The Norse myths tell that the primeval giant Ymer - whose body became the world - was created when the heat and fire from the southern Muspelheim met their opposites, the ice and cold from the northern Niflheim. The Chinese myth tells that the primeval giant Pan Ku - whose body also became the world - was created when the two opposite forces, yang and yin, met each other.
There is much evidence that the Chinese nation was created on in a similar way that the southern farmers, who were of Indochinese type, expanded northward over thousands of years, while the northern steppe nomads, who were of Indo-European type, expanded southward.
The climate in the area around the South China Sea during the last glacial maximum was relatively mild, and the southern future farmers have survived on the shores of this sea.
The Indo-European tribes north of the Caspian Sea domesticated the horse during the Holocene climatic maximum, and then it went - by historical standards - at breakneck speed across the steppe towards the east, right to the plain of present-day Mongolia and further to the banks of the Yellow River, where they met the farmers, who were spreading from the south.
1. The Zhou people
The Zhou tribe was originally an Indo-European nomadic people on the steppe among many others. But they invaded the area around the Yellow River from the north, learned agriculture from the inhabitants, who already lived there, and thereby became so rich and numerous that they were able to give birth to the Chinese nation in the Yellow River and later the Yangtze River valleys.
Linguist Zhou Jixu wonders, why there are such great discrepancy between ancient Chinese documents and archaeological finds regarding when agriculture began in China.
Xia Dynasty area on the middle reaches of the Yellow River. Linguist Zhou Jixu believes that the Shang and Xia dynasties were early phases of the history of the Zhou kingdom. Photo W:en:User:Gurdjieff (Lamassu Design) Wikipedia.
The ancient documents, such as "Shang Shu" (Confucius), "Shi Jing", (Book of Odes), "Zuo Zhuan", (Historical comments), "Shi Ji" (Records of the Grand Historian), etc., all agree that the earliest farming took place in the mythological Xia Dynasty under Hou Ji around 2100 BC on the middle reaches of the Yellow River.
However, modern Chinese archaeologists have uncovered many settlements that show that farming was performed much earlier in the Yellow and Yangtze river valleys. Farmers of the Yangshao culture along the middle reaches of the Yellow River were cultivating millet 4,500 BC, and finds from the Hemudu culture south of the Yangtze's mouth show that rice was being cultivated there as early as 5,000 BC.
Zhou Jixu explains the 3,000-year difference by saying that the ancient documents describes the history of Huang Di and his nation and nothing about the indigenous people along the Yellow River, who had lived there "always" until Huang Di's nation took possession of the area.
Model of Yangshao village in Yangshao Culture Museum, Henan, China. Photo Gary Todd Flickr Wikipedia.
"Huang Di" is the "Yellow Emperor", whom all Chinese people consider their ancestor.
The Yellow Emperor's men learned the cultivation of millet from the country's native inhabitants, and this is considered by classical documents to be the beginning of agriculture in China. The original Yangshao people may have thought otherwise, but their opinion has not been passed down to posterity.
In his book "The Cradle of the East", Professor Ho Ping-Ti argues that the ethnic and geographical origin of the Yangshao people was southern China and Indochina, which had been reasonably habitable during the last ice age. Ho Ping-Ti's arguments are based on anthropology, typical objects and ceramic style.
Linguist Zhou Jixu believes that the "Yellow Emperor" and his nation, from which all Chinese are supposed to descend, was an Indo-European horse-riding people from the steppe, who called themselves Zhou.
Yangshao burial. Photo: Eastasiatiska Museet, Stockholm Wikimedia Commons.
Unlike other Indo-European nomadic peoples, who may have roamed the two river valleys, the Zhou people adopted agriculture based on millet, rice, and wheat, and thus became more numerous, better organized, and wealthier than other nomadic horsemen, enabling them to establish the Zhou dynasty, which came to encompass the area along the Yellow River and later the Yangtze River. This was the beginning of the Chinese Empire as we know it through history.
In Confucius' "Shang Shu", Emperor Yao of the Xia dynasty said: "Qi, the black-haired people are still suffering from the misery of hunger. It is your duty, oh prince, responsible for agriculture, to sow various kinds of grain for them."
The prince responded by describing how he had supported agriculture and trade: "I also opened passages for the waterways through the nine provinces, and led them to the sea. I also deepened the canals, and led them to the rivers, while Ji sowed grain and showed the masses how to obtain the food from toil in addition to meat. I further encouraged them to barter what they had, with what they did not have, and to dispose of their accumulated stocks. In this way all people got grain to eat, and all the states began to come under good government".
Gold plaque from belt buckle from Xigoupan, Ordos in Inner Mongolia from 300-200 BC which at this time was inhabited by Indo-European steppe nomads, who were called Rong or Di as a common term. The motif is a tiger or lion fighting a wild boar.
The motif resembles as I said really a lot the somewhat later Germanic animal ornamentation from the migration period and Germanic Iron Age in Europe. Photo from "Yan Liu, Rui Li, Junchang Yang, Ruiliang Liu, Guoxing Zhao & Panpan Tan - China and the steppe: technological study of precious metalwork from Xigoupan Tomb 2 (4th - 3rd c. BCE) in the Ordos region, Inner Mongolia" Wikipedia
But the wealth that the organized Chinese society, based on agriculture, created has throughout history been the object of desire and envy of northern horse-riding nomads.
The Zhou and Qin dynasties fought against the Rong and Di tribes on the steppe. The Han dynasty waged wars against the Xiong-Nu, who may have been the Huns. Later dynasties fought against the Turks and Mongols.
Gold belt buckle showing lying and kneeling horses 400 -300 BC found in Xigoupan, in Ordos in Inner Mongolia, which at that time was inhabited by Indo-European steppe nomads called Rong or Di.
The motif is incredibly reminiscent of the somewhat later Germanic animal ornamentation from the Migration Period and Germanic Iron Age, for example the lying men on the Uppåkra cup. Photo from "Yan Liu, Rui Li, Junchang Yang, Ruiliang Liu, Guoxing Zhao & Panpan Tan - China and the steppe: technological study of precious metalwork from Xigoupan Tomb 2 (4th - 3rd c. BCE) in the Ordos region, Inner Mongolia" Wikipedia
A traditional idea is that the Zhou people were descendants of the Yellow Emperor, Huang Di, who was the ancestor of all Chinese, while the Rong and Di nations of the steppe belonged to other more primitive and unspecified races who were eager to get a share of the pie.
Top: Embossed motif on gold band on Uppåkra bægeret, depicting reclining men, found at Uppåkra south of Lund in Skåne in Sweden. It is assumed to have been made by the Danes, who "drove out the Heruls" during the Migration Period. The motif is very similar to the gold plate with horses from Xigoupan. Photo from The Metal Beaker with Embossed Foil Bands - Bengt Almgren, Lund.
Bottom: Same section interpreted by Birgitta Hårdh, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University based on a drawing by B. Nilsson.
Linguist Zhou Jixu believes that the Rong and Di peoples are in fact identical and the two different names have emerged because a suffix has been added to the character for Rong in some places.
Furthermore, by analyzing family names in the ancient documents, Zhou Jixu shows that the steppe tribes must have spoken a language related to the Zhou people's language, and they must have been of the same or related ethnicity as the Zhou nation.
Animal ornamentation from Hungary during the Migration Period, showing sleeping dragons in a large pile like puppy dogs. It is basically the same style as the finds from Xigoupan and Uppåkra, namely animals or people lying, fighting or sleeping - but filling the entire picture surface more or less intertwined. From "Die Altgermanische Thierornamentik" from 1907 by Bernhard Salin.
The document Shi Ji tells of Duke Danfu, who refused to defend himself against the attacks of the Rong and Di tribes: "The people install a ruler in order to take advantage of him. Now Rong and Di are coming to attack because of my country and my people. That the people should be with me or with Rong and Di - what is the difference? The people would fight for my sake, but I cannot bear to kill fathers and sons to be their ruler!" This event shows that the Zhou tribe had in the past been a nomadic tribe on the northern steppe - like their invaders.
Furthermore, in a verse in the document "Shi Jing" "Zhou" is called "Rong Zhou".
Therefore, the Zhou people were originally one of many Indo-European nomadic peoples on the steppe north of the Chinese river valleys. They first conquered the area around the Yellow River and later around the Yangtze, where they learned agriculture from the indigenous people, developed it and thereby became richer and more numerous than their Indo-European rivals, who maintained their nomadic habits.
Bronze wine jugs from the Xia dynasty 2100-1600 BC. Linguist Zhou Jixu believes that the mythical Xia and Shang dynasties are earlier stages of the Zhou dynasty, which was founded by a people of horse-riding nomads from the steppe who called themselves Zhou. Indo-European tribes who invaded everywhere else brought with them knowledge of bronze casting, just as the Bronze Age people of 1700 BC also did in Denmark. The Zhou may have brought knowledge of bronze casting to China, or the technology was developed in China. The early Chinese bronze objects are quite bulky with thick walls, they cannot compare with, for example, with the thin walls of the Danish bronze lurs. Photo Erlitou culture, unearthed at Erlitou, Yanshi, Henan Province Wikipedia.
In the classical documents, the people of the steppe are called Rong and Di, but they were of the same race and origin as the Zhou. They tried to get a share of the pie by occasionally attacking the Zhou kingdom and plundering what they could.
Linguist Zhou Jixu believes that the legendary Xia and Shang dynasties probably describe early phases of the Zhou people's rule. The Zhou dynasty itself lasted more than 800 years.
The Xia, Shang, Zhou and Qin dynasties unfolded in a kind of Bronze Age, while the Han dynasty used cast iron on a fairly large scale.
2. Dual systems
We must grasp the nettle. In all the regions of Eurasia that Indo-european peoples conquered during their expansion from the steppe around 2000-1500 BC, they established so-called dual systems, which means that there were at least two ethnic groups in society, separated by many rules and prohibitions.
It is impossible to imagine that the conquerors simply mixed with the original inhabitants in a society characterized by complete equality.
One group was the Indo-european conquerors. They took care of the administration, the military, and the religious ceremonies of the society. The other group were the original inhabitants, who were mainly farmers, artisans and ordinary soldiers.
This is most clearly seen in the caste system in India, which still exists, but it was probably also the case in Bronze Age Scandinavia, ancient Persia and ancient Greece - and Zhou Dynasty China.
The original Qin tribe in southern Gansu was probably more ethnically homogeneous than the rest of the Zhou Dynasty area. But this was precisely what the Qin people were unhappy with. They were tired of looking after cows, camels and horses and believed that they were destined for a higher position in society.
We should not imagine that the indigenous peoples in a dual system were kept as miserable slaves in deep poverty. It is most likely that the conquerors established an order in society that created the basis for increased wealth and prosperity also for the indigenous peoples.
But it will always pain a man's heart to see other men, who have an innately higher rank than himself, and who have access to the love of attractive women.
The beauty and charm of the original women, friendships, mutual respect in everyday work, community during epidemics and natural disasters, and new conquerors eventually broke down the dual systems.
3. Early history of Qin
But after more than a thousand years, the Zhou kingdom gradually disintegrated into several warring states. We can believe that the main reason for the dissolution was the absence of strong external enemies that could motivate the rival feudal rulers to stick together. The barbarian Qin duchy to the east quickly adopted Zhou culture and technology.
Tianshui - Qin's original homeland in southern Gansu, Photo Chinese Internet.
According to Sima Qian, the Qin people originated from the southern part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, from the area around the city of Tianshui, not far from the legendary Yuezhi people, who lived in northern Gansu around the city of Dunhuang. It has been shown many times that the Yuezhi were an Indo-European people, which makes it likely that the Qin were too, at least originally.
When the Qin people rose to power around 200 BC, the Yuezhi people had already been selling jade and horses to the Zhou kingdom for hundreds of years.
The states of the Zhou empire in the "Spring and Autumn" period looked down on the Qin people and considered them to be some rural barbarians. In the same way that, for example, the real Greeks looked down on the Macedonians at the same time.
The Qin people were disciplined to a degree that made Frederick the Great and his Prussians appear like a restless seventh class. After a lost battle, all surviving officers were executed. For the higher classes, it was not necessary to execute anyone, they were simply ordered to commit suicide.
For example, after the death of The First Emperor, his eldest son, Fusu, was sent a forged letter with his father's seal ordering him to commit suicide, which he did. His friend, general Meng Tian, received a similar letter but refused to follow the suicide order. He was accused of insubordination and was therefore executed along with his entire family.
The Qin homeland is said to have been surrounded by barbarian Rong tribes, or more likely - the Qin themselves were a barbarian Indo-european Rong tribe. There were frequent clashes between the Qin people and the surrounding nomads, just as there were probably fights between the nomads themselves.
Gold belt ornaments in animal style from 300-200 BC found in Majiayuan, Zhangjiachuan, Hui Autonomous County, Gansu Province, which is located about 100 km northeast of the city of Tianshui, which Sima Qian said was the original land of the Qin. The motif depicts the fight between the animal and the snake. The animal, perhaps a lion, with its head in the middle of the picture has a good bite on the neck of the snake, which also has ears. Time and place fit with the Qin people. Photo Yan Liu, Rui Li, Junchang Yang, Ruiliang Liu, Guoxing Zhao & Panpan Tan - China and the steppe: technological study of precious metalwork from Xigoupan Tomb 2 (4th-3rd c. BCE) in the Ordos region, Inner Mongolia. Wikipedia.
"Rong" was a term used at the time for all the tribes around Zhou Dynasty China, regardless of what these people otherwise called themselves. Linguist Zhou Jixu has shown that these were the Indo-European tribes who, unlike the Zhou, had not invaded China and were still living as nomads on the steppe.
At the foot of Qin Shi Huang's tomb there is a mass grave containing what is believed to be the mortal remains of the tomb's builders, who have been killed because they knew too much about the layout of the grave. They had simply been thrown into the grave, lumps and bumps. A newspaper reported that these skeletons had been measured and it had been determined that some of them were Caucasian types.
A gold belt plaque in animal style from 300-200 BC found in Majiayuan in Zhangjiachuan in Hui Autonomous County in Gansu Province, which is located about 100 km northeast of the city of Tianshui, which according to Sima Qian was the original home of Qin. The motif is seen to be the fight between an animal and several snakes. The animal seems to have a bird's beak. There can be little doubt that this was a Qin burial, and the fight between the animal and the snake was a very important story in Qin culture. Photo Chinese Internet.
In Qin, it must have been nominally an honour to follow one's king into death, although perhaps not all the followers were equally enthusiastic. One might ask whether it is likely that the dead were treated so carelessly. It is more likely that the rebel general Xiang Yu, who hated Qin, had captured some surviving Qin, executed them, and thrown them into a pit.
If this is the case, the skeletons in the mass grave show that Qin must have have been a people of originally Caucasian descent.
A Qin belt buckle has been found in Shaanxi, depicting an animal, a lion, fighting against a snake or dragon, apparently with several heads, and biting it.
A nearly identical motif can be seen on the large Jelling stone in Denmark, where a four-legged animal, probably a lion, fights against a snake.
Similar motifs can be seen in detail on the Oseberg ship and in several places in the carvings of the Urne stave church, both in Norway. There can hardly be any doubt that they stem from similar culture and similar mythology.
The spiral pattern in the temple of the Gansu horse is similar to that found in the temple of the Cherchen man, a mummy from Cherchen in the Tarim Basin. The Cherchen man died in 1000 BC, while the horse was found in a Han Dynasty tomb from around 200 AD. The pattern suggests a cultural commonality between the Tarim Basin and Gansu, but the time difference is incredible.
A relief in sope stone, found in China from the third or fourth century BC, in the British Museum, shows two animals fighting a snake and biting it, which is quite the same motif as on belt buckle, on the Norwegian stave churches and the Jelling runestone.
I det tidligere Indoeuropæiske Lille Asien er fundet et guld relief med et lignende motiv. Et dyr, som ligner en hund eller en ulv, kæmper mod en slange og bider den (Hermitagen St. Petersborg).
The motif of the battle between the beast and the snake can be traced all the way from the plains at the imperial borders to Scandinavia.
Left: Qin Belt Buckle from Fengxiang Museum, Shaanxi Province - 6th to 5th century BC, dating from when Qin was a small county on the troubled western border of Zhou Dynasty China. The motif is in the animal style, which is also known from Scandinavia.
Right: The large Jelling runestone in Denmark with the same motif, the animal's fight against the snake drawn in colors. There is no legend or story that immediately explains the motif. Perhaps we cannot see the forest for all the trees, and the animal and the snake are a symbol of the struggle between good and evil. The snake represents evil, just think of the Midgard serpent in Scandinavian mythology and the snake that tempted Eve in the Bible. The author does not recall any noble coats of arms that include a snake as the main motif. The animal, on the other hand, represents the brave, the noble and the just and is found on countless noble and royal coats of arms, mostly as a lion.
A similar motif, an animal fighting a snake, has been found on a coffin lid from Dulan in Qinghai Province in western China - It must be assumed that it was made by the Tuyuhun people, who were a branch of the Xian-bei.
Also, the "London Beast", a Viking Age relief found in St. Paul's Churchyard in London, depicts an animal fighting one or more snakes.
It is known that some of the peoples of the Western mountains of China used the lion as a heraldic animal, just as the Qi Dan people of the eastern steppe did. In later European heraldry the lion was also a very popular motif. Therefore, I believe that it is likely that the animal from the Scandinavian Viking Age, which fights the snake, must be understood as a lion. However, the artists did not really have any idea of what a lion looks like, they just did their best.
The discovery of the belt buckle and the Indo-European words that can still be recognized in modern Chinese indicate that three thousand years ago most of Gansu, and large parts of Qinghai, Sichuan and Shaanxi, may have been inhabited by Indo-European tribes who spoke now extinct Indo-European languages related to Tocharian - such as the Yuezhi, who had lived in Gansu "always".
Left: Wood carving on the Urne Stave Church in Norway, depicting the fight between the beast and the serpent.
Right: Detail from the Oseberg Viking Ship in Norway, depicting the fight between the beast and the serpent.
In ancient times, the Chinese knew that the Roman Empire existed. They called it "Da Qin", which means "Great Qin". So they must have thought that there was a relationship between the Qin and the Roman Empire. There was, as they both represented Indo-European peoples.
It is known from Qin's own history that some early Qin rulers worshipped the "Great White God of the West", as the peoples of the western steppe did. This god required horse sacrifices, preferably white horses.
Left: Soap stone relief from the third or fourth century BC found in China. Here several animals are fighting the snake - British Museum.
Right: A small relief in gold - An animal that looks like a dog or a wolf, but probably represents a lion, fights against a snake. Hermitage St. Petersburg - found in Asia Minor.
As we know, the interest in horses is characteristic of Indo-European cultures.
One of the many rebels against Qin, the founder of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang, proclaimed the killing of a white snake as a signal for the rebellion against Qin. According to the "Basic Annals", the white snake was the son of the "Great White Ruler - God of the West", whom some early Qin kings worshipped.
Another classic, the "Feng Shan Shu" explains the episode of the killing of the snake as the son of the Red Emperor killing the son of the White Emperor. (Mentioned in the notes to the Three Kingdoms)
Also Liu Bang, who adopted many of the Qin Dynasty's rituals, sacrificed white horses, as did some early Qin rulers.
In the "Feng Shan Shu", the sacrifice of a white horse is mentioned by Wang Ling, an opponent of Empress Lu's plan to overthrow the Liu dynasty. Wang Ling said: "The original (Han) emperor, (Liu Bang), slaughtered a white horse and proclaimed the general rule that if anyone who is not a member of the "Liu" clan becomes king, the entire kingdom should attack him."
Left: An animal fighting a snake - Painting on a coffin lid found in Dulan in Qinghai province - China - Tang Dynasty period (618-907 AC) - It must be assumed that it was made by the Xianbei Tuyuhun people. Foto Chinese internet.
Right: The viking relief the London beast - St. Paul's churchyard in London around 1000 AD.
"If you (Empress Lu) now make someone from the Lu clan king, you will violate this binding treaty". (Three Kingdoms, notes)
Fire and the color red came to symbolize the Han Dynasty. The same color also symbolized the Zhou Dynasty before.
The color of the Qin banner was black. ("Three Kingdoms" in notes page 545)
4. Qin's hydro projects
The Dujiang Weir hydro plant near the city of Chengdu in Sichuan is unique in that it does not include a dam, so it is possible to sail on the river if the current is not too strong and there is water in the river. The plant was built more than two thousand years ago under King Zhao of Qin 306-251 BC. The project was led by Governor Li Bing and his son.
At the "Fish Mouth" the Min River's water is divided into an inner and an outer river. The inner river is narrow and deep, while the outer river is wide and shallow.
When there is a lot of water in the river, most of it - 60% it is said - will flow to the outer stream and from there be directed to larger rivers towards the sea, while the rest will flow into the inner river. The entire "Fish Dam" dam is built to make this possible.
"Feyshayan Spillway", which we can call "Flying Sand" is an overflow dam that allows excess water in the inner river to flow down to the outer river, as it is assumed that the water level in the inner river mostly is higher than in the outer river, because the flow resistance in the narrow inner river is greater than in the wide outer river. At the same time, the inner river swings here to the left in the direction of the flow, which means that sand and debris will be washed up onto the overflow dam. "Feyshayan Spillway" thus provides additional protection against too much water in the inner river and thus the risk of flooding on the Chengdu Plain.
The "Bottleneck Canal" is a narrow channel that passes "Baopingkou". It is chopped out through a mountain and carries the water on towards the Chengdu Plain.
When there is only a little water in the river, most of it - 60% it is said - will flow to the inner river, because it is deeper than the outer river.
Photo ruqintravel Google Maps.
The Dujiang Weir project consists of three elements, namely the "Fishmouth" and "Fish Dam" water dividing dam, the "Flying Sand spillway" overflow dam and the "Bottleneck" canal.
The project has the dual purpose of protecting against flooding and diverting water for irrigation of the fields while still allowing navigation on the river.
Aerial photo of Dujiang Weir construction during a dry period. It can be seen that the inner river is still full of water - because it is deeper - while the outer river is almost dry. The "flying sand" spillway dam is completely dry due to the general low water level. However, water is still flowing towards the fields on the plain. Photo Dujiang Weir Project.
At a critical point on the The Min River flows down from the mountains at a very high speed due to natural geographical reasons. It is here that Li Bing built a "fish mouth" dam that divides the Min River into an inner and outer stream.
The inner stream carries water to many canals that irrigate thousands of square kilometers of farmland on the Chengdu Plain.
The outer stream carries remaining water masses away towards large rivers and finally to the sea.
Between the inner and outer streams, a few hundred meters of spillway dam has also been built, which works in such a way that if, contrary to expectations, there should still be too much water in the inner river, then it will flow over and down the outer river.
According to the historical text, the Dujiang Weir project added 14,000 hectares of farmland to the Qin kingdom, and the Chengdu Plain was henceforth called "the land of plenty".
Another of the Qin's great civil works was the Zhengguo Canal.
The Zhengguo Canal, which connects the Jing and Luo rivers and runs along the Wei River not far from Xian. The Wei is a tributary of the Yellow River. The canal is used for irrigation and is said to be in operation to this day. Photo: Kmusser derivative work: Felis domestica Wikipedia.
Alarmed by Qin's growing strength, King An of the Han state had the idea of luring Qin into embarking on a promising project that would weaken this state. He sent the irrigation expert Zheng Guo to the king of Qin to persuade him to build a canal between the Jing and Luo rivers in Shaanxi.
Sima Qian recounts in the Shi Ji: "But Han heard that Qin was fond of undertaking great undertakings, so with the intention of dispersing its energy and preventing it from making an attack to the east, it sent an irrigation engineer named Zheng Guo to give Qin the controversial advice to dig a canal from the Jing River west of Zhong Mountain all the way to Hukou, from where it would run steeply along the northern mountains and flow into Luo." - "the intention was to use it to irrigate the fields."
"When it was half-finished, its true purpose was revealed, and Qin intended to kill Zheng Guo. But Zheng Guo said, "At first I acted to create discord, but when the canal is finished, it will certainly be an advantage to Qin."
"As the construction of the canal made further progress, it was used to make the stagnant water flow and irrigate the salty land over an area of more than 40,000 qing, so that the total harvest was one zhong per Month."
King An's plan to drain the state of Qin of resources failed completely, and Qin gained 27,000 km2 of additional farmland, which enabled the state to increase its already massive armies. It is said that to this day the land around the Zhengguo Canal is still very fertile.
The Linqu Canal is quite well preserved today. Photo Russian News.
After Qin had conquered the other six states in 221 BC, the emperor turned south to extend his empire to the South China Sea, but encountered unexpected resistance.
In 219 BC, the emperor began building the Linqu Canal to enable him to supply his southern armies efficiently. It took five years to dig the canal, which was opened to navigation in 214 BC.
The Linqu Canal is unique in that it connects the Yangtze and its tributaries with the southern Pearl River and its tributaries, thereby creating a waterway connection between the north and the south. The canal connects the Haiyang River, a tributary of the Xiang River, the largest tributary of the Yangtze, with the Li River, a tributary of the Pearl River.
The Lingqu Canal has a total length of 36 kilometers. It includes a system of dams that can divert 30% of the Haiyang River's water to the Li River to make the canal navigable.
5. King Zheng - Qin Shi Huang
There is a description of Qin Shi Huang, which means The First Emperor, in Sima Qian's Classic History, but since it is written in old characters from the Western Han Dynasty, there is disagreement about how it should be interpreted. Some describe the first Qin emperor as tall and strong with a large mouth, large eyes, and a high bridge of the nose. But other modern scholars believe that the characters should be interpreted as him being a little man with large eyes and an ugly face.
However, Zhao Ji, the mother of the First Emperor, was a celebrated beauty, and his father, King Zhuangxiang of Qin, was of royal lineage, so Qin Shi Huang should have inherited good looking from his ancestors. Therefore, it is most likely that The First Emperor was a very handsome man.
This drawing was made in the Ming Dynasty, almost two thousand years after the events took place. It is purely an artistic representation. It is unlikely that a person with a high nose brudge and a large nose would have such slanting eyes. Photo Chinese Internet.
It has been described that the First Emperor had a "leopard voice", that is, that he had a somewhat hoarse voice, perhaps also a powerful voice, as his mother was a singer from the state of Zhou.
There are several suggestions as to what the future emperor actually called himself before he called himself the First Emperor (Qin Shi Huang). But the present writer will stick to "Ying Zheng" and later "King Zheng".
He was born in the city of Handan in the state of Zhou in 259 BC as the son of Prince Yiren of Qin (who later became king with the name Zhuangxiang).
The old King of Qin had more than twenty sons, and Prince Yiren was neither the eldest nor the most important, and probably for this reason he had been sent to the state of Zhao as a hostage.
There is evidence that hostages at this time had a miserable life. They were treated badly and lived in constant fear of war breaking out, in which case they would be immediately killed. Thus Prince Yiren suffered in his life in the city of Handan in the state of Zhao.
The First Emperor (Ying Zheng). 19th century portrait in an album depicting famous historical figures. It is a copy of a Chinese portrait from 1609, which is painted almost two thousand years after he lived. He looks very dramatic with abnormally slanted eyes and bristling beard, but the portrait is an artistic creation that very likely has nothing to do with reality. The idea is probably to tell the readers that the emperor was indeed a real Chinese. Photo Wikipedia.
But then the wealthy merchant Lü Buwei came to town, and he immediately saw what possibilities the prince offered. He gave him a sum of money in gold coins, which he could use to promote himself and for bribes. Life immediately became more interesting for the lonely prince.
Lü Buwei brought one of his concubines, a singer named Zhao Ji, with whom Prince Yiren became very captivated. He asked the merchant to have her as his wife, which he accepted. Very soon the newlyweds had a son, namely the above-mentioned Ying Zheng, who later in life would receive the title "Qin Shi Huang", "The First Qin Emperor".
Ying Zheng's problems already began here, so to speak before he was born, for his mother was certainly not a virgin, when she married, and gossip quickly arose that the singer was pregnant even before she was given to the prince. Gossip that was still going on hundreds of years after the first emperor's birth, life, and death.
This may explain his extremely dramatic and harsh decisions during his reign, both as King of Qin and later as an emperor, as he may have felt pressured to constantly prove his ability to make major royal decisions, as he may have felt that the suspicion of a simple origin was constantly smoldering under him.
But his career was to become even more complicated and unusual. With the help of suitable bribes, the merchant Lü Buwei managed to get Prince Yiren, his singer wife and their baby boy to return home to Qin, accompanied by the merchant himself.
The old king King Zhaoxiang, Prince Yiren's father, ruled in Qin. According to custom in Qin, he would be succeeded by his eldest son, Crown Prince Anguo, who, however, was not quite well.
This circumstance motivated the merchant Lü Buwei to persuade Crown Prince Anguo's childless first wife to adopt Prince Yiren, who was her husband's brother. This left the prince ahead of all the other sons of the old king in the line of succession, probably to their regret and bitterness.
The old king died in 251 BC and his eldest son, Crown Prince Anguo, was crowned king. But he died three days after ascending the throne, and then little Ying Zheng's father, Prince Yiren, was first in line and was also legally crowned king. Much like Caesar adopted Augustus and thereby appointed his successor.
A row of Chinese personalities. From left to right, former Party Chairman Mao Zedong, former President Liu Shao Chi, Marshal Peng Dehuai, President Xi and former Foreign Minister Chou En Lai. None of them have slanting eyes. You could say that compared to Caucasian types, their eyes are quite small, their eye sockets are not very deep and they do not have the high nose bridge and prominent eyebrow arches of Caucasians.
That is actually how Chinese people generally look. They do not have slanted eyes. Only people of Mongolian origin can have decidedly slanted eyes.
But the Chinese think it's nice to have slanted eyes. Women often apply makeup with an upward sweep at the outer eye corners, which can make the eyes appear slanted. Photos Wikipedia.
But King Yiren died only three years later, and he had only one son, the little Ying Zheng, who was born in Handan to the singer Zhao Ji. At only 12 years old, he was crowned King of Qin in 247 BC.
The boy king's reign was dominated by his chancellor and guardian, the merchant Lü Buwei, his mother, nobles and royal families.
Portraits of Terra Cotta Soldiers. They have slanted eyes which modern Chinese do not have. They have different types of rather thick beards which modern Chinese do not have. They have rather broad noses with low nose bridge which is common for modern Chinese. From left to right
Soldier 1: He could be an Indo-European type with large eyes which is not very slanted, and a strong mustache - but he could also be reminiscent of Chou En Lai.
Soldier 2: He has a slightly broad nose, as many modern Chinese have, but slanted eyes and a mustache.
Soldier 3: He is a very Mongoloid type with a very broad flat face, very slanted eyes and a rather strong mustache. He must be an artistic product. Mongoloid types do not have a strong mustache, and they do not have such extremely slanted eyes.
Soldier 4: He could be reminiscent of Liu Shao Chi with a slightly broad nose, an elongated face and a small eyes.
Soldier 5: He has a round head, a slightly high nose bridge, not very slanted eyes and a flat face.
However, his mother and now Queen Dowager, Lady Zhao, as she was also called, was a very demanding woman. She insisted on resuming the sexual relationship with the merchant - now Chancellor of Qin - Lü Buwei, which she had had as a young woman in Handan. He must have known that it could be disastrous to reject women, especially a Queen Dowager. He did not dare to reject her.
But after some time, Lü Buwei realized that this was a very dangerous undertaking - especially because of the rumors that were circulating that he was the biological father of the king. He found a man with a very large penis named Lao Ai and presented him to the Queen Dowager. Sima Qian writes that Lao Ai was disguised as a eunuch, which he certainly was not.
Right: Some of the Terra Cotta soldiers look quite European, note the eyebrows. They are exceptions though, most look quite "Asian" except that they are quite tall. Photo "Awakened Qin's Terra-Cotta Army. Shaanxi Travel & Tourism Press.
The plan worked, Lao Ai and the queen dowager got along so well that they secretly had two sons together, and she had Lao Ai ennobled as a marquis and showered him with riches.
At a dinner in 238 BC, Lao Ai - by accident or out of arrogance - bragged that he had two sons with the queen dowager. He is also said to have boasted that he was the king's stepfather.
While the king was traveling in the province, Lao Ai stole the queen dowager's seal and mobilized an army with the purpose of placing one of his own sons on the throne. However, the king ordered Chancellor Lü Buwei to put down the rebellion, which happened, but Lao Ai managed to escape.
The young king was particularly upset about the sons, because it meant future royal subjects and rivals.
The king of Qin immediately ordered the army to arrest them.
All of Lao Ai's followers were captured and beheaded. A price was set for Lao Ai himself, and he was captured and executed with five spans of horses pulling him from different directions. His entire family was wiped out three generations back, and his two young sons were executed. Queen Dowager Zhao was placed under house arrest until her death many years later.
It is eye catching that Lao Ai means "venerable love" in Chinese. "Lao" definitely means "old" or "venerable" and "ai" definitely means love.
But when Lao Ai's parents named him as an infant, how could they have known that he would become the royal first lover?
He was probably named something entirely different, but long forgotten. Perhaps Lao Ai's real name was something related to the son of this and that mythical ancestor, or blessed by one a gods of the past, and it has long been forgotten.
We must remember that Chinese characters say nothing about pronunciation. A Chinese character symbolizes the name of a particular person, but what the name actually is, we must remember ourselves.
It is easy to imagine that Chinese storytellers and their listeners over the course of two thousand years have found it difficult to remember ancient names, which referred to ancestors, gods, and heroes, who were long forgotten and, to the storytellers and their listeners, simply sounded like meaningless lirum-larum. Therefore, we can imagine that not only the correct name of the unfortunate royal first lover, but more or less all old names over the centuries have been replaced by the typical Chinese short one-syllable expressions - because the songs and stories that gave meaning to the original names were long forgotten.
In addition to ethnicity and language, it is history, religion, songs, legends and sagas that are the backbone of a people. If all this is erased and forgotten, a people will dissolve into thousands of timid individuals who can be easily intimidated and manipulated.
Qin Shi Huang knew this well. When Qin had conquered the other Warring States, they demanded that all historical records, except Qin's, be burned. All old songs, historical records, or writings of the "hundred schools" were to be confiscated and burned by the provincial governor or by the military commander. Those who dared to quote old songs, poems, and legends in conversation were to be publicly executed.
In this way, they wanted to finally wipe out every trace of the individual conquered states and create a truly unified empire.
Since the days of the First Emperor, China has been conquered several times by steppe nomads, who wanted to benefit from the products and tax payments of the industrious Chinese, without these rebelling from time to time. Just think of the Mongols and the Manchus. And they were certainly no more stupid than the First Emperor.
The EU commissioners in Europe have a very similar plan. With the help of immigration, they want to dissolve the historical European nations into 450 million lonely, confused and frightened individuals who can be easily manipulated, and thereby achieve their goal, which is the United States of Europe led by the all-powerful commissioners.
According to Sima Qian, the First Emperor's biological father was actually Lü Buwei and not Prince Yiren. According to this story, the singer was already pregnant when Lü Buwei gave her to the prince, and the child was born after an unusually long pregnancy period.
We should not believe all the slander that circulated in the Han Dynasty to justify the rebellion against the Qin Dynasty, but there is no doubt that stubborn rumors circulated about the genetic origins of King Zheng, the later First Emperor, probably helped along by the many sons of the old king who were by-passed by Lü Buwei's agreement with the first wife of the sick Crown Prince Anguo that she should adopt Prince Yiren and thereby bring him and his son first in the line of succession.
At the same time, it was probably rumored that Lü Buwei had for a time resumed his possibly sexual relationship with Lady Zhao, the former singer, who was now the dowager queen.
It must have been a great pressure on the young King Zheng to constantly feel the nagging accusation that he was not in fact of the royal family and was not really entitled to the throne at all. This may explain his hoarse strained voice and that he constantly wanted to prove his royalty with so many overdramatic and grandiose, but far too expensive, decisions that should cost the Qin dynasty its life after his death.
In connection with the showdown with Lao Ai, Lü Buwei was expelled from the capital because he had known that Lao Ai was not a eunuch, and he knew of his real relationship with the queen dowager and Lao Ai's two sons with her.
Three years later in 235 BC, he was again accused of participating in a plot and sentenced to exile in the distant and poor province of Shu, which was Sichuan, along with his entire family and servants. But he saw the writing on the wall and preferred to commit suicide by drinking poison and thereby bringing his loved ones out of danger.
When you walk around looking at the faces of Qin Shi Huang's terra cotta soldiers, you have to admit that most of them look quite "Asian", except that they are quite tall, they have quite strong beards of various kinds and they have slanted eyes. Very few have characteristic Caucasian features, such as high nose bridge and pronounced eyebrow arches.
The height of the soldiers varies between 175 and 188 cm. The officers are the tallest.
But how tall were people in China during the Qin Dynasty?
More than 400 tombs have been excavated in the Xitun Cemetery in Beijing, many of them from the Han Dynasty. Calculations based on bones from the tombs show that the men of the Han Dynasty were between 1.44 and 1.54 m. tall. And that was probably the real height of men in the Qin Dynasty.
Although there are many common features, all the terra cotta soldiers are different. One is tempted to believe that each Terra Cotta soldier represents a real soldier. But the artists have done each soldier the favor of improving their terra cotta version by making them taller, more manly by giving them stronger beards, and more beautiful by making the eyes more slanted,
But if we ignore these improvements, one must probably say that most terra cotta soldiers look like modern Chinese. Photo videouroki.net.
6. The road to power
We saw that the Zhou people, who laid the foundation for the Chinese Empire several thousand years earlier, were originally one of many Indo-European horsemen on the northern steppe. But the Zhou distinguished themselves by specializing early on agriculture.
It is most likely that the Qin people were also an Indo-European horsemen tribe from the steppe, who had the ambition to come into noble company.
The more original Chinese states looked down on the Qin and considered them to be some rural barbarians. In the same way that, for example, the real Greeks looked down on the Macedonians at the same time. It is said that Qin was not invited, when they held joint ceremonies.
The Chinese states at the beginning of the Warring States period, perhaps 400 BC. As can be seen, Qin was a rather insignificant state on the outskirts of the former Zhou empire. Photo Scholastic Library.
It is said that King Feizi of Qin served as a horse keeper for Emperor Xiao of the Zhou Dynasty, who reigned around 1000 BC. For this service he was rewarded with a princess of the imperial family and was given his land in southern Gansu as a fief by the emperor.
This marriage may have inspired this nomadic people to aspire to a place among the "civilized" nations.
In 771 BC, the Rong tribes captured the Zhou Dynasty capital, Hao, near the modern city of Xian. The Duke of Qin came to the emperor's aid and protected him during his flight eastward. The Zhou Dynasty established a new capital at Luoyang, and the Duke of Qin received the title of "Bo", which means count. The Count of Qin was further promised that all former Zhou Dynasty territory that he reconquered from the Rong tribes would fall under Qin.
The Zhou emperor's flight to the east marked a new period in Chinese history, the "Eastern Zhou Dynasty", which succeeded the "Western Zhou Dynasty".
The Eastern Zhou Dynasty is divided into two periods, the "Spring and Autumn Period", which lasted until 479 BC, and the "Warring States Period", which lasted from 479 to 221 BC.
The Qin Dynasty ended the "Warring States Period" in 221 BC by uniting the states with military power.
The "Warring States Period" got its name because the seven states within the Zhou emperor's former territory competed intensely for power and wealth. When there was a drought, they fought over the water of the Yellow River, and when there was a lot of water in the river, they "used their neighbors' fields as a drain", meaning they broke down their dikes to flood their neighbors' fields.
The succeeding generations of Qin counts worked hard to expand their territory westward at the expense of the barbarian tribes. Therefore, a large part of the population of the land of Qin probably came to consist of precisely ethnic Rong tribes.
As the ancient European migrantpeoples admired the Roman emperor, they must have admired the emperor and the culture of his empire.
For the first hundred years or so of the "Warring States period", the other states looked down on Qin. This state were not invited to international negotiations and meetings. Much like the "rule-bound international community" treats Russia today.
For three hundred years, Qin held resisted its eastern neighbors, the other six states, while they concentrated on expanding westward.
Stone armor from the "Warring States Period", excavated in 1998 in the Terracotta Army buried near the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin in Lintong District of Xi'an, Shaanxi. Photo taken in 2018 in Hunan Museum Exhibition, Changsha, Hunan, China. Photo Huangdan2060 Wikipedia.
In the face of this serious national setback, Duke Xiao of Qin implemented sweeping reforms. He attached international experts in political science and law to the court. Under the leadership of the famous Shang Yang, all the privileges of the nobility were abolished. Only those who deserved it were rewarded. The peasants were given their own land and had to pay taxes directly to the state.
It was an early version of the French Revolution. This led to greatly increased tax revenues and increased opportunities for conscription, making Qin a formidable opponent for the other states.
The feudal social order was never reintroduced in China, and Shang Yang's civil service system evolved into the Chinese mandarin system as we know it from later history.
From then on, the Qin made rapid progress. They developed a solid economic base in their hinterland with the help of the new direct tax system and thanks to new large irrigation facilities in Sichuan and along the Wei River.
With this new economic strength, they were able to expand their army to an unprecedented size that the other states could not match. One by one, they then subjugated the other six Chinese states, until the state of Qi was the last to surrender without a fight in 221 BC.
Dramatic changes occurred in the methods of warfare during this period.
Bronze sword from the Warring States Period. Total length 45-50 cm. However, some bronze swords from the period are 90 cm long. The function of the two rings on the hilt is unknown. The hilt is longer and the blade wider than on Scandinavian bronze swords, which suggests that they were not used exclusively as a dagger. It was the Indo-European Bronze Age people who introduced the sword to Scandinavia, which indicates a cultural relationship with other Bronze Age peoples in Central Asia. Photo Reddit.
The extensive use of defensive walls and crossbows led to the development of siege methods. Whereas military campaigns in the "Spring and Autumn period" typically lasted no longer than a season, and battles lasted no more than two days, the wars of the "Warring States Period" lasted for many years and were fought on many fronts, including economic warfare. The states emphasized to build up stocks of fodder for the horses, weapons, and all kinds of supplies for the armies.
In the preceding "Spring and Autumn Period", war had been an activity for gentlemen. Military commanders were instructed to respect, what they perceived as the laws of Heaven in war.
In a war between Song and Chu, Duke Xiang of Song surprised a Chu army as it was crossing a river. Instead of taking advantage of the favorable situation to attack immediately, he waited in good order for the enemy to come over and get his forces into position. Only then did he attack and lost the battle.
When Duke Xiang was later criticized by his advisors for being too polite to the enemy, he replied: "A wise man does not crush the weak and does not give the order to attack until the enemy has formed his formation."
However, Qin completely ignored this form of military etiquette and exploited all of his enemies' weaknesses without scruples. A nobleman from the state of Wei accused Qin of being "greedy, perverse, avaricious, and without sincerity. This state knows nothing of etiquette, proper relations, and virtuous behavior, and if there is an opportunity for material gain, it will ignore its closest ones as if they were animals."
The Taerpo Horseman is a Qin terracotta figure from a tomb at the Taerpo burial site near Xianyang in Shaanxi, 300–200 BC. This is the earliest known depiction of a cavalryman in China. The rider, with his large nose, appears to be of a Caucasian type. Photo Wikiwand.
In 341 BC, the Qin attacked the state of Wei. Sima Qian says that the Qin general invited the Wei general to negotiate a peace treaty. But as soon as the latter appeared, he was captured, and the Qin army attacked and defeated their opponents.
Under King Zhaoxiang, who reigned for a formidable 55 years, namely from 306 to 251 BC Qin was no longer considered a backward barbarian state.
In the famous Battle of Changping in Shanxi in 206 BC, the Zhao army ran out of arrows and provisions and surrendered. Afterwards, the Qin general Bai Qi had all the prisoners buried alive - as a warning to Qin's other enemies.
A man named Fan Ju was born in the state of Wei and entered the service of the Wei nobleman Xu Jia. He accompanied him on a diplomatic mission to the state of Qi. There he was accused of treason and on his return was almost flogged to death. Under a false name, he managed to escape to Qin, where he was presented to the old king Zhaoxiang, who realized his qualifications and perhaps not least his motivation.
Fan Ju put forward a strategy for conquering the other warring states: "We must make friends with the distant states and attack the nearest ones." The state of Qin spent a lot of money bribing important officials in the other states.
The first target of Qin's offensive in 236 BC was its closest neighbor, the small state of Han, which had already been weakened by attacks from Qin in previous years. The following year, Qin came again and at the sight of the large army, the Han soldiers simply fled. The king of Han was captured and the area was incorporated into Qin.
The Warring States including Yan around 260 BC before Qin launched its offensive. Photo Wikipedia
Qin's next target was the arch-rival to the north, the state of Zhao, which had a strong and well-trained army and was well-prepared. Zhao had mounted archers and experienced generals, including general Li Mu.
Agents from Qin bribed a Zhao minister to slander General Li Mu to the Zhao king, who promptly dismissed the experienced general and threw him into prison, where he was later executed.
He was replaced with less experienced generals, who led the army into the field without adequate supplies. As previously mentioned, the Zhao army ran out of arrows and javelins in the Battle of Changping in 206 BC and surrendered. After which the entire army was buried alive as a warning to the four remaining states.
After conquering the states of Han and Zhao, the Qin army marched on to the northern kingdom of Yan, which was a large but sparsely populated state. The crown prince of Yan, named Dan, had been held hostage in Qin, where he had been treated very badly. He had managed to escape to his homeland, full of hatred for everything that had to do with Qin.
Prince Dan conceived the plan to kill the king of Qin.
Sima Qian relates that a Qin general had fled to the kingdom of Yan, and Qin had put a bounty of 1,000 gold pieces on his head. Also residing in this kingdom was a professional warrior named Jing Ke, who came from a small kingdom that Qin had previously annexed.
Jin Ke's assassination attempt on the future First Emperor. On the left is Jin Ke, who is being restrained by one of Qin Shi Huang's doctors. The knife is seen stuck in the pillar. The king is seen holding an imperial jade disk. On the far right is a soldier rushing towards him. The box with the general's head is seen to the right of the pillar. Stone relief from the Eastern Han dynasty. Photo "The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army". Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2007 Wikipedia.
Jing Ke was persuaded to go to Qin, bringing the general's head, while also pretending to be a defector, bringing a map of Yan's military installations, but also a very sharp knife - rolled into the map, with which he intended to kill the King of Qin.
Jing Ke was accepted by the King. No one in the room was armed except the King. When Jing Ke unrolled the map, he quickly grabbed the knife, but the King's physician threw his collection of medicinal herbs into his face, giving the King time to draw his sword and kill him.
Furious, Qin turned on the nation of Yan in 226 BC. King An fled to the distant province of Liaodong, while Qing troops took possession of the most fertile parts of Yan. Four years later, in 222 BC, they had completed the job, conquering the entire state of Yan and capturing the king.
Archers from the Majiayuan excavation in the Qin homeland in southern Gansu. Note their Scythian caps. Photo Jin Xu Vassar College, Art, Faculty - Member. Wikipedia.
In 225 BC, the Qin general Wan Ben laid siege to the capital of the state of Wei. He reportedly diverted the Yellow River, flooding the city, and after only three months, the city wall collapsed, the king of Wei surrendered, and the entire country was taken over by Qin.
The Qin general Li Xin attacked the state of Chu in 224 BC with 200,000 men. However, he underestimated the enemy, advanced too boldly, and suffered defeat. This prompted the king of Qin to beg the retired general Wang Jian to return to service. He was put in charge of an army of 600,000 men against Chu.
Wang Jian used the strategy of "waiting leisurely for the enemy to lose concentration, and then strike". When the time was right, he struck, capturing the capital of Chu and capturing the king.
In 221 BC, Qin attacked the last of the "Warring States", Qi, and surrendered without a fight.
From Qin's first attack on the small state of Han to the surrender of the state of Qi, only 15 years passed.
7. The Qin Dynasty
The empire under Qin Shi Huang after the conquest of the other states and expansion to the south. Photos Chines internet.
The Qin Dynasty lasted only 15 years, but they changed China forever with sweeping and dramatic reforms.
Immediately after the conquest of the Warring States was completed, King Zheng convened his advisors to devise a suitable title for his new position. He chose "Qin Shi Huang Di", which means "First Emperor of Qin", as he imagined that after him would follow a long line of Qin emperors.
The twelve statues that the First Emperor had cast from the bronze arms of the conquered states were placed in front of the Epang Palace along an avenue leading to the imperial palace, as depicted in the film "The First Emperor of China". The statues have long since disappeared. Photo Canada Film Board and Xi'an Film Studio 1989. Wikipedia.
Next, the emperor and his ministers and advisors considered how to consolidate power.
The newly proclaimed emperor ordered that all weapons not in Qin's possession be confiscated and melted down. The metal was used to cast twelve large statues in the new imperial capital, Xianyang.
The emperor's chief minister and advisor, Li Si, argued that it would be difficult to make progress and change the kingdom when so many "free-thinking" scholars criticized and had different opinions about government decisions.
Li Si urged the emperor to suppress intellectual dissent. He argued that books on subjects such as medicine, agriculture, and astrology could be ignored, but political books were dangerous in public hands. Only the state should possess political books, and only state schools should be allowed to educate political scholars.
Li Si said: ""I humbly suggest that all historical records, except Qin's, must be burned. If someone, who is not a scholar from the court, dares to keep the old songs, historical records or writings about the "hundred schools", those must be confiscated and burned by the provincial governor or military commander. Those who, in conversations dare to quote the old songs and records, should be executed publicly. Those, who use the old customs to struggle against the new order, must have their families wiped out, and officials who know of such cases, but fails to report them, should be punished in the same way."
Li Si wrote: "If the owners of these books, thirty days after issuing of this order, still did not have them destroyed, they must be tattooed on their faces and sentenced to hard labor on the Great Wall.."
"The only books that do not have to be destroyed are those, who are on medicine, predictions of the future and agriculture. Those, who wish to study law, can learn it from the officials"
The emperor's eldest son, Fusu, asked for mercy for the Confucian philosophers, against whom this proposal was directed. But it was vain, he achieved only to be de facto detained to the military department, who supervised the work on the Great Wall.
Chinese painting from the 18th century. The Confucian philosophers are buried alive and their books on philosophical, political views and intellectual subjects are burned by order of the First Emperor. All scholars who refused to hand over their books were executed. Above is the emperor's eldest son, Fusu, who in vain asks his father for mercy for the philosophers. At the bottom left are the burning books and on the right the philosophers are thrown into a hole in the ground. The person to the right of the emperor must be the chancellor Li Si, who was behind the purge. Photo Chinese internet.
The civil service system, which already existed in Qin itself, was extended to the entire conquered territory, which was divided into 36 provinces, each headed by a governor and a supervisor, both of whom reported to the emperor. The feudal system, in which historical regions were headed by noble families, was never reintroduced.
The Qin state celebrated "Legalism", a type of political ideology that had brought them so much success since the great reforms under Duke Xiao and Shang Yang. Legalism was a set of theories about state governance that stood in direct opposition to Confucian ideas about the virtues of rulers.
The Legalists put the interests of the state above everything else. They gave nothing for the virtue and justice that a ruler should possess according to Confucius. The Legalists put the interests of the state above morality and justice, above everything else. People only mattered to the extent that they served the state.
Qin Dynasty coin with the famous square hole in the middle. The First Emperor replaced all the other states' fanciful coins - in the form of miniature knives, shovels and seashells - with the famous "round and square", which was then in use for almost two thousand years. The American missionary Arthur Smith tells that the Qing rulers in the late 19th century tried to make a coin reform with another coin type, but it was indignantly rejected. It should just be "the round and square". Photo Sir Langan - Qin Dynasty era coin from the Golden Dragon Museum. Wikipedia.
Duke Xiao's first Legalist prime minister in the original Qin, Shang Yang, put it this way: "Wise men make laws, foolish men are limited by them. Worthy men change the rituals, unworthy men just cling to them."
The Legalists believed that man is selfish and egotistical and can only be controlled by strict laws. Therefore, Qin's laws were unusually harsh.
Model of Qin's imperial Epang Palace - Xianyang Municipal Museum.
Shang Yang wrote: "By measuring out punishment, small offences must be severely punished; if small offenses do not take place, then big offenses will not occur. - The punishment should not depend on position, but from prime ministers and generals down to senior officers and ordinary people, everybody, who do not obey the king's commands, violates the rules of the state or rebel against statutes that have been set by the ruler, must be punished by death and must not be pardoned."
8. Qin Shi Huang's grave
"Qin Shi Huang" means "The First Emperor".
The famous historian Sima Qian wrote his "Shji", in the West called "Historical Records", only a hundred years after Qin Shi Huang's death and funeral. He does not mention the Tera Cotta soldiers.
The first Qin emperor, Qin Shi Huang's, burial mound. Photo Shinese internet.
He said that Qin Shi Huang's tomb was looted and burned by General Xiang Yu about five years after the Qin emperor's death. The tomb complex burned in three months.
Sima Qian told in Shijie, "As soon as the first emperor had become king of the country of Qin in 246 BC, the buildings and digging out were started at Mount Li. Qin Shi Huang was then thirteen years old. In the period after he had won the empire, more than 70,000 conscripted from all over the empire worked here. They dug through three subterranean streams and cast molten copper for the outer coffin, and the tomb was filled with models of palaces, pavilions and offices as well as precious vessels, a golden goose, precious stones and rarities. Craftsmen were ordered to set up automatic crossbows, so that any thief, who broke in, would be shot. All the rivers of the kingdom, the Yellow River and Yangtze were reproduced in mercury, with some mechanical means they were brought to flow out into a miniature ocean. As long as these streams would continue to flow, the emperor would exist in his underground world, according to Sima Qian. The heavenly constellations were at the top and the earthly regions below. The lamps were made from whale oil to ensure that they burned as long time as possible."
Sima Qian ca. 140 - 86 BC. Photo Chinese internet.
Sima Qian wrote about the coffin: "Below is copper and the outer coffin is fine" - Some concludes that the emperor rests in a coffin made of copper. - Further, he wrote about the coffin, "its interior is reinforced with molten copper, and its outer surface is covered by the "Agricere" (wax or resin). It is "wrapped in pearls and jade" and "adorned with emeralds." - "The beauty of the coffin and the outer coffin's beauty surpasses the original." - Some believe that the outer coffin, therefore, must have been of wood.
Li Si, Qin Shi Huang's trusted first minister, wrote on the coffin: "A chisel will not bite, and flames will not burn. It gives a hollow sound when you knock on it, and it looks shapeless in the bottom."
Sima Qian continued: "The second emperor, Huhai, gave orders that all his father's childless wives and concubines were to follow him beyond and be buried alive together with him. After this had been done, an official told the new emperor that the craftsmen, who had worked with the tomb, knew too much about the tomb and its contents. When the first emperor was placed in the tomb and all the riches were put into place, suddenly the middle, lower and outer door were closed. Since all the doors were closed, none of the craftsmen, who stayed behind, got out again. Then they planted grass and trees on the grave, so it became to look like a small mountain."
Great men from all over the empire had given their daughters to the First Emperor as his wives to seal their friendship and cooperation. It is natural that they took it very badly that the Second Emperor simply locked them in a cold and dark tomb together with the dead emperor and many of the corpses of those who did not escape in time. This was undoubtedly an important reason, why the rebellions broke out all over the empire.
9. The Doom
Upon the sudden death of the First Emperor during his fifth inspection tour, the eunuch Zhao Gao and the chancellor Li Si hatched a plot against the emperor's eldest son, Fusu, who was staying at the Great Wall. They forged the dead emperor's will in such a way that Prince Fusu was ordered to commit suicide, and his younger brother Huhai, who was easier to control, was installed as The Second Emperor.
The eunuch subsequently had Chancellor Li Si arrested and executed by the method of five dismemberments.
A characteristic Qin belt buckle plaque found in southern Gansu from 300-400 BC. The motif is an animal, perhaps a tiger or lion, fighting snakes. Photo Emma Bunker: "Nomadic Art of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes": The Eugen V. Thaw and other notable. New York Collections Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wikiwand.
However, when it became known that the First Emperor was dead, rebellion broke out throughout the empire.
Chen Sheng and Wu Guang were two officers in the Qin army who had orders to lead their group of peasant soldiers north to join the fighting there. They were stopped in what is now Anhui province by floods from a heavy rainstorm.
Qin's strict laws required the execution of those who arrived late, regardless of the reason for the delay. Chen and Wu decided that they would rather fight than accept execution. In in case of failure, they would at least get a name in history.
Sima Qian tells of Chen Sheng, that when he was young, he worked as a farm laborer. One day, while taking a break on a hill, he sighed and said, "If we become rich, we must not forget each other." The other workers laughed and said, "How can a laborer become rich?" Chen Sheng sighed and said, "Alas, how can a sparrow understand the ambitions of a swan?"
As it was known that Huhai had ascended to the throne as the Second Emperor by tricking his elder brother, Fusu, into committing suicide, Chen and Wu raised the banner of rebellion in Fusu's name. Chen Sheng was proclaimed King of Chu with Wu Guang as his lieutenant. However, the rebels had a hard time against Qin's professional soldiers. Chen and Wu were killed by their own men.
Many other rebellions broke out and the rebels fought against Qin generals with varying success. A general, Ge Ying, installed Xiang Qiang as King of Chu. A rebel named Wu Chen captured Handan and proclaimed himself King of Zhao. The adventurer Liu Bang joined the rebellion, supported by some local officials.
The de facto ruler of Qin was the eunuch Zhao Gao. When Qin's most important general, Zhang Han, asked for more troops, Zhao Gao refused. The general then surrendered to the rebel Xiang Yu and was promised the title of King of Yong, the capital of the state of Qin.
A gate to the Epang Palace. Photo Kcx36 Wikipedia.
After only two years of reign, Emperor Huhai committed suicide out of fear of the rebels.
The eunuch Zhao Gao then installed another son, Ziying, who was underage, as King of Qin. But he was not so childish after all, for he had the eunuch stabbed to death.
The child king then surrendered to the adventurer Liu Bang, who had occupied the Qin capital of Xianyang.
However, Liu Bang's rival, Xiang Yu, managed to kill King Ziying and his entire family, sack Xianyang, and destroy the Epang Palace and the Terra Cotta Army. Both burned for several months afterward.
This was the end of Qin Dynasty.
The two major rebel armies under Liu Bang and Xiang Yu fought for another three years for control, which eventually fell to Liu Bang. He briefly considered declaring himself a new Qin ruler, but decided to proclaim the Han Dynasty.
