The First Emperor
Death of a god
China once had been a prosperous and powerful nation. Now it rotted. The land was starved of labour because of the emperor’s great projects, famine loomed and there was nothing anyone could do. In Li Si’s legalist system, orders came only from the top. When Qin Shi Huang had been rational, the prime minister had implemented his vision with ruthless efficiency, but now, with the vision turning into madness, he had no option but to treat it just the same.
The emperor’s latest diversion was a meteorite that had fallen to earth in a distant province. To Qin Shi Huang, it was a sign that his call to the heavens had been answered, that he would become immortal.
Hunting giant fish
Xu Fu’s mission to find the Peng Lai islands and the elixirs of immortality had failed. He had never returned to the imperial court, and when the emperor sent spies to find him, they had returned saying that their way to the islands had been blocked by a race of giant fish. After the emperor had a dream about a sea-god in human form, which he believed to be himself, he ordered his armourers to make a special crossbow so that he could hunt the fish.
The historical record says that, in the 10th month of 210 BC, the emperor reached the island of Zhifu on the coast of China, where he supposedly hunted giant fish with the crossbow. The great realist was now immune to reality. The divine ruler and warrior king of the Qin was gone, and in his place was a madman whose every whim, however bizarre, had to be accommodated.
While the emperor played in a world of his own, his advisers planned what to do with his empire once his poisoned body had gone the way of his poisoned mind. The emperor’s eldest son Fu Su was his natural successor, and he was known to be as strong-willed as his father. But together with senior eunuch Zhao Kuo, Li Si had his eye on one of the emperor’s younger sons, Hu Hai – an altogether different proposition.
Hurrying back to his capital from the coast, Qin Shi Huang became ill. En route, he wrote to Fu Su, telling him that he was to succeed as second emperor. But the imperial convoy never made it home. The emperor’s search for immortality was over. The great empire had lost its maker – at the age of 50, Qin Shi Huang was dead.
Sealing the tomb
With the state rudderless, this was exactly the moment that Li Si had been waiting for. He decided to keep the emperor’s death secret to give himself time to put his plan into action. He and Zhao Kuo knew that the emperor’s letter to his son had been written, but they didn’t know if it had ever been sent. Their luck was in – the letter was still in Qin Shi Huang’s caravan and they destroyed it.
Finally reaching his gigantic tomb, the most powerful man on earth was laid to rest, the last few precious objects placed beside him in the depths of his vast tomb and the formal rites proceeding according to his wishes. The emperor was ready for his final journey – but he would not be going alone.
Hundreds of his favourite concubines would be staying with their master to start a new imperial family in the next world. It had also long been decided that, as well as his concubines and the Terracotta Army, the emperor would take the designers, architects, engineers and builders of the tomb – anyone who knew the way in would be forced to stay. Hundreds more were sealed inside the tomb.
The struggle for the succession
Meanwhile, outside in the imperial city, a power struggle was underway. By changing the imperial succession, Zhao Kao and Li Si brought the empire to its knees.
From a recently opened pit close to the emperor’s tomb has come evidence to suggest that the imperial family was tearing itself apart. After examining a skeleton found there, Professor Yuan Zhongyi, head archaeologist at the site, thinks that the death of this individual was linked to the struggle for succession after the death of the first emperor. An arrowhead is embedded in the base of the skull, behind one ear. It appears that this person was shot at close range, which, of course, means that this was no accident – it was an assassination.
By tradition, the successor should have been Qin Shi Huang’s eldest son Fu Su, but with help from Li Si, Zhao Kao and other members of the court, the younger son Hu Hai succeeded to the throne. After Hu became the second emperor, he made sure that those who had opposed him – his brothers, his sisters, more distant relatives who were all members of the Qin imperial house – were all killed.
But while the terracotta soldiers stood guard over their emperor, outside real soldiers were fighting real battles. And there is evidence that graphically shows how far that rebellion spread into the compound surrounding the emperor’s tomb. The stone armour reserved for the spirits of the emperor’s dead soldiers shows clear signs that an intense fire must have swept through the burial pits. Most of the figures of the Terracotta Army itself were in pieces when they were found, having been smashed by rioters 2,000 years before.
The first emperor’s legacy
Qin Shi Huang hoped that his dynasty would be carried on for 10,000 years, but it actually lasted only two generations. It was overthrown by a peasant rebellion begun in 209 BC by Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, who had earlier been conscripted for the construction of the Great Wall.
However, Qin Shi Huang left a huge legacy:
- a nation unified for the first time, with a single written language that is still being used
- a system of administration that survives to this day
- a great wall that continues to stand at the edge of his realm.
But more than anything, Qin Shi Huang created the idea of China – a people and a land, as one. Perhaps his desire for immortality was realised after all.
