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Qin Shi Huang

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Historical figures

                             Qin Shi Huang
                           Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇)
      Family name: Ying (嬴)
       Given name: Zheng (政)
        Clan name: Zhao¹ (趙), or Qin² (秦)
            Title: King of the State of Qin (秦王)

                   First Emperor of Qin Dynasty (始皇帝)
   Dates of reign: July 247 BC– 221 BC (秦王)

                   221 BC–Sept. 10, 210 BC (始皇帝)
      Temple name: None³
   Posthumous name None^4
   General note: Dates given here are in the proleptic Julian calendar.
   They are not in the proleptic Gregorian calendar.
                                   ———
     1. This clan name appears in the Records of the Grand Historian
   written by Sima Qian. Apparently, the First Emperor being born
   in the State of Zhao where his father was a hostage, he later
   adopted Zhao as his clan name (in ancient China clan names
   often changed from generation to generation), but this is
   not completely certain.
     2. Based on ancient Chinese naming patterns, we can infer that
   Qin was the clan name of the royal house of the State of Qin,
   derived from the name of the state. Other branches of the Ying
   ancestral family, enfeoffed in other states, had other clan
   names. Qin was thus possibly also the clan name of
   the First Emperor.
     3. The royal house of Qin did not carry the practice of temple
   names, which were not used anymore since the establishment
   of the Zhou Dynasty, so the First Emperor does not have a
   temple name per se. However, his official name "First Emperor"
   can somehow be assimilated to a temple name, being the
   name under which the emperor would have been honored
   in the temple of the ancestors of the dynasty.
        4. Posthumous names were abolished in 221 BC by the First
   Emperor who deemed them inappropriate and contrary
   to filial piety.

   Qin Shi Huang (Chinese: 秦始皇; pinyin: Qín Shǐ Huáng; Wade-Giles: Ch'in
   Shih-huang) (November / December 260 BCE – September 10, 210 BCE),
   personal name Zheng, was king of the Chinese State of Qin from 247 BCE
   to 221 BCE, and then the first emperor of a unified China from 221 BCE
   to 210 BCE, ruling under the name First Emperor.

   Having unified China, he and his prime minister Lǐ Sī passed a series
   of major reforms aimed at cementing the unification, and they undertook
   some gigantic construction projects, most notably the precursor version
   of the current Great Wall of China. For all the tyranny of his
   autocratic rule, Qin Shi Huang is still regarded by many today as the
   founding father in Chinese history whose unification of China has
   endured for more than two millennia (with interruptions).

Naming conventions

   Qin Shi Huang was born in the Chinese month zhēng (正), the first month
   of the year in the Chinese calendar then in use, and so he received the
   name Zheng (政), both characters being used interchangeably in ancient
   China. In Chinese antiquity, people never joined family names and given
   names together as is customary today, so it is anachronistic to refer
   to Qin Shi Huang as "Ying Zheng". The given name was never used except
   by close relatives, therefore it is also incorrect to refer to the
   young Qin Shi Huang as "Prince Zheng", or as "King Zheng of Qin". As a
   king, he was referred to as "King of Qin" only. Had he received a
   posthumous name after his death like his father, he would have been
   known by historians as "King NN. (posthumous name) of Qin", but this
   never happened.

   After conquering the last independent Chinese state in 221 BCE, Qin Shi
   Huang was the king of a state of Qin ruling over the whole of China, an
   unprecedented accomplishment. Wishing to show that he was no longer a
   simple king like the kings of old during the Warring States Period, he
   created a new title, huangdi (皇帝), combining the word huang (皇) from
   the legendary Three Huang ( Three August Ones) who ruled at the dawn of
   Chinese history, and the word di (帝) from the legendary Five Di ( Five
   Sovereigns) who ruled immediately after the Three Huang. These Three
   Huang and Five Di were considered perfect rulers, of immense power and
   very long lives. The word huang also meant "big", "great". The word di
   also referred to the Supreme God in Heaven, creator of the world. Thus,
   by joining these two words for the first time, Qin Shi Huang created a
   title on a par with his feat of uniting the seemingly endless Chinese
   realm, in fact uniting the world. Ancient Chinese, like ancient Romans,
   believed their empire encompassed the whole world, a concept referred
   to as all under heaven.

   This word huangdi is rendered in most Western languages as " emperor",
   a word which also has a long history dating back to ancient Rome, and
   which Europeans deem superior to the word "king". Qin Shi Huang adopted
   the name First Emperor (Shi Huangdi, literally "commencing emperor").
   He abolished posthumous names, by which former kings were known after
   their death, judging them inappropriate and contrary to filial piety,
   and decided that future generations would refer to him as the First
   Emperor (Shi Huangdi). His successor would be referred to as the Second
   Emperor (Er Shi Huangdi, literally "second generation emperor"), the
   successor of his successor as the Third Emperor (San Shi Huangdi,
   literally "third generation emperor"), and so on, for ten thousand
   generations, as the Imperial house was supposed to rule China for ten
   thousand generations. " ten thousand" is equivalent to "forever" in
   Chinese, and it also signifies "good fortune".

   Qin Shi Huang had now become the First Emperor of the State of Qin. The
   official name of the newly united China was still "State of Qin", as
   Qin had absorbed all the other states. The names Zhonghua (中華) or
   Zhongguo (中國) were never used officially for the country of China until
   1912 when the Republic of China (中華民國) was founded. Contemporaries
   called the emperor "First Emperor", dropping the phrase "of the State
   of Qin", which was obvious without saying. However, soon after the
   emperor's death, his regime collapsed, and China was beset by a civil
   war. Eventually, in 202 BCE the Han Dynasty managed to reunify the
   whole of China, which now became officially known as the State of Han
   (漢國), or Empire of Han. Qin Shi Huang could no longer be called "First
   Emperor", as this would imply that he was the "First Emperor of the
   Empire of Han". The custom thus arose of preceding his name with Qin
   (秦), which no longer referred to the State of Qin, but to the Qin
   Dynasty, a dynasty replaced by the Han Dynasty. The word huangdi
   (emperor) in his name was also shortened to huang, so that he became
   known as Qin Shi Huang. It seems likely that huangdi was shortened to
   obtain a three-character name, because it is rare for Chinese people to
   have a name composed of four or more characters.

   This name Qin Shi Huang (i.e., "First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty") is
   the name that appears in the Records of the Grand Historian written by
   Sima Qian, and is the name most favored today inside China when
   referring to the First Emperor. Westerners sometimes write "Qin Shi
   Huangdi", which is improper given Chinese naming conventions; it is
   more conventional to write "Qin Shi Huang" or "First Emperor".

Youth and King of Qin: the conqueror

   At the time of the young Zheng's birth, China was divided into warring
   feudal states. This period of Chinese history is referred to as the
   Warring States Period. The competition was extremely fierce and by 260
   BCE there were only a handful of states left (the others having been
   conquered and annexed), but Zheng's state, Qin, was the most powerful.
   It was governed by Legalist philosophy and focused earnestly on
   military matters.

   Zheng was born in Handan (邯鄲), the capital of the enemy State of Zhao.
   He was the son of Zichu (子楚), a prince of the royal house of Qin who
   served as a hostage in the State of Zhao under an agreement between the
   states of Qin and Zhao. Zichu later returned to Qin after many
   adventures and with the help of a rich merchant called Lü Buwei (呂不韋),
   and he managed to ascend the throne of Qin, Lü Buwei becoming
   chancellor ( prime minister) of Qin. Zichu is known posthumously as
   King Zhuangxiang of Qin. According to a widespread story, Zheng was not
   the actual son of Zichu, but the son of the powerful chancellor Lü
   Buwei. This tale arose because Zheng's mother had originally been a
   concubine of Lü Buwei before he gave her to his good friend Zichu
   shortly before Zheng's birth. However, the story is dubious since the
   Confucians would have found it much easier to denounce a ruler whose
   birth was illegitimate.

   Zheng ascended the throne in 247 BCE at the age of 12 and a half, and
   was king under a regent until 238 BCE when, at the age of 21 and a
   half, he staged a palace coup and assumed full power. He continued the
   tradition of tenaciously attacking and defeating the feudal states
   (dodging a celebrated assassination attempt by Jing Ke while doing so)
   and finally took control of the whole of China in 221 BCE by defeating
   the last independent Chinese state, the State of Qi.

   Then in that same year, at the age of 38, the king of Qin proclaimed
   himself First Emperor (see chapter above).

First Emperor: the unifier

   始皇帝 Shǐ Huángdì"First Emperor"(small seal scriptfrom 220 BCE)
   Enlarge
   始皇帝
   Shǐ Huángdì
   "First Emperor"
   ( small seal script
   from 220 BCE)

   To avoid a recurrence of the political chaos of the Warring States
   Period, Qin Shi Huang and his prime minister Li Si completely abolished
   feudalism. They instead divided the empire into thirty-six commanderies
   (郡). Power in the commanderies was in the hands of governors dismissed
   at will by the central government. Civilian and military powers were
   also separated to avoid too much power falling in the hands of a single
   civil servant. Thus each commandery was run by a civilian governor
   (守 shōu) assisted by a military governor (尉 wèi). The civilian governor
   was superior to the military governor, a constant in Chinese history.
   The civilian governor was also reassigned to a different commandery
   every few years to prevent him from building up a base of power. An
   inspector (監 jiàn) was also in post in each commandery, in charge of
   informing the central government about the local implementation of
   central policies, reporting on the governors' exercise of power, and
   possibly resolving conflicts between the two governors.

   This administrative system was only an extension to the whole empire of
   the system already in place in the State of Qin before the Chinese
   unification. In the State of Qin, feudalism had been abolished in the
   4th century BCE, and the realm had been divided into commanderies, with
   governors dismissed at will by the ruler.

   Qin Shi Huang ordered all the members of the former royal houses of the
   conquered states to move to Xianyang (咸陽), the capital of Qin, in
   modern day Shaanxi province, so they would be kept under tight
   surveillance for rebellious activities.

   The emperor also developed an extensive network of roads and canals
   connecting the provinces to accelerate trade between them and to
   accelerate military marches to revolting provinces.

   Qin Shi Huang and Li Si unified China economically by standardizing the
   Chinese units of measurements such as weights and measures, the
   currency, the length of the axles of carts (so every cart could run
   smoothly in the ruts of the new roads), the legal system, and so on.

   Perhaps most importantly, the Chinese script was unified. Under Li Si,
   the seal script of the state of Qin, which had already evolved
   organically during the Eastern Zhou out of the Zhou dynasty script, was
   standardized through removal of variant forms within the Qin script
   itself. This newly standardized script was then made official
   throughout all the conquered regions, thus doing away with all the
   regional scripts and becoming the official script for all of China.
   Contrary to popular belief, Li Si did not invent the script, nor was it
   completely new at the time. Edicts written in the new script were
   carved on the walls of sacred mountains around China, such as the
   famous carved edicts of Mount Taishan, to let Heaven know of the
   unification of Earth under an emperor, and also to propagate the new
   script among people. However, the script was difficult to write, and an
   informal Qin script remained in use which was already evolving into an
   early form of clerical script.

   Qin Shi Huang also had most previously-existing books burned (excepting
   some held in the palace archives). Qin Shi Huang's motives behind
   burning the books has been known to be caused by the possibility of
   them to be used against him. Among the many possibilities is the
   revealing of the emperor's true nation of origin. Qin Shi Huang wanted
   to hide the fact that he was of Dongyi kind. If this were to be
   revealed, then revolt could have occured under the pretext of ridding
   China of barbarians. Qin Shi Huang wanted hide his "barbaric" origins
   and continue on his dreams of unifying his people into one. Also, the
   emperor did not want any wayward people of great knowledge to outsmart
   him or attempt to take advantage of his lack of knowledge. Concomitant
   with this, he had many scholars executed .

   Qin Shi Huang continued military expansion during his reign, annexing
   regions to the south (what is now Guangdong province was penetrated by
   Chinese armies for the first time) and fighting nomadic tribes to the
   north and northwest. These tribes (the Xiongnu) were subdued, but the
   campaign was essentially inconclusive, and to prevent the Xiongnu from
   encroaching on the northern frontier any longer, the emperor ordered
   the construction of an immense defensive wall, linking several walls
   already existing since the time of the Warring States. This wall, for
   whose construction hundreds of thousands of men were mobilized, and an
   unknown number died, is the precursor version of the current Great Wall
   of China. It was built much more north than the current Great Wall
   which was built only during the Ming Dynasty, when China had at least
   twice more inhabitants than in the days of the First Emperor, and when
   more than a century was devoted to building the wall (as opposed to a
   mere ten years during the rule of the First Emperor). Very little
   survives today of the great wall built by the First Emperor.

Death and aftermath

   Imperial tours of Qin Shi Huang
   Enlarge
   Imperial tours of Qin Shi Huang

   The emperor died while on a tour to Eastern China, searching for the
   legendary Islands of the Immortals (off the coast of Eastern China) and
   for the secret of eternal life. Reportedly he died of swallowing
   mercury pills, which were made by his court scientists and doctors,
   containing too much mercury. Ironically, these pills were meant to make
   Qin Shi Huang immortal.

   His death occurred on September 10, 210 BCE ( Julian Calendar) at the
   palace in Shaqiu prefecture, about two months away by road from the
   capital Xianyang. Prime minister Li Si, who accompanied him, was
   extremely worried that the news of his death could trigger a general
   uprising in the empire, given the brutal policies of the government,
   and the resentment of the population forced to work on Herculean
   projects such as the great wall in the north of China or the mausoleum
   of the emperor. It would take two months for the government to reach
   the capital, and it would not be possible to stop the uprising. Li Si
   decided to hide the death of the emperor, and return to Xianyang.

   Most of the imperial entourage accompanying the emperor was left
   uninformed of the emperor's death, and each day Li Si entered the wagon
   where the emperor was supposed to be traveling, pretending to discuss
   affairs of state. The secretive nature of the emperor while alive
   allowed this stratagem to work, and it did not raise doubts among
   courtiers. Li Si also ordered that two carts containing fish be carried
   immediately before and after the wagon of the emperor. The idea behind
   this was to prevent people from noticing the foul smell emanating from
   the wagon of the emperor, where his body was starting to decompose
   severely. Eventually, after about two months, Li Si and the imperial
   court were back in Xianyang, where the news of the death of the emperor
   was announced.

   Qin Shi Huang did not like to talk about death and he never really
   wrote a will. After his death, Li Si and the chief eunuch Zhao Gao
   persuaded his eighteenth son Huhai to forge the Emperor's will. They
   forced his first son Fusu to commit suicide, stripped the command of
   troops from Meng Tian, a loyal supporter of Fusu, and killed his
   family. Huhai became the Second Emperor (Er Shi Huangdi), known by
   historians as Qin Er Shi.
   Part of the Terracotta Army
   Enlarge
   Part of the Terracotta Army

   Qin Shi Huang was buried in his mausoleum, with the famous Terracotta
   Army, near modern day Xi'an ( Shaanxi province). For 2000 years a
   secret army of clay soldiers has protected the hidden tomb of China's
   first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. Until 1974 none knew of its existence;
   now Chinese archaeologists are gradually unfolding the mystery. To
   guard him in his afterlife the emperor ordered an army of over 7000
   life size clay soldiers to be made. When he died the burial place was
   as magnificent and bizarre as even the treasure laden tombs of the
   Egyptian pharaohs. The site measures some three miles across and took
   700,000 conscripts to construct it. Many wonders of the tomb were
   described by a Chinese historian, Sima Qian, writing less than a
   century after the emperor's death. He wrote of rare jewels, a map of
   the heavens with stars represented by pearls, and, on the floor of the
   tomb a panorama of China with the rivers and seas represented by
   flowing mercury. But Sima Qian never mentioned the terracotta army,
   which was discovered by a team of well diggers. It is the detail of the
   terracotta armies that makes it so valuable. The soldiers were created
   with a series of mix-and-match clay molds and then further
   individualized by the artists' hand. No two terracotta soldiers are
   identical. The sculptures represent a standard of art that experts
   previously believed was far beyond the craftsmen of the Qin Dynasty.
   Each man was built with solid legs and a hollow torso. The soldiers
   were originally armed with bronze spears and bows and arrows. But soon
   after the burial there was a revolution in China and the rebels broke
   into the vaults to steal the weapons. All the standing warriors were
   attached to clay plinths that rested on the tiled floor, which still
   resembles a modern pavement. The soldiers were arranged in battle
   formation, with 600 clay horses and 100 life-sized working wooden
   chariots. Chinese archaeologists have been meticulous and patient in
   their work. The main tomb containing the emperor has yet to be opened
   and there is still hope that it remains intact. It is said that molten
   copper was used to seal it. A magnetic scan of the site has revealed
   that a large number of coins are lying in the unopened tomb,
   occasioning speculation that the royal treasury was interred with the
   emperor. Scans of the earth atop the tomb have revealed unusually high
   concentrations of mercury, adding further to the credibility of Sima
   Qian's description.

   Qin Er Shi was not nearly as capable as his father. Revolts against him
   quickly erupted. His reign was a time of extreme civil unrest, and
   everything the First Emperor had worked for crumbled away, for a short
   period. The imperial palace and state archives were burned: this has
   been disastrous for later historians, because after the burning of the
   books by his father, almost the only written records left were those in
   the palace archives.

   Within four years of Qin Shi Huang's death, his son was dead. Thus did
   the Qin Dynasty come to an end. It was during Qin Er Shi's "rule" that
   powerful families came to war, with the strongest of them rising to
   power and bringing order back to the land, thus starting the next
   dynasty of emperors.

   The next Chinese dynasty, the Han Dynasty, rejected legalism (in favour
   of Confucianism) and moderated the laws, but kept Qin Shi Huang's basic
   political and economic reforms intact. In this way his work was carried
   on through the centuries and became a lasting feature of Chinese
   society.

Qin Shi Huang in historiography

   A modern statue of Qin Shi Huang, located near the site of the
   Terracotta Army
   Enlarge
   A modern statue of Qin Shi Huang, located near the site of the
   Terracotta Army

   In traditional Chinese historiography, the First Emperor was almost
   often portrayed as a brutal tyrant, superstitious (a result of his
   interest in immortality and assassination paranoia), and sometimes even
   as a mediocre ruler. Ideological prejudices against the Legalist State
   of Qin were established as early as 266 BCE, when Confucian philosopher
   Xun Zi compared it later, Confucian historians condemned the emperor
   who had burned the classics and buried Confucian scholars alive. They
   eventually compiled the list of the Ten Crimes of Qin to highlight his
   tyrannical actions. The famous Han poet and statesman Jia Yi concluded
   his essay The Faults of Qin (過秦論) 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. He
   explained the ultimate weakness of Qin as a result of its ruler's
   ruthless pursuit of power, harsh laws and unbearable burdens placed on
   the population in projects such as the great wall - the precise factor
   which had made it so powerful; for as Confucius had taught, the
   strength of a government ultimately is based on the support of the
   people and virtuous conduct of the ruler.

   Because of this systematic Confucian bias on the part of Han scholars,
   some of the stories recorded about Qin Shi Huang are doubtful and some
   may have been invented to emphasize his bad character. Some of the
   stories are plainly fictitious, designed to tarnish the First Emperor's
   image, e.g. the story of a stone fallen from the sky engraved with
   words denouncing the emperor and prophesying the collapse of his empire
   after his death. This makes it difficult to know the truth about other
   stories. For instance, the accusation that he had 460 scholars executed
   by having them buried with only their heads above ground and then
   decapitated seems unlikely to be completely true, but we have no way to
   know for certain.

   Only in modern times were historians able to penetrate beyond the
   limitations of traditional Chinese historiography. The political
   rejection of the Confucian tradition as an impediment to China's entry
   into the modern world opened the way for changing perspectives to
   emerge. In the three decades between the fall of the Qing Dynasty and
   the outbreak of the Second World War, with the deepening
   dissatisfaction with China's weakness and disunity, there emerged a new
   appreciation of the man who had unified China. In the time when he was
   writing, when Chinese territory was encroached upon by foreign nations,
   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 revisionist biography of the First
   Emperor entitled Qin Shi Huangdi Zhuan (《秦始皇帝傳》). He called Qin Shi
   Huang one of the great heroes of Chinese history. Ma compared him with
   the contemporary leader Chiang Kai-shek and saw many parallels in the
   careers and policies of the two men, both of whom he admired. Chiang's
   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 Communist Revolution in 1949, new
   interpretations again surfaced. The establishment of the new,
   revolutionary regime meant another re-evaluation of the First Emperor,
   this time following Marxist theory. The new interpretation given of Qin
   Shi Huang was generally a combination of traditional and modern views,
   but essentially critical. This is exemplified in the Complete History
   of China, which was compiled in September 1955 as an official survey of
   Chinese history. The work described the First Emperor's major steps
   toward unification and standardization as corresponding to the
   interests of the ruling group and the merchant class, not the nation or
   the people, and the subsequent fall of his dynasty a manifestation of
   the class struggle. The perennial debate of 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".

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

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

   Qin Shi Huang was ranked #17 in Michael H. Hart's list of the most
   influential figures in history.

Qin Shi Huang in fiction

     * During the Korean War, the play Song of the Yi River was produced.
       The play was based on the attempted assassination of Qin Shi Huang
       (called "Ying Zheng") by Jing Ke of Wei, at the request of the
       Prince of Yan, in 227 BCE. In the play Ying Zheng was portrayed as
       a cruel tyrant and an aggressor and invader of other states. Jing
       Ke, in contrast, was a chivalrous warrior who said that "tens of
       thousands of injured people are all my comrades." A huge newspaper
       ad for this play proclaimed: "Invasion will definitely end in
       defeat; peace must be won at a price." The play portrayed an
       underdog fighting against a cruel, powerful foreign invader with
       help from a sympathetic foreign volunteer.

     * Jorge Luis Borges ( 1899– 1986), the Argentine writer, wrote an
       acclaimed essay on Qin Shi Huang, 'The Wall and the Books' (La
       muralla y los libros), included in the 1952 collection Other
       Inquisitions (Otras Inquisiciones). It muses on the opposition
       between large-scale construction (the Wall) and destruction
       (book-burning) that defined his reign, in order to make a point
       about 'the aesthetic experience'.

     * The book Lord of the East, published in 1956, is a historical
       romance about the favourite daughter of Qin Shihuang, who runs away
       with her lover. The story uses Qin Shihuang to create the barrier
       for the young couple.

     * The 1984 book Bridge of Birds (by Barry Hughart) portrays the
       emperor as a power-hungry megalomaniac who achieved immortality by
       having his heart removed by an "Old Man of the mountain."

     * The Chinese Emperor, by Jean Levi, appeared in 1984. This work of
       historical fiction moves from discussions of politics and law in
       the Qin state to fantasy, in which the First Emperor's terracotta
       soldiers were actually robots created to replace fallible humans.

     * In the Area 51 book series, Qin Shi Huang is revealed to be an
       alien exile stranded on Earth during an interstellar civil war. The
       Great Wall is actually designed to display the symbol for 'help' in
       his language, and he orders it built in the hope that a passing
       spaceship would notice it and rescue him.

     * In the Magic Tree House book series, one book is titled "Day of the
       Dragon King." The Dragon King is Qin Shi Huangdi.

Films and television

     * The 1963 Japanese movie Shin No Shikoutei portrays Qin Shihuang as
       a battle-hardened emperor with his roots in the military. Despite
       his rank, he is shown lounging around a campfire with common men. A
       female character, Lady Chu, serves as a foil who questions whether
       the emperor's cause is just. He converts her from an enemy to a
       loyal concubine.

     * Hong Kong Asia Television Limited (ATV) Channel made a TV drama
       called "Qin Shi Huang" (秦始皇) during the 1980s. It was one of ATV's
       most expensive projects, with about 50 episodes chronicling Qin Shi
       Huang's life from his youth to his death. The title song summed up
       most of the storyline: "Nobody shall be under my foot; nobody shall
       be equal to me."

     * The 1996 movie The Emperor's Shadow uses legends about Qin Shi
       Huang to make a political statement on Chinese Communism. The film
       focuses on his relationship with the rebellious musician Gao
       Jianli, known historically as a friend of the would-be assassin
       Jing Ke. Gao plays a song for the assassin before he sets out to
       kill the emperor.

     * The 1999 movie The Emperor and the Assassin focuses on the identity
       of the emperor's father, his supposed heartless treatment of his
       officials, and a betrayal by his childhood lover, paving the way
       for Jing Ke's assassination attempt. The director of the film, Chen
       Kaige, sought to question whether the emperor's motives were
       meritorious. A major theme in this movie is the conflict between
       the Emperor’s dedication to his vows and to his lover, Lady Zhao.

     * The 2001 Hong Kong TVB serial drama A Step into the Past, based on
       a book with the same title, stars Raymond Lam Fung as Zhao Pan, a
       man from the Kingdom of Zhao who takes over the identity of the
       emperor (called "Ying Zheng") and rises to power with the help of a
       time traveller from the 21st century who intervenes to affect the
       course of history.

     * The 2002 movie Hero, starring Jet Li, tells the story of
       assassination attempts on Qin Shi Huang (played by renowned Chinese
       actor Chen Daoming) by legendary warriors. It portrays him as a
       powerful ruler willing to take any steps to bring unification to
       his people.

     * In 2005 The Discovery Channel ran a special on Qin Shi Huang called
       First Emperor: The Man Who Made China

     * In The Myth ( 2005), Jackie Chan plays both a modern-day
       archaeologist and a general under Qin Shi Huang.

     * Bob Bainborough portrayed Qin Shi Huang in an episode of History
       Bites.

Video games

     * The 1995 computer game Qin: Tomb of the Middle Kindgom depicts a
       fictional archeological mission to explore the First Emperor's
       burial site. The emperor is featured in several voiceovers in
       Mandarin Chinese.

     * The video game Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb portrays
       Indiana Jones entering the tomb of Qin Shi Huang to recover an
       artifact hidden there.

     * In the 2005 computer game Civilization IV, Qin Shi Huang is one of
       the two playable leaders of China. The other is Mao Zedong.

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