Qin Shi Huang (Chinese: 秦始皇; lit. 'First Emperor of Qin', About this soundpronunciation (help·info); 18 February 259 BC – 10 September 210 BC) was the founding father of the Qin dynasty, and first emperor of a unified China. From 247 to 221 BC he was Zheng, King of Qin (秦王政, Qín Wáng Zhèng, personal name 嬴政 Yíng Zhèng or 趙政 Zhào Zhèng). He became China's first emperor when he was 38 after the Qin had conquered all of the opposite Warring States and unified all of China in 221 BC.[2] instead of maintain the title of "king" (王 wáng) borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled because the First Emperor (始皇帝) of the Qin dynasty from 221 BC to 210 BC. His self-invented title "emperor" (皇帝 About this soundhuángdì) would still be borne by Chinese rulers for subsequent two millennia.
During his reign, his generals greatly expanded the dimensions of the Chinese state: campaigns south of Chu permanently added the Yue lands of Hunan and Guangdong to the Chinese cultural orbit; campaigns in Central Asia conquered the Ordos Loop from the nomad Xiongnu, although eventually it might also cause their confederation under Modu Chanyu.
Qin Shi Huang also worked together with his minister Li Si to enact major economic and political reforms aimed toward the standardization of the various practices of the sooner Chinese states.[2] he's traditionally said to possess banned and burned many books and executed scholars. His structure projects included the unification of diverse state walls into one Chinese Wall of China and a huge new national road system, also because the city-sized mausoleum guarded by the life-sized Terracotta Army. He ruled until his death in 210 BC during his fourth tour of Eastern China.[3]Modern Chinese sources often give the private name of Qin Shi Huang as Ying Zheng, with Ying (嬴) taken because the surname and Zheng (政) the first name . In ancient China however the naming convention differed, and Zhao (趙), the place where he was born and raised, could also be used because the surname. Unlike modern Chinese names, the nobles of ancient China had two distinct surnames: the ancestral name (姓) comprised a bigger group descended from a prominent ancestor, usually said to possess lived during the time of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors of Chinese legend, and therefore the clan name (氏) comprised a smaller group that showed a branch's current fief or recent title. the traditional practice was to list men's names separately—Sima Qian's "Basic Annals of the primary Emperor of Qin" introduces him as "given the name Zheng and therefore the surname Zhao"[4][6]—or to mix the clan surname with the private name: Sima's account of Chu describes the sixteenth year of the reign of King Kaolie as "the time when Zhao Zheng was enthroned as King of Qin".[7] However, since modern Chinese surnames (despite usually descending from clan names) use an equivalent character because the old ancestral names, it's far more common in modern Chinese sources to ascertain the emperor's personal name written as Ying Zheng,[8] using the ancestral name of the Ying family.
The rulers of Qin had styled themselves kings from the time of King Huiwen in 325 BC. Upon his ascension, Zheng became referred to as the King of Qin[4][5] or King Zheng of Qin.[9][10] 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 Qi in 221 BC, King Zheng had reunited all of the lands of the previous Kingdom of Zhou. instead of maintain his rank as king, however,[11] he created a replacement title of huángdì (emperor) for himself. This new title combined two titles—huáng of the mythical Three Sovereigns (三皇, Sān Huáng) and therefore the dì of the legendary Five Emperors (五帝, Wŭ Dì) of Chinese prehistory.[12] The title was intended to appropriate a number of the prestige of the Yellow Emperor,[13] whose cult was popular within the later Warring States period and who was considered to be a founding father of the Chinese people. King Zheng chose the new regnal name of First Emperor (Shǐ Huángdì, formerly transcribed as Shih Huang-ti)[14] on the understanding that his successors would be successively titled the "Second Emperor", "Third Emperor", then on through the generations. (In fact, the scheme lasted only as long as his immediate heir, the Second Emperor.)[15] The new title carried religious overtones. For that reason, Sinologists—starting with Peter Boodberg[16] or Edward Schafer[17]—sometimes translate it as "thearch" and therefore the First Emperor because the First Thearch.[18]
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:
秦, Qín or Ch‘in, "of Qin"
始, Shǐ or Shih, "first"[1]
皇帝, Huángdì or Huang-ti, "emperor", a replacement term[20] coined from
皇, Huáng or Huang, literally "shining" or "splendid" and formerly most typically applied "as an epithet of Heaven",[21] a title of the Three Sovereigns, the high god of the Zhou[19]
帝, Dì or Ti, the high god of the Shang, possibly composed of their divine ancestors,[22] and employed by the Zhou as a title of the legendary Five Emperors, particularly the Yellow Emperor
As early as Sima Qian, it had been common to shorten the resulting four-character Qin Shi Huangdi to 秦始皇,[23] 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[25] became taboo.[26] the primary Emperor also arrogated the first-person Chinese pronoun 朕 (OC *lrəm’,[27] mod. zhèn) for his exclusive use[29] and in 212 BC began calling himself The Immortal (真人, OC *Tin-niŋ,[27] mod. Zhēnrén, lit. "True Man").[11] Others were to deal with him as "Your Majesty" (陛下, mod. Bìxià, lit. "Beneath the Palace[30] Steps") face to face and "Your Highness" (上) in writing.[11]
Birth and parentage
According to the Records of the Grand Historian, written by Sima Qian during the Han , the primary emperor was the eldest son of the Qin prince Yiren, who later became King Zhuangxiang of Qin. Prince Yiren at that point was residing at the court of Zhao, serving as a hostage to ensure the armistice between the Qin and Zhao states.[1][31] Prince Yiren had fallen crazy initially sight with a concubine of Lü Buwei, an upscale merchant from the State of Wey. Lü consented for her to be Yiren's wife, who then became referred to as Lady Zhao (Zhao Ji) after the state of Zhao. He was given the name Zhao Zheng, the name Zheng (正) came from his month of birth Zhengyue, the primary month of the Chinese lunar calendar;[31] the clan name of Zhao came from his father's lineage and was unrelated to either his mother's name or the situation of his birth.[citation needed] (Song Zhong says that his birthday, significantly, was on the primary day of Zhengyue.[32]) Lü Buwei's machinations later helped Yiren become King Zhuangxiang of Qin[33] in 250 BC.
However, the Records of the Grand Historian also claimed that the primary emperor wasn't the particular son of Prince Yiren but that of Lü Buwei.[34] consistent with this account, when Lü Buwei introduced the dancing girl to the prince, she was Lü Buwei's concubine and had already become pregnant by him, and therefore the baby was born after a strangely long period of pregnancy.[34] consistent with translations of the Annals of Lü Buwei, Zhao Ji gave birth to the longer term emperor within the city of Handan in 259 BC, the primary month of the 48th year of King Zhaoxiang of Qin.[35]
The idea that the emperor was an bastard , widely believed throughout Chinese history, contributed to the widely negative view of the primary Emperor.[1] However, variety of recent scholars have doubted this account of his birth. Sinologist Derk Bodde wrote: "There is sweet reason for believing that the sentence describing this unusual pregnancy is an interpolation added to the Shih-chi by an unknown person so as to slander the primary Emperor and indicate his political also as natal illegitimacy".[36] 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 primary Emperor".[37] Claiming Lü Buwei—a merchant—as the primary Emperor's biological father was meant to be especially disparaging, since later Confucian society regarded merchants because the lowest of all social classes.[38]Standing guard over the primary emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, the Terracotta Army is like no other dig within the world. Thousands upon thousands of life-sized warriors, each with a singular face, substitute rows, where they need stood since they were buried here within the 3rd century BC. it's estimated that some 700,000 workers were involved within the creation of the location , which is assumed to possess approximately 8,000 clay warriors. the location remained undiscovered for millenniums, until a farmer was digging a well within the 1970s and uncovered the treasure. a number of the location remains intentionally not excavated, but you cannot help but be quite impressed by the huge army that stands before you.
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