Emperor Qin Shihuang- an eternity emperor
Li Bai, a famous poet in Tang Dynasty, once gave considerable credit to Qin Shihuang, who is a controversial figure in Chinese history. He is the first emperor who unified China and established the first unified feudal country in ancient China in 221 BC. He is an excellent political, as well as a famous tyrant…It is undeniable that Yingzheng (Qin Shihuang’s name) is an emperor who contributed a lot to ancient China. However, it is easy to be the emperor but difficult to be a gold ruler: Qin Shihuang lacked the talent to rule the country well.
Special family background:
he was the son of a rich merchant-Lv Buwei and a prostitute-Zhaoji actually. For the purpose of gaining power, Lv Buwei did a lot of things for a prince-Zichu of the Qin State, and finally gave Zichu Zhaoji, who had been pregnant with a child of her and Lv Buwei then, thus Zichu became the father of the baby-Yingzheng. The childhood of Yingzheng is miserable and his father died when he was very young, then he became the king of Qin State when he was only 13.
He is an emperor with outstanding contributions.
A Subtle figure that defeat his enemies: Lv Buwei had the ambition to take the throne and Zhaoji had 2 children with Lv secretly after her husband died. After knowing these, Yingzheng banished Lv Buwei out of Qin State and gave house arrest to his mother.
Courtesy to the talents: After brushing the political enemies, Yingzheng began to unify the other six states. Before the unifying, he had promoted some talents who are good at dealing with civil and military affairs, some of whom were even serving for his enemies before. Courtesy to the talents is significant and talents such as Shangyang, Li si and Liao played an important part in the unification. It took 10 years for Qin State to defeat the six states in Warring States Period.
Full of creative and challenge spirit: After establishing the Qin Dynasty, Emperor Qin Shihuang made some significant reforms, such as reforming the institution, measurement, character, current money, laws and so on, and these rules were continued to apply by the latter countries for a long time. He also ordered to dig the Ling Canal and build the Great Wall.
（Picture shows the Chinese old story of Meng jiang nv of crying down the Great Wall for her husband’s death due to the building of the Great Wall and the crude domination of emperor Qin Shihuang）
He is also a rare tyrant in the history.To control the public opinion and stabilize his power, Emperor Qin Shihuang manipulated cultural tyranny. Adopting Prime Minister Lisi’s proposal and burned books and buried Confucian scholars alive.
He made large-scale constructions and lead a luxurious life. He built more than 700 palaces around and outside central Shaanxi, including Epang Palace.
He levied exorbitant taxes and killed people by hundreds. There is a story for example. In BC 211, some people wrote “The fields will be divided equally after Shihuang’s death” on one stone. Qin Shihuang became furious about it and wanted to kill that people. Since on one recognize for it, Qin Shihuang ordered to kill all the residents around that stone.
He also tightened measures against merchants and banished the merchants and their families to the frontier of country.
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