The First Emperor
The search for immortality
By 219 BC, the emperor’s tomb was well on its way to completion, but the man it was intended to house suddenly had a change of heart. The idea of an eternal afterlife, however grand, was no longer enough.
Qin Shi Huang was soon on the road once again. He no longer trusted the security of his own court and had started taking practical steps to extend his life. His doctors had prescribed repeat doses of something long believed to increase longevity: sex – with multiple partners. But his new court physician Xu Fu suggested a substance whose eternal properties, although thought ideal for the emperor’s tomb, would, if consumed, keep him out of the necropolis indefinitely. That mystical substance was mercury.
The emperor also knew the legend of the Peng Lai islands where the immortals were said to reside for ever. They were supposed to have two kinds of elixirs to keep their immortality intact. Qin Shi Huang now commanded Xu Fu to find the islands, obtain the elixirs and bring them back to administer to him.
Xu Fu was given a small army of his own with which to conquer death. Thousands of young men and women were conscripted to help him search for the islands. Meanwhile, the emperor took his first course of mercury pills. They might help hold back the years until the elixirs could be found.
Burning scrolls
Rulers rarely die of natural causes, however, and following a fire in one of his caravans, Qin Shi Huang became increasingly paranoid. What the real cause of the fire was made little difference. For the emperor, there would always be enemies – unseen enemies, enemies within – and he started to withdraw further into his own world.
There were those who were more than happy to keep him there. Now promoted to prime minister, Li Si was free to expand his totalitarian state beyond the mundane rules of life – he decided that it was now necessary to control thought. And the most obvious step towards dispensing with free thought was to cut off its supply of ideas.
Entire libraries of bamboo scrolls were burned – a disaster for culture and learning that is equivalent to the burning of the library of Alexandria some 170 years later. All histories and writings other than the official Qin history and books on such topics as medicine and agriculture were gone. In addition, some 400 Confucian scholars, who had been vocal opponents of the emperor, were rounded up and buried alive.
Mercury madness
The emperor’s grasp on reality was increasingly slight, aided by his mercury consumption. Over the following five years, he took higher and higher doses as his desire for immortality became more obsessive and the elixirs failed to materialise. But far from prolonging his life, the mercury was having the opposite effect.
Liquid mercury was known to Chinese alchemists as the only substance that could dissolve eternal, incorruptible gold. ‘To the ancient mind,’ says Dr John Emsley of the University of Cambridge, ‘it must have seemed almost like a supernatural substance. The natural inclination was to think that it had some power, that maybe, if you took it into your body, it would pass this magical property on to you and even help prolong your life.’
But not in its liquid form – pure mercury cannot be absorbed by the human body. So the Chinese alchemists made soluble compounds that they knew were easily digestible. This is thought to be what the emperor took for years.
‘The more he took it,’ says Dr Emsley, ‘in whatever form he was taking it, the more dangerous it was going to become. As more and more mercury is absorbed by the body, it begins to attack the nervous system. Slowly you get a tremor and that will get worse and worse. But the greatest damage is in the brain. To begin with, you become talkative; later on, you become slightly aggressive; and then you become very confrontational. You are obsessed with being watched, and eventually, of course, you become total paranoid.’
Qin Shi Huang certainly became paranoid. Anyone revealing his whereabouts was under instant sentence of death, along with their entire family.
Seven years after the emperor had initiated his quest for immortality, the mercury began to poison his body as well as his mind – among other things, his kidneys were starting to fail. He knew that his time was running out, and to save himself, there was only one place left. In 212 BC, Qin Shi Huang embarked on yet another imperial tour – but this one was going to be different.
