The First Emperor
The Terracotta Army
Dr Yuan Zhongyi has devoted his entire career to understanding these enigmatic figures and the military power of the first emperor Qin Shi Huang. To date, he and his team have unearthed over 7,500 individual figures. In all respects except living flesh and blood, these are real soldiers.
One of the most incredible aspects of the Terracotta Army is size – not just the army itself, but every member of it. Each figure measures nearly 2 metres (6.6 feet) tall – an army of giants by the standards of the time.
Chinese kings were known to bury miniature terracotta soldiers as spirit guards for the after-life, but never a full-sized army with state-of-the-art weapons.
‘Qin Shi Huang felt that, in death, the spirits of his enemies might attempt to attack him, so he needed a spirit army,’ says Professor Jeffrey Riegel, ‘these clay soldiers whose very substance would last forever. He would need them to protect him from these spiritual enemies.’
For Professor Riegel, an examination of the Terracotta Army provided an opportunity to find out how, militarily, China’s first emperor achieved his meteoric rise to power.
‘The people who made these figures and arranged them were following military procedures,’ says Professor Riegel. ‘They really represent what the Qin army looked like and the way in which the Qin army was actually put into the field.’
The big surprise was that the front three lines were highly mobile infantry – the emperor’s shock troops. Behind them came the heavy infantry, who in turn were supported by columns of chariots. And, sweeping up behind, a fast-moving cavalry.
But it’s not just the precision of the army’s formation that has astonished the researchers – it’s the weapons they carried. Only the metal parts have survived, but they are the finest-quality bronze weapons found anywhere in the world.
One of the most incredible finds is a sword that is perfectly preserved after 2,000 years in the ground. A notch in the blade shows us that it was actually used, wielded by a real soldier. And this remarkable weapon is significantly longer than any sword that had existed before the state of Qin was established.
Qin armourers managed to perfect the art of bronze-making to increase the reach of their soldiers on the battlefield by 30% and boost their cutting power in close-quarter combat.
And there is new evidence that shows quite how seriously the Qin took their ability to wage war. On part of the bronze assembly at the top of a halberd, there is an inscription: ‘In the fifth year of the king of Qin’s reign, the prime minister of state Lu Buwei had this halberd made.’ That was a guarantee of the halberd’s quality. Lu Buwei himself was being held accountable for the effectiveness of the weapons that the soldiers were carrying into battle.
