👑Qin Shi Huang
Given / Temple NameYing Zheng
The first emperor, who unified the six states and created the imperial system
Holders of the Mandate · Emperors & Kings
Unifying the six statesOne script for allThe imperial institution
Who they are
Ying Zheng took the Qin throne at thirteen; after coming into personal rule at twenty-two he removed the two great power blocs of Lü Buwei and Lao Ai, then spent ten years swallowing Han, Zhao, Wei, Chu, Yan, and Qi in turn, unifying the realm in 221 BC. Holding that the title "king" was too small for his deeds, he took a character each from the "Three Sovereigns" and "Five Emperors" and styled himself "Huangdi" (Emperor), calling himself the "First Emperor" and hoping to pass it on for ten thousand generations. He imposed one script, one axle-gauge, and one system of weights and measures, replaced enfeoffment with commanderies and counties, built the Great Wall in the north and campaigned against the Baiyue in the south — this framework of centralized empire was used for the next two thousand years. And the burning of books, the burying of scholars, the harsh laws, and the boundless conscription brought Qin down three years after his death: the template of empire lasted two thousand years, the empire itself only fifteen.
Primary sourcesRecords of the Grand Historian, "Annals of the First Emperor of Qin"The Shuihudi Qin bamboo slipsThe excavation of the Terracotta Army
Key stories
One script for all
The six states wrote the same character in different ways. After unification, Li Si oversaw the standardization of the small-seal script for the whole realm, and official documents used it exclusively. This reached further than any battle: from then on, however far apart their dialects, Chinese read and wrote one script — politics could fracture, but the cultural foundation could not be pulled apart. Latin split into many languages in Europe, while Chinese characters welded "China" into a whole that could be reassembled again and again.
The search for immortality and death at Shaqiu
In his later years the First Emperor was obsessed with immortality, sending Xu Fu to sea with thousands of boys and girls to seek the elixir and dispatching alchemists again and again. In 210 BC he died of illness at Shaqiu during his fifth eastern tour; Zhao Gao and Li Si kept the death secret and forged an edict ordering the eldest son Fusu to kill himself and installing Huhai. The corpse-cart carried abalone to mask the stench on the way back to Xianyang — the man who sought immortality and ten thousand generations had his own death hidden even from his attendants, and the empire collapsed within two years.
Version differences
In the "burning of books and burying of scholars," the Records of the Grand Historian records the buried as mostly alchemists and occultists; later ages gradually elaborated it into the burying alive of Confucian scholars — both accounts are given.
Echoes today
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
The Terracotta ArmyDiscovered by Shaanxi farmers digging a well in 1974, now a World Heritage Site, called "the eighth wonder of the world."
Films such as HeroZhang Yimou’s film takes the assassination of the First Emperor as its subject — the assassin’s-eye image of him is a modern interpretation, not the histories’ original portrait.