Who is qin shi huangdi

The Qin Empire is known for using their great wealth and power to build on an unprecedented scale. They built many roads and some canals for transporting troops and supplies. They also built a huge necropolis for Qin Shihuang, including the Terracotta Army , and many other big projects including the Ling Canal in Guilin. The First Emperor of Qin ordered the destruction of defensive walls of the former states, but he ordered the construction of a Great Wall across the north to fend off northern tribes like the Xiongnu.

In , the First Emperor secured his northern frontier. He appointed Meng Tian to lead an army of about , to drive away the nomadic Xiongnu and construct the Great Wall and forts along the border. He used hundreds of thousands of laborers. Weights, measurements, and coinage were standardized. Under Li Si, the emperor's head official, the writing system was standardized by ordering everyone to write in the Qin script.

The rulers wanted everyone to be able to understand their orders and for the officials to be able to communicate with each other. Officials were chosen based on their ability to serve the First Emperor and obey him. To promote obedience, punishment was severe. Even the First Emperor's own son, who warned him not to kill scholars, was demoted and sent to the north to build the Great Wall — notorious as a place where people were likely to die.

There were assassination attempts on the First Emperor's life. By killing many scholars and officials and imposing his harsh rule, many people hated him. He wanted to live forever, and he may have died from poisonous substances offered by Daoists to try to gain immortality. The Qin court succeeded in unifying the empire and retaining control for 15 years. They standardized the writing system, money, and measurements and built a lot of infrastructure.

Their construction projects helped the big region prosper later. Qin Shihuang had much literature that didn't suit his rule destroyed, and many dissenters and scholars executed. The mausoleum project built by The First Emperor and his court is thought to cover more than about 56 square kilometers.

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".

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.

The official name of the newly united China was still "State of Qin", as Qin had absorbed all the other states. 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. 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. 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 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. Confucianism and a number of other philosophies blossomed prior to China's unification. However, Qin Shi Huang viewed these schools of thought as threats to his authority, so he ordered all books not related to his reign burned in BCE. The Emperor also had approximately scholars buried alive in for daring to disagree with him, and more stoned to death.

As he entered middle age, the First Emperor grew more and more afraid of death. He became obsessed with finding the elixir of life, which would allow him to live forever.

The court doctors and alchemists concocted a number of potions, many of them containing "quicksilver" mercury , which probably had the ironic effect of hastening the Emperor's death rather than preventing it. Just in case the elixirs did not work, in BCE the Emperor also ordered the construction of a gargantuan tomb for himself. Plans for the tomb included flowing rivers of mercury, cross-bow booby traps to thwart would-be plunderers, and replicas of the Emperor's earthly palaces.

To guard Qin Shi Huang in the afterworld, and perhaps allow him to conquer heaven as he had the earth, the Emperor had a terracotta army of at least 8, clay soldiers placed in the tomb. Each soldier was an individual, with unique facial features although the bodies and limbs were mass-produced from molds. To make matters worse, someone etched the words "The First Emperor will die and his land will be divided" onto the stone. Some saw this as a sign that the Emperor had lost the Mandate of Heaven.

Since nobody would confess to the crime, the Emperor had everyone in the vicinity executed. The meteor itself was burned and then pounded into powder. The cause of death most likely was mercury poisoning, due to his immortality treatments. Qin Shi Huang's Empire did not outlast him long. His second son and Prime Minister tricked the heir, Fusu, into committing suicide.

The second son, Huhai, seized power. However, widespread unrest led by the remnants of the warring states' nobility threw the empire into disarray. This defeat signaled the end of the Qin Dynasty. Whether Qin Shi Huang should be remembered more for his monumental creations and cultural advances or his brutal tyranny is a matter of dispute. All scholars agree, however, that Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of the Qin Dynasty and a unified China, was one of the most important rulers in Chinese history.

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