zhuanxu calendar, the date corresponds to 6 Jul 247 BCE on the proleptic Julian calendar. ([四年]...。五月丙午，庄襄王卒...)
  4. ^ Volume 06 of Records of the Grand Historian indicated that Ying Zheng was born in the zhengyue of the 48th year of the reign of King Zhao(xiang) of Qin. Using the Zhuanxu calendar, the month corresponds to 27 Jan to 24 Feb 259 BC in the proleptic Julian calendar. (以秦昭王四十八年正月生于邯郸。)
  5. ^ Volume 06 of Records of the Grand Historian indicated that Ying Zheng was born in the zhengyue of the 48th year of the reign of King Zhao(xiang) of Qin. Using the Zhuanxu calendar, the month corresponds to 27 Jan to 24 Feb 259 BC in the proleptic Julian calendar. (以秦昭王四十八年正月生于邯郸。)
  6. ^ In simplified Chinese, 及生，名为政，姓赵氏.[13] The differentiation between the two types of surnames had largely been lost well before Sima Qian's time, as can be seen from his grammatical construction using 姓 as a verb – "to be surnamed" – with the object 氏, a different kind of surname.
  7. ^ See, e.g., Nienhauser's gloss of the name Zhao Zheng (n. 579).[14]
  8. ^ While the specific title was new, also note the use of 皇天上帝 ("August Heaven Shangdi"), a conflation of the Zhou and Shang gods by the Duke of Zhou used in his addresses to the conquered Shang peoples.[25]
  9. Second Emperor.[29]
  10. Chu to be replaced by its original name "Jing" (荆).[29]
  11. ^ The source also mentions ch'ien-shou was the new name of the Qin people. The may be the Wade-Giles romanization of (秦受, Qín shòu) "subjects of the Qin empire".

References

  1. ^ a b Clements 2006, Between pp. 76–77.
  2. ^ Portal 2007, p. 29.
  3. OCLC 223359908
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  4. ISBN 9789861840239
    .
  5. ISBN 978-1-4262-1280-2
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  6. ^ a b Loewe 2000, p. 823.
  7. ^ Barbieri-Low & Yates 2015, p. xix.
  8. ^ Paludan 1998, p. 16.
  9. ^ Müller 2021, "Introduction".
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Sima Qian 2007, pp. 15–20, 82, 99.
  11. ^ Loewe 2000, p. 654.
  12. ^ a b Sima Qian 1994, p. 127.
  13. ^ a b 司马迁 [Sima Qian]. 《史记》 [Records of the Grand Historian], 秦始皇本纪第六 ["§6: Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin"]. Hosted at 國學網 [Guoxue.com], 2003. Accessed 25 December 2013. (in Chinese)
  14. ^ a b Sima Qian 1994, p. 439.
  15. ^ Sima Qian 1994, p. 123.
  16. ^ Sima Qian. 《史记》 [Records of the Grand Historian], 秦本纪第五 ["§5: Basic Annals of Qin"]. Hosted at 國學網 [Guoxue.com], 2003. Accessed 25 December 2013. (in Chinese)
  17. ^
    ISBN 0-674-00247-4
    . Accessed 26 December 2013.
  18. ISBN 0-07-070745-6
    .
  19. ISBN 1-84519-086-6
    .
  20. ^ 司马迁 [Sima Qian]. 《史记》 [Records of the Grand Historian], 秦本纪第五 Archived 13 June 2022 at the Wayback Machine ["§5: Basic Annals of Qin"]. Hosted at 维基文库 [Chinese Wikisource], 2012. Accessed 27 December 2013. (in Chinese)
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Bibliography

Early

Modern

Books
Articles

Further reading

External links
First Emperor of Qin
House of Ying
Born: 260 BC Died: 210 BC
Regnal titles
Preceded by King of Qin
246–221 BC
with Lü Buwei (246–235 BC) 		Recreated
Title next held by
Qin San Shi
New title
Qin

221–210 BC 		Succeeded by
Vacant
Title last held by
King Nan of Zhou
as King of China
Qin

221–210 BC
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Qin_Shi_Huang&oldid=1218419248"