King of Qin Shi Huang. The Tomb of Qin Shi Huang is the grandiose tomb of the great Emperor of China. Qin Shihuang in art

Ruler (246–221) of the Qin kingdom, emperor (from 221) of China. Created a unified centralized Qin Empire (221–207). An opponent of Confucianism (on his orders, humanities literature was burned and 400 scholars were executed), a supporter of the Fajia school.

The period of Zhanguo, or the Warring States (453–221), preceding the creation of a unified empire on the territory of China, is one of the complex and little-studied pages in the history of China. At that time, the territory of the country was divided into a number of independent kingdoms.

In 246, after the death of King Zhuang Xiang-wan, his son Ying Zheng, known in history as Qin Shi Huangdi, ascended the throne of the Qin kingdom. By the middle of the 3rd century BC, the kingdom of Qin occupied a fairly vast territory. Judging by the message of the ancient Chinese historian Sima Qian, the Qin people annexed to their possessions the territories captured from the kingdoms of Han, Wei, Zhao, Chu and the states of Ba and Shu.

The annexation of rich agricultural regions with developed handicraft production (for example, northern Sichuan with its large iron-smelting workshops) strengthened the economic and military power of the Qin kingdom. At the time of his accession to the throne, Ying Zheng was only thirteen years old, and until he came of age, the state was actually ruled by the king’s first adviser, Lü Bu-wei, a major merchant originally from the kingdom of Wei. At first, the accession of Ying Zheng did not lead to any changes in either domestic or foreign policy. As before, the forefront of foreign policy was aimed at seizing foreign territories.

Growing up, the persistent and capricious Ying Zheng strove to concentrate all power in his hands and, apparently, had no intention of following the lead of his first adviser. The rite of passage into adulthood was supposed to take place in 238, when Ying Zheng turned twenty-two years old. Available historical material indicates that Lü Bu-wei in 239 tried to remove a ruler he did not like. A few years earlier, he brought one of his reliable assistants, Lao Ai, closer to Ying Zheng’s mother, granting him an honorary title. Lao Ai very soon achieved the favor of the dowager queen and began to enjoy unlimited power.

In 238, Lao Ai stole the royal seal of the dowager queen and, together with a group of his followers, mobilizing part of the government troops, tried to capture the Qinyan Palace, where Ying Zheng was located at that time. However, the young king managed to uncover this conspiracy - Lao Ai and nineteen major officials, the leaders of the conspiracy, were executed along with all members of their clans; over four thousand families involved in the conspiracy were stripped of their ranks and exiled to distant Sichuan.

All warriors who participated in suppressing Lao Ai's rebellion were promoted by one rank. In 237, Ying Zheng removed the organizer of the conspiracy, Lü Bu-wei, from his post.

The continued arrests and torture of rebels apparently worried the former First Councilor. Fearing further revelations and impending execution, Lü Bu-wei committed suicide in 234. Having brutally dealt with the rebels and restored order within the kingdom, Ying Zheng began external conquests. At this time, Li Si, a native of the kingdom of Chu, began to play a major role in the Chin court. He takes part in the development of external and internal activities carried out by Ying Zheng.

In 230, on the advice of Li Si, Ying Zheng sent a huge army against the neighboring Han kingdom. The Qin defeated the Han troops, captured the Han king An Wang and occupied the entire territory of the kingdom, turning it into a Qin district. This was the first kingdom conquered by the Qin. In subsequent years, the Qin army captured the kingdoms of Zhao, Wei, Yan, and Qi. By 221, the Qin kingdom victoriously ended its long struggle to unify the country. In place of scattered kingdoms, a single empire with centralized power is created.

Having won a brilliant victory, Ying Zheng still understood that military force alone was not enough to firmly hold in his hands a territory whose population was more than three times the number of inhabitants of the Qin kingdom. Therefore, immediately after the end of hostilities, he carried out a series of measures aimed at strengthening the conquered positions. First of all, Ying Zheng published a decree in which he listed all the sins of the six kings, who allegedly “created unrest” and prevented the establishment of peace in the Celestial Empire. Ying Zheng stated that the death of the six kingdoms was primarily to blame for their rulers, who tried to destroy Qin. The issuance of such a decree was necessary for the moral justification of both the conquest itself and the cruel methods by which it was carried out. The second step towards consolidating the supreme power of the Qin over the entire conquered territory was the adoption by Ying Zheng of a new, higher title than the royal title. Judging by the message of the ancient Chinese historian Sima Qian, Ying Zheng decided to accept the title of di - emperor and invited his entourage to discuss his choice. After a long discussion, Ying Zheng accepted the title of Huangdi - the highest emperor.

By accepting the title of Huangdi, Ying Zheng sought to emphasize the divine nature of his power. A number of new terms were introduced into the official language, reflecting the greatness of the ruler: from now on, the emperor began to call himself Zheng, which corresponds to the Russian “We”, used in imperial decrees. The emperor's personal orders were called zhi, and his orders throughout the Celestial Empire were called zhao.

Since Ying Zheng was the first emperor of the Qin dynasty, he ordered to call himself Shi Huangdi - the First Highest Emperor.

A certain part of the hereditary aristocracy of the Qin kingdom, Qin officials and members of the ruling house - all of them, to one degree or another, took part in the conquest of the six kingdoms and, therefore, hoped to receive some real benefits. But Qin Shi Huangdi followed the advice of Li Si, who at that time held a rather insignificant position - he was just the head of the judicial department, and moreover, a person who came to Qin from another kingdom.

Fearing internecine wars, the emperor refused to grant independent land ownership to his sons, citing concerns about preserving peace in the Middle Kingdom. Thus, he strengthened his personal power.

In 221, Qin Shi Huangdi began to create imperial authorities.

It is quite natural that, having become emperor, he introduced throughout the entire country, with some modification, the system of government that existed in the kingdom of Qin. The state apparatus of the Qin Empire was headed by the emperor himself, who had unlimited power. Qin Shi Huangdi's closest assistants were the first two advisers (chengxiang). Their functions included implementing all the instructions of the emperor and directing the work of the administrative bodies of the country. The Chengxiangs, Ban Gu reports, helped the son of heaven (the emperor) manage all affairs. The Chengxiangs were in charge of a whole staff of officials such as Shizhong and Shanshu, who assisted the first advisers in their daily work.

The state apparatus of the Qin Empire was divided into central and local government bodies.

Qin Shi Huangdi was a virtually unlimited head of state with despotic power. The fullness of legislative, administrative, executive and supreme judicial power was concentrated in his hands. The role of the bureaucracy, which expanded under Qin Shi Huangdi and was completely dependent on the head of state, was reduced to purely executive functions. The Qin state machine turned out to be so adapted to the needs of the empire that, according to sources, it was “transferred to Han without any changes.”

The economic well-being of a huge army of officials depended on one person - the emperor. He had the right to deprive any official of his position, starting with Chengxiang. However, despite the despotic nature of the government, in the Qin Empire the bodies of community self-government were preserved and actively functioned locally.

The construction industry developed especially rapidly during the imperial period. Even during the war for the unification of the country, Qin Shi Huangdi issued a decree on the construction of palaces near Xianyang, modeled on the best palaces of the kingdoms he captured. According to Sima Qian's calculations, there were only over seven hundred palaces in the empire, 300 of them were located on the territory of the former Qin kingdom. The largest palace was the Efangong Palace, erected by Qin Shi Huangdi near the capital of the empire, on the southern bank of the Wei-he River. This is a whole ensemble of buildings connected by a system of covered galleries and hanging bridges. It is very interesting that the general composition of the buildings recreated the location of the stars in the sky.

Qin Shi Huangdi carried out a number of major national reforms aimed at strengthening the economic, political and cultural unity of the country.

Successful management of the newly united regions, where their own local customs and laws unique to this kingdom prevailed, was impossible without the introduction of common imperial legislation for all. With the resolution of this key issue, Qin Shi Huangdi began his transformations. In 221, he issued an order to eliminate all laws of the six kingdoms and introduced new legislation, uniform for the entire empire.

The entire population of the empire, from a simple farmer to a high-ranking government official, was obliged to unquestioningly carry out the orders of the emperor and be guided in their actions by state legislation; the slightest deviation from the norm or violation of any clause of the laws was punishable according to all the rules of criminal law.

In China, there was an active guarantee system, according to which, in the event of a crime, all persons associated with mutual guarantee with the “criminal”, namely: father, mother, wife, children, older and younger brothers, i.e. all family members, turned into state officials. slaves

Qin Shi Huangdi attached great importance to the establishment of a new surety association, which was one of the main points of the unified legislation of the Qin Empire that he introduced. It is not by chance that in the text of the Lanyatai Stele, among the many merits of Qin Shi Huangdi, it was noted that the emperor established a system of “... mutual guarantee of six relatives and thanks to this, there were no crimes (criminals) and robberies in the country.”

During the Qin Empire, the surety system of liability apparently extended mainly to ordinary people and primarily to farmers.

In 213, due to the aggravation of the situation within the country and increasing discontent on the part of certain sections of the bureaucracy, Qin Shi Huangdi introduced a new law, according to which an official who knew about the crime but did not report it should also be punished on an equal basis with the criminal. By issuing such a decree, Qin Shi Huangdi sought to protect himself from possible conspiracies and open actions by officials against the imperial power.

The death penalty as the highest form of punishment was most often sentenced for anti-state actions. There were several types of death penalty (depending on the social class of the criminal and the severity of his guilt). The so-called honorable execution, when the emperor “graced death” by sending the accused a sword and ordering him to commit suicide at home, applied only to members of the ruling family and the most senior officials. The following types of death penalty were usually used.

Isanzu - the destruction of three clans of a criminal: the clan of father, mother and wife; Tzu - destruction of the criminal family. During the imperial period, this punishment was imposed on those who kept forbidden Confucian literature in their home or made critical remarks about the emperor and his political activities Chele - quartering. The condemned man's arms and legs were tied to four different chariots drawn by bulls, then, on command, the bulls were set to gallop and the body was torn into pieces. This method of execution, which existed in the Qian kingdom during the Zhanguo period, was also quite widespread during the reign of Qin Shihuang and Er Shi Huangdi.

Other types of death include: being cut in half; cutting into pieces; beheading after execution; displaying one's head on a pole in public places, usually in the market square of a city; strangulation; burying alive; cooking in a large cauldron; breaking ribs; piercing the crown of the head with a sharp object.

Often executions took place in public. Obviously, the emperor sought to intimidate the people and, to some extent, protect himself from possible anti-government protests.

In addition to the death penalty, the Qin Empire had other penalties. Hard labor became widespread. Often convicts, including women along with men, were sent to build the Great Wall of China; their heads were shaved or they were branded. For those whose heads were shaved, the period of exile lasted five years, for those branded - four years. However, women did not directly participate in construction work.

Thousands, tens of thousands, and sometimes even a hundred thousand worked in various parts of the country to build highways, palaces, tombs, the Great Wall of China and other grandiose structures of the Qin Empire. Judging by the reports of primary sources, the first six years of the empire’s existence (221–216) were spent on implementing various reforms and grandiose events carried out within the country itself. During this historically very short and intense period, all the forces of the young state were thrown into organizing internal affairs and consolidating the positions gained.

In 221, Qin Shi Huangdi issued an order to confiscate weapons from the entire population of the country, thus disarming the remnants of the defeated armies of the six kingdoms. All confiscated weapons were taken to Xianyang and poured into bells and statues. According to Sima Qian, 12 human figures were cast, each weighing 1000 dan, i.e. 29,960 kilograms. In the same year, Qin Shi Huang carried out another, no less grandiose event - 120,000 families of the hereditary aristocracy, major officials and merchants of the six conquered kingdoms were forcibly resettled in Xianyang. This resettlement was apparently carried out by regular units of the Qin army returning to their homeland. Some of those resettled, in particular merchants, soon resumed their business activities in Xianyang. A significant part of the merchants from among the resettled families, apparently, were engaged in usury, because Qin Shihuang, as a rule, did not touch the merchants and merchants associated with the process of handicraft production (in Ancient China, the merchant and the owner of the craft workshop were one person), and if he resettled, it was only on preferential terms to areas rich in raw materials.

While applying repressive measures against the officials and hereditary aristocracy of the six kingdoms, Qin Shi-huang at the same time treated with favorable attention the officials of the Qin kingdom and the command staff of the Qin army. Apparently, only people from the Qin kingdom were appointed to all leadership positions in the local administrative apparatus that functioned on the territory of the former six kingdoms. Thus, the unification of the country brought tangible results to the officials of the Qin kingdom and opened up rich opportunities for improving their position.

At the end of 220, Qin Shi Huangdi decided to check how successfully his activities were being implemented on the ground. He traveled to the western regions of the country, visiting Longxi and Beidi counties. The first trip apparently yielded positive results - having convinced himself of the reliability of the western border districts, Qin Shi Huangdi decided to embark on more distant and lengthy travels.

We must not forget that the unification of the six kingdoms was not carried out by peaceful means: the Qin people came to each kingdom with weapons in their hands, and the local population did not greet them friendly. The emperor needed to convince broad sections of the population of the six conquered kingdoms of the correctness of his policies. Knowing the people's ardent desire for a peaceful life, he promised them long-term peace. During an inspection tour of the eastern regions of the country in 218, an attempt was made on the emperor’s life, but the killer missed. For ten days, a massive search was carried out throughout the Celestial Empire for the criminal, but he managed to escape.

The Qin Empire was able to embark on an active foreign policy only after strengthening its internal position, that is, six years after the unification of the country.

The military operations of the Qin Empire unfolded mainly in two directions - northern and southern. The battles in the north against the warlike Huns were of a defensive nature and were aimed at returning lost territories and strengthening the northern borders of the empire. Military actions in the south had a completely different character - aggressive. The ruling circles of the Qin Empire - wealthy slave owners, the Qin family aristocracy, high officials and large merchants were interested in a more active influx of luxury goods (feathers of colorful birds, ivory, etc.), for which the rich south was famous. But, apparently, not only this pushed Qin Shi Huangdi to war against his southern neighbors. The essence of the matter is that part of the conquered territory apparently became the property of the emperor. Community members moved to new lands, as is known, on preferential terms. Such development of new territories increased the amount of land owned by the emperor and contributed to the strengthening of despotic power in the country.

The stabilization of the situation within the country allowed Qin Shi Huangdi to move from defensive to offensive actions. By the end of 214, Qin Shi Huangdi managed to restore the northern borders of China that existed during the Zhanguo period. As a result of a two-year war with the Xiongnu, Qin troops conquered from the latter a huge territory stretching from north to south about 400 kilometers.

In order to protect the northern regions of the country and the newly conquered territories from possible attacks by the swift war cavalry of nomadic peoples, Qin Shi Huangdi decided to begin construction of a grandiose structure - a defensive wall along the entire northern border of the empire. Its length was over 10,000 li, hence the name “Wanli Changcheng” - “Wall 10,000 li long”, or, as Europeans call it, the Great Wall of China. Widespread construction of the wall began in 215, when the 300,000-strong army of the commander Meng Tan arrived to the north. Together with the soldiers, convicts, state slaves and community members mobilized for state labor duties worked on the construction of the wall.

The Great Wall of China reliably protected the northern borders of the empire, however, for the mobile transfer of military units and formations from the central regions of the country to the northern border in the event of any danger, it was necessary to have good roads convenient for transporting troops. Therefore, in 212, Qin Shi Huangdi ordered Meng Tian to begin construction of the main road. Thus, the construction of the Great Wall of China, the settlement of border territories and the construction of a highway right up to Xianyang itself transformed the northwestern part of the country into a powerful single complex connected with the center of the empire and which was a reliable obstacle to the advance of the warlike Xiongnu.

The object of Qin expansion in the south were numerous Yue tribes inhabiting the modern provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, as well as the state of Aulak (in Chinese - Aulago), located in the northeastern part of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula. The first three years brought some success - the Qin troops advanced in all five directions and even killed Yui-sun, the ruler of Western Aulak (Siau).

But the Qin could not secure all the conquered territory. In 214, the Yue tribes, together with the troops of the Aulak state, defeated the Qin army in a night battle and killed the commander Tu Ju.

In the same year 214, Qin Shi Huangdi carried out another mobilization. The newly created army was sent south to help the retreating Qin troops. Having received reinforcements, the Qin troops finally captured Nam Viet and the northeastern part of Aulak.

The active foreign policy of the Qin Empire and the grandiose events carried out by Qin Shi Huangdi within the country were impossible without a constant, ever-increasing influx of new manpower and new material resources. In the last years of the empire, during the life of Qin Shi Huangdi, the land tax increased to 2/3 of the community's harvest; The terms of labor and military service also increased. The conversion of farmers into state slaves intensified, and communal slave owners did not stand aside - the state began to mobilize private slaves for labor and military duties.

The population tried with all its might to evade duties. People were hiding from officials and running away from villages. There were cases when entire communities headed by a council of elders were removed from their homes and went to the mountains and swampy areas. Thus, a whole category of people appeared, called “buwanren” - “hiding people”.

The mass flight of community members fleeing from paying excessive taxes and duties was one of the forms of protest against the ruling dynasty. In this situation, the hereditary aristocracy of the six conquered kingdoms intensified their activities. It should be noted that the unification of the country did not at all mean the end of the struggle. After the formation of the empire, the struggle took other forms: the surviving representatives of the hereditary aristocracy took the path of terror. However, several attempts failed. A series of failures apparently pushed the hereditary aristocracy to search for some other forms of struggle. In the last years of Qin Shi Huangdi's life, the struggle took on an ideological character. Confucians, ideological leaders of the hereditary aristocracy and opponents of the teachings of “fa jia” - the state ideology of the Qin empire, begin to preach the imminent death of the Qin dynasty, sow distrust among the population in new reforms and regulations, “inciting the blackheads to speak out against.”

The destruction of Confucian canons was one of the methods of the ideological struggle of the “fajia” with the Confucians. Based on Sima Qian's report, Confucian literature kept in private collections was burned, copies of the Shijing, as well as the works of various thinkers of the Chunqiu - Zhanguo period, located in state libraries and book depositories, remained completely intact.

After the events of 213, the power of Qin Shi Huangdi took on an increasingly despotic character. The emperor no longer consulted with his closest aides and official state advisers (boshi), reducing the functions of the latter to blind execution of orders from above. Judging by Sima Qian's message, Qin Shi Huangdi had a great capacity for work; he looked through at least 30 kilograms of various documentation and reports every day. From now on, all more or less significant matters were decided by one emperor.

In the last years of his life, Qin Shi Huangdi became painfully wary, not trusting almost any of his closest assistants. Starting from 212, the emperor, as a rule, never lived for a long time in one palace, but constantly moved from one place to another, without notifying anyone close to him in advance.

In a territory within a radius of 200 kilometers from the capital, 270 palaces were specially built in various places. In each of them, everything was ready to receive the emperor, right down to the concubines; officials were forbidden to rearrange things without permission or change the furnishings in the halls. None of the population of the empire, including wide circles of officials, should have known about the place of residence of Qin Shi Huangdi. Those who even unwittingly let it slip were subject to the death penalty.

This situation indicated the growth of opposition within the ruling group itself. An audit carried out by Qin Shi Huangdi in 212 showed that some Confucian officials not only criticized the emperor, but also incited residents of the capital to directly oppose him. During interrogations, imperial officials were able to identify the culprits; over 460 Confucians were buried alive, the rest were exiled to guard the borders.

In the summer of 210, Qin Shin-Huangdi died in Shaqiu in the territory of modern Shandong province at the age of 50, returning from his next inspection trip to the eastern regions of the country.

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Chinese emperor from the Qin dynasty, who reigned from 221 to 210. BC Rod. in 259 BC † 210 BC The first Qin emperor, Shi Huangdi, was the son of the Qin Zhuang-Hsiang-wan from his beloved concubine. At birth he received the name Zheng ("first"). He was 13 years old when his father died and Zheng became the ruler of Qin. By this time, the Qin kingdom was already one of the largest and strongest Chinese states. Zheng-wan had to make one last effort to unite the entire country under his rule. At that time, in the east, the Qin were opposed by five kingdoms: Chu, Han, Wei, Zhao and Yan; behind them, on the ocean shore, was Qi, in which they all sought support. Each of the six eastern kingdoms individually was much weaker than Qin, but together they represented a serious force. In order to destroy their alliance, Zheng Wang spent a huge amount of gold bribing the highest Qi dignitaries. As a result, most of them became agents of Qin and carried out his policies. The advisers persuaded Qi's Jian Wang to enter into an alliance with Qin and abandon the support of his eastern neighbors. As a result, the Qin people were able to defeat them all one by one. In 234 BC, the Qin commander Huan Qi defeated the Zhao army near Pingyang, executed 100 thousand people and captured this city. In 230 BC, the Qin people captured the Han Wang An, occupied all the lands that belonged to him and liquidated the Han kingdom. In 229 BC, Zheng Wang again sent a large army against Zhao. The following year, the Zhao Yu-miao-wang surrendered to the Qin commanders Wang Jian and Qiang Hui. But his brother Dai-wan Jia ruled in Dai for six more years. In 227 BC, the Qin army attacked the kingdom of Yan. In 226 BC, she occupied Yan Jicheng. Yan Wang fled to the east, to Liaodong, and began to rule there. In 225 BC, the Qin commander Wang Ben attacked the Principality of Wei. He built a canal from the Yellow River and flooded Dalian with water. The city walls collapsed and the Wei Wang surrendered. After this, Qin completely captured the lands of Wei. In 224 BC, Wang Jian attacked Chu and reached Pingyu. In 223 BC, the Chu Wang Fu-chu was captured, and all his possessions were annexed to Qin. In 222 BC, Zheng Wang sent a large army led by Wan Ben against Yan's Liaodong. Yan Wang Xi was captured. On the way back, Wan Ben attacked Dai and captured the Dai Wang Jia. After all these victories, the kingdom of Qi found itself surrounded on three sides by the possessions of Qin. In 221 BC, the last Qi Wang Jian surrendered to Wang Ben without a fight. The unification of China was completed. Zheng Wang took the title Shi Huangdi (literally "first ruler-emperor"). The inhabitants of the six eastern kingdoms became subjects of Qin. For them, this meant not just a change of ruler, but also in many ways a change in their entire way of life. The main ideology in Qin, unlike other kingdoms where Confucianism spread, was the teaching of fajia, or legalism. Contrary to the views of the Confucians, legalists believed that the prosperity of the state did not depend on the virtues of the sovereign, but on the strict and unwavering execution of laws. The political activities of Shi Huangdi and his dignitaries were based only on the logic of the law. In this regard, any deviation from the law for reasons of kindness or humanity was considered an unacceptable weakness. Severe justice was identified with the will of Heaven, and serving it, according to the concepts of Shi Huangdi, constituted the main virtue of the sovereign. He had an iron will and did not tolerate any resistance. Soon the entire population of the Celestial Empire felt the harsh hand of the new emperor. Sima Qian characterizes the order established in the Qin Empire as follows: “Firmness, determination and extreme severity prevailed, all matters were decided on the basis of laws; it was believed that only cruelty and oppression without the manifestation of philanthropy, mercy, kindness and justice could correspond to the five virtuous forces. Before the extremes were zealous in applying the laws and did not show mercy to anyone for a long time.” In its internal organization, Qin also did not resemble any of the Zhou kingdoms. Instead of a hierarchy of feudal rulers, the idea of ​​centralization was strictly enforced here. Soon after the annexation of Qi, the question arose of what to do with the conquered kingdoms. Some dignitaries advised Shi Huangdi to send his sons there as rulers. However, the head of the court order, Li Si, did not agree with this decision and, referring to the sad example of the Zhou dynasty, stated: “The Zhou Wen-wang and Wu-wang granted possessions in abundance to their sons, younger brothers and members of their family, but subsequently their descendants became alienated and fought with each other as sworn enemies, the ruling princes increasingly attacked and killed each other, and the Zhou Son of Heaven was not able to stop these civil strife. Now, thanks to your extraordinary talents, the entire earth among the seas is united into one whole and divided into regions and counties... If now all your sons and honored officials are generously endowed with income from incoming taxes, then this will be quite enough, and the Celestial Empire will become easier to govern. The absence of different opinions about the Celestial Empire is the means to establishing calm and peace. If you again install sovereign princes in the principalities, it will be bad." Shi Huang followed this advice. He divided the empire into 36 regions, in each region he installed a chief - shou, a governor - Wei and an inspector - Jian. The regions were divided into counties, counties - to districts, and districts to volosts. To stop strife, civil strife and rebellions, the entire civilian population was ordered to surrender their weapons (In Xianyang, bells were smelted from them, as well as 12 metal statues, weighing 1000 dan each (about 30 tons).) To suppress any separatism, 120 thousand representatives of the nobility of the former principalities were forcibly relocated to the Qin capital Xianyang. In all the conquered kingdoms, Shi Huang ordered the destruction of city walls, tear down defensive dams on rivers and remove all obstacles and obstacles to free movement. The construction of new roads began everywhere , which were necessary to establish rapid communication between different parts of the empire.In 212 BC, construction began on a strategic road 1800 li (about 900 km) long, which was supposed to connect Jiuyuan and Yunyang. The emperor introduced a unified system of laws and measurements, measures of weight, capacity and length. A single axle length was established for all carts, and a single style of hieroglyphs was introduced into the writing. At the same time, having pacified the Celestial Empire, Shi Huang launched an offensive against the surrounding barbarians. In 215 BC, he sent a 300,000-strong army north against the Hu tribe and captured the lands of Henan (the northern bend of the Yellow River in the current Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region). (Sima Qian writes that this grandiose campaign was undertaken because Shi Huang became aware of an ancient prophecy that “Qin will be destroyed by the Hus.”) At the same time, there was an intensive colonization of the southern regions inhabited by the barbarian Yue tribes. Four new regions were formed here, where Shi Huangdi ordered the exile of all kinds of offenders and criminals, as well as people who fled from punishment, hid from paying duties, or were sent to other people's houses for debts. In the northeast, the emperor began to fight the warlike Xiongnu (Xiongnu). From Yuzhong along the Yellow River and east to the Yinshan Mountains, he established 34 new counties and ordered the construction of a wall along the Yellow River as a barrier against nomads. By forcibly relocating and exiling, he filled the newly formed counties with population. The cruel orders established in the Qin Empire were condemned by the Confucians. Since they first of all looked for examples for their sermons in the past and therefore tried to idealize antiquity, Shi Huangdi in 213 BC issued a decree to burn all ancient chronicles, with the exception of the Qin annals. All private individuals were ordered to hand over and destroy the lists of Shi Jing and Shu Jing that they kept, as well as the works of non-legist schools (primarily Confucians). It was ordered to publicly execute all those who, using the examples of antiquity, dared to condemn modernity. Anyone found in possession of prohibited books was ordered to be sent to forced labor - to build the Great Wall. Based on this decree, 460 prominent Confucians were executed in the capital alone. Even more of them were sent to hard labor. Having, thanks to cruel legislation, a large number of convicts, Shi Huang launched large-scale construction. In addition to a significant part of the Great Wall of China and new roads, many palaces were built during his reign. The new imperial palace of Epan, the construction of which began not far from Xianyang, was supposed to symbolize the power of the Qin Empire. It was assumed that it would have dimensions of 170 by 800 m and would surpass in size all other structures in the Middle Kingdom. According to Sima Qian, more than 700 thousand criminals sentenced to castration and hard labor were brought to this grandiose construction site. In addition to Epan, 270 small palaces were built in the vicinity of Xianyang. All the rooms in them were decorated with curtains and canopies, and beautiful concubines lived everywhere. No one, except the people closest to the emperor, knew which palace Shi Huangdi was currently in. (In general, everything related to the private life of the emperor was kept in strict confidence. He really did not like talkers and severely punished anyone suspected of this weakness. Sima Qian writes that once Shi Huangdi was in the Liangshan Palace and saw from the mountain that his first adviser was accompanied by many chariots and horsemen. He did not like this. Someone from the retinue told the first adviser about the emperor’s dissatisfaction, and he reduced the number of accompanying people. Shi Huangdi became angry and said: “Someone from those around him divulged my words! "They arranged an interrogation, but no one confessed. Then the emperor ordered the execution of everyone who was near him at that moment.) However, despite all of the above, one cannot paint the reign of Shi Huang with only black paints. He did a lot for the development of agriculture, as he understood that a rich peasantry loyal to the authorities was the main guarantee of the prosperity of his empire. Contemporaries write that Shi Huangdi devoted all his time to business. He traveled the length and breadth of the empire and delved into literally every detail of management. (As one of the official inscriptions said, “Our ruler-emperor? solves thousands of cases at the same time, so everything far and near becomes completely clear.”) Every day he weighed on the scales 1 tribute of the reports received to him (that is, about 30 kg of bamboo planks) and did not allow himself to rest until he had looked through them all and given the appropriate orders. But, as usually happens, the population of the country was able to appreciate the positive side of the profound transformations he carried out much later, while the negative side was immediately evident. In the memories of his descendants, the first emperor of the Qin dynasty remained primarily as a cruel and narcissistic despot who mercilessly oppressed his people. Indeed, the inscriptions of Shi Huangdi indicate that he had colossal conceit and, to some extent, even considered himself to be involved in divine powers. (For example, the inscription on Mount Guiji, among other things, said: “The Emperor unravels the laws inherent in all things, tests and tests the essence of all matters? By correcting the mistakes of people, he implements justice? Descendants will respect his laws, unchanging governance will be eternal , and nothing - neither a chariot nor a boat - will capsize.") It was officially proclaimed that the world order established by Shi Huang would last “ten thousand generations.” It seemed quite natural that the “eternal empire” should also have an eternal ruler. The emperor spent enormous amounts of money searching for a drug that would grant immortality, but was never able to find it. Apparently, the very idea that, despite all his greatness and limitless power, he was also subject to death, like the last of his subjects, was offensive to him. Sima Qian writes that Shi Huang could not stand talking about death, and none of those close to him dared even touch on this topic. Therefore, in 210 BC, when Shi Huangdi became seriously ill while touring the eastern, coastal regions, no preparations were made for the funeral. He himself, finally realizing that his days were numbered, sent his eldest son Fu Su a short note with the following content: “Meet the funeral chariot in Xianyang and bury me.” This was his last command. When Shi Huangdi died, those close to him, fearing unrest, hid his death. Only after his body arrived in the capital was official mourning declared. Long before his death, Shi Huangdi began to build a huge crypt in Mount Lishan. Sima Qian writes: “The crypt was filled with copies of palaces brought and lowered there, figures of officials of all ranks, rare things and extraordinary jewelry. The craftsmen were ordered to make crossbows so that, installed there, they would shoot at those who would try to dig a passage and get into the tomb . Large and small rivers and seas were made from mercury, and the mercury spontaneously overflowed into them. A picture of the sky was depicted on the ceiling, and the outline of the earth on the floor. The lamps were filled with ren-yu fat in the hope that the fire would not go out for a long time. During the funeral, the one who assumed power the heir Er-shi said: “All the childless inhabitants of the back chambers of the palace of the late emperor should not be driven away" and ordered them all to be buried along with the deceased. There were many dead. When the emperor’s coffin was already lowered down, someone said that the craftsmen who made the whole arrangement and those who hid the valuables know everything and can spill the beans about the hidden treasures.Therefore, when the funeral ceremony was over and everything was covered, the middle door of the passage was blocked. After which, lowering the outer door, they tightly walled up all the artisans and those who filled the grave with valuables, so that no one came out of there. They planted grass and trees on top so that the grave took on the appearance of an ordinary mountain."

Ying Zheng was born in 259 BC, in Handan (in the Principality of Zhao), where his father Zhuang Xiangwang was a hostage. At birth he was given the name Zheng ("first"). His mother was a concubine who had previously been in a relationship with the influential courtier Lü Buwei. It was thanks to the latter's intrigues that Zheng inherited the throne, which gave rise to rumors that Lü Buwei was Zheng's true father.

When Zheng became the Qin ruler at the age of 13, his state was already the most powerful in the Celestial Empire. Everything was moving towards the unification of China led by the Qin dynasty. The states of Central China looked at Shaanxi (the mountainous northern country that served as the core of the Qin possessions) as a barbarian outskirts. The state structure of the Qin kingdom was distinguished by a powerful military machine and a large bureaucracy.

Until 238, Zheng was considered a minor, and Lü Buwei was in charge of all affairs as regent and first minister. During these years, the future emperor absorbed the totalitarian ideology of legalism, popular at court, the most prominent representative of which at that time was Han Fei. When Zheng was 22 years old, he ordered the execution of his stepmother's lover (due to the same title, confused with his mother), and Lü Buwei was sent into exile on suspicion of preparing a rebellion.

In subsequent years, Zheng captured one after another all six states into which China was divided at that time. At the same time, he did not disdain any methods - neither the creation of a network of spies, nor bribes, nor the help of wise advisers, among whom Li Si took first place. At the age of 32, he took possession of the principality in which he was born, and then his mother died. The following year, a murderer sent by Prince Yan Dan was caught. At the age of 39, Zheng united all of China for the first time in history and took the throne name Qin Shihuang.

Title of the first emperor

The proper name Ying Zheng was given to the future emperor after the name of the month of birth (正), the first in the calendar, the child received the name Zheng (政). In the complex system of names and titles of antiquity, the first and last names were not written side by side, as is the case in modern China, so the name Qin Shihuang itself is extremely limited in use.

The unprecedented power of the ruler of the imperial era required the introduction of a new title. Qin Shihuangdi literally means "founding emperor of the Qin dynasty." The old title wang, translated as “monarch, prince, king,” was no longer acceptable: with the weakening of Zhou, the title of wang was devalued. Initially, the terms Huang (“ruler, august”) and Di (“emperor”) were used separately (see Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors). Their unification was intended to emphasize the autocracy of a new type of ruler.

The imperial title thus created lasted until the Xinhai Revolution of 1912, until the very end of the imperial era. It was used both by those dynasties whose power extended over the entire Celestial Empire, and by those who only sought to reunite its parts under their leadership.

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Rule of a unified China

The colossal campaign to unify the Celestial Empire was completed in 221, after which the new emperor carried out a number of reforms to consolidate the won unity: under the slogan “all chariots with an axle of the same length, all hieroglyphs - standard writing”, a single network of roads was created, disparate systems of hieroglyphs were abolished conquered kingdoms, a unified monetary system was introduced, as well as a system of weights and measures.

Xianyang was chosen as the capital of the empire in the ancestral Qin possessions, not far from modern Xi'an. Dignitaries and nobles of all conquered states were transferred there. In order to suppress centrifugal tendencies on the ground, the empire was divided into 36 military districts. As a sign of unity, the defensive walls that separated the former kingdoms were demolished. Only the northern part of these walls was preserved, its individual sections were fortified and connected to each other: thus, the newly formed Great Wall of China separated the Middle State from the barbarian nomads.

During the last ten years of his life, the emperor rarely visited his capital. He constantly inspected various parts of his kingdom, making sacrifices in local temples, reporting to local deities about his achievements and erecting steles with self-praise. By making detours around his possessions, the emperor began the tradition of royal ascents to Mount Taishan. He was the first of the Chinese rulers to go to the seashore.

As can be understood from the “Shi Ji” of the Han historian Sima Qian, the emperor was most worried about thoughts of impending death. During his travels, he met magicians and sorcerers, hoping to learn from them the secret of the elixir of immortality. In 219, he sent an expedition to the islands of the Eastern Sea (possibly to Japan) to search for him. Confucian scholars saw this as empty superstition, for which they paid dearly: as legend says, the emperor ordered 460 of them to be buried alive in the ground. In 213, Li Si convinced the emperor to burn all books except those on agriculture, medicine and fortune telling. In addition, books from the imperial collection and chronicles of the Qin rulers were spared.

In the last years of his life, disillusioned with the prospect of gaining immortality, Qin Shihuang traveled less and less around the borders of his power, isolating himself from the world in his huge palace complex. Avoiding communication with mortals, the emperor expected that they would see him as a deity. Instead, the totalitarian rule of the first emperor gave rise to a growing number of dissatisfied people every year. Having uncovered three conspiracies, the emperor had no reason to trust any of his entourage. He died in 210 or 209 during another tour of his possessions. Adherents of the previous dynasties immediately rushed into the fight for the division of the imperial inheritance, and in 206 his entire family was exterminated.

Tomb

Nothing illustrates the power of Qin Shi Huang better than the size of the burial complex, which was built during the emperor’s lifetime. Construction of the tomb began immediately after the formation of the empire near present-day Xi'an. According to Sima Qian, 700 thousand workers and artisans were involved in the creation of the mausoleum. The perimeter of the outer wall of the burial was 6 km.

The burial mound of the first emperor was identified by archaeologists only in 1974. Its research continues to this day, and the burial place of the emperor is still awaiting an autopsy. The mound was crowned by a certain pyramidal room, through which, according to one version, the soul of the deceased was supposed to ascend to heaven.

To accompany the emperor in the other world, countless terracotta troops were sculpted. The faces of the warriors are individualized, their bodies were previously brightly colored. Unlike his predecessors - for example, the rulers of the Shang state (c. 1300-1027 BC) - the emperor refused mass human sacrifices.

The Qin Shihuang Tomb complex was the first Chinese site to be included by UNESCO in the Register of World Cultural Heritage Sites.

Reputation

The reign of Qin Shihuang was based on the principles of legalism set forth in the treatise Han Feizi. All surviving written evidence about Qin Shihuang is passed through the prism of the Confucian worldview of Han historiographers, primarily Sima Qian. It is very likely that the information they provided about the burning of all books, the ban on Confucianism, and the burial of Confucius’ followers alive reflected Confucian anti-Qin propaganda directed against the legalists.

In traditional depictions, Qin Shihuang's appearance as a monstrous tyrant is tendentiously exaggerated. It can be considered established that all subsequent states of China, starting with the Western Han, inherited the administrative-bureaucratic system of government that was created under the first emperor.

Qin Shihuang in art

Based on the history of the unification of China, Chen Kaige in 1999 made the film “The Emperor and the Assassin”, which quite closely follows the outline of “Shi Ji”. In 2002, Zhang Yimou made the most expensive film in the history of Chinese cinema on this topic - “Hero”.

In 2006, the premiere of the opera “The First Emperor” (composer Tan Dun, director Zhang Yimou) took place on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera (New York). The role of the emperor was sung by Placido Domingo.

In 2008, Jet Li played the role of Qin Shihuang in the Hollywood blockbuster The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

In the 3rd century BC. In the Chinese kingdom of Qin, Prince Ying Zheng was born, for whom the gods had a great destiny. Already at the age of 13 he ascended the throne, and at 21 he became an independent ruler.

At that time, China was divided into 7 independent kingdoms. Local kings were constantly at odds with each other, weakening and ruining their states.

And Ying Zheng set out to become a great ruler. He gathered a huge army and captured all the neighboring lands. He killed kings, razed capitals to the ground, and established his own rules everywhere.

Ying Zheng spent 17 years in wars, killed thousands of people in battles, but achieved the unification of all of China under his rule. Big deal! It was not suitable for the great ruler to live with his old childhood name, and he took for himself a new name, befitting his status, Qin Shi Huang, which means “First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty”

The colossal campaign to unify the Celestial Empire was completed in 221 BC, after which the new emperor carried out a number of reforms to consolidate the gains. First, he designated the city of Xi'an as the capital of his entire empire. He introduced strict standards for everything: money, measures of weight and length, writing, construction, even the width of the axle for carts, so that the carts could easily get from one end of the mighty empire to the other. Naturally, the standards of the Qin kingdom were taken as a model. All previous history was declared irrelevant. In 213 BC. the ancient chronicles and books of all the conquered kingdoms were burned. More than 460 scientists suspected of disloyalty to the new regime were buried alive in the ground.

But Qin Shi Huang was not only wise, but also extremely cruel. Any disobedience to the new laws will result in death. At the same time, the simple death penalty was the lightest punishment. The following types of capital punishment were common: breaking out ribs, tearing by chariots, boiling in a large cauldron, cutting in half or into pieces, quartering, beheading and, after execution, displaying the head on a pole in public places. Particularly dangerous crimes were punishable by execution not only of the perpetrator, but also of all his relatives in three generations, and, given that the Chinese had large families, this measure often affected thousands of people.

At this time, wild tribes of nomadic Huns attacked China from the north. They ravaged the lands and took the inhabitants into captivity.

To defend the northern borders of the Empire, Qin Shi Huang began to unite disparate defensive structures into a single one - Great Wall of China, stretching for almost 4 thousand kilometers. It was built over 10 years fromcompacted earth and stone blocks for more than 2 million people (soldiers, slaves, prisoners of war and criminals). Those who died from overwork, according to legend, were walled up in the wall. Construction conditions: bare steppe, periodic raids of tribes and half-starved existence. The watchmen's legs were cut off so that they could not escape from the towers when attacked by nomads. The Great Wall claimed an unprecedented number of victims; now modern Chinese say that every stone in the wall is someone’s life.

* * *

At the time of the creation of the empire, Qin Shi Huang was forty years old, which is a considerable age for those ancient times. The time had come to start searching for immortality - old wounds were bothering him, age was taking its toll, and it was planned to reign for another thousand years. In search of a wonderful elixir, he examined ancient manuscripts, interrogated sages, sent expeditions on large ships in search of a magic herb, which, according to legend, bestowed immortality.
Eventually, Qin Shi Huang issued a decree that the emperor would live forever. Therefore, even after his death, his body remained in the throne room for a long time, and the ceremonies were carried out in the same way as if he were alive.
The death of the emperor turned out to be somewhat awkward. Like any eastern ruler, Qin Shi Huang had a harem, and there were several thousand concubines in it. One of them killed the first emperor of China by sticking a large needle into his ear while he was sleeping. This happened in 210 BC, when Qin Shi Huang was 48 years old.

From the moment he ascended the throne, Qin Shi Huang gave the order to begin construction of his tomb. And 30 kilometers from the city of Xi'an, near Mount Lishan, over 38 years, 700 thousand workers built an entire burial city - a huge underground complex, designed as a mirror image of the capital of the Qin dynasty.


The emperor's mausoleum was a palace surrounded by two walls made of mud brick. The outer one stretches for more than six kilometers, the inner one is about four kilometers long. Behind the inner wall is the mausoleum itself: a rectangular underground structure half a kilometer long and slightly less wide. Several tunnels approach it. The entire complex covers an area of ​​60 square meters. km.


The crypt was filled with copies of palaces transported and placed there, figures of officials of all ranks, rare things and extraordinary valuables, countless treasures, including the golden throne of the first emperor.

On the floor of the tomb was a huge map of the world, with rivers and oceans made of mercury.

To protect the emperor and his wealth, terracotta warriors were buried 1.5 km east of the royal tomb. Initially, Qin Shi Huang was going to bury 4,000 real warriors, but such an attempt could cost both himself and his empire his life. And the advisers managed to convince the emperor to create clay ones, numbering more than 8,000, as well as about 200 horses. The harness, weapons, and details of the weapons of this mysterious army were real. The figures were modeled from real warriors, so that after death the souls of the warriors could move into sculptures and continue their service to the Emperor.




All wars were facing east. It was there that the kingdoms were destroyed by the great tyrant. The statues were made with jewelry precision and amazing diligence. It is impossible to find a single identical face. Among the warriors are not only Chinese, but also Mongols, Uighurs, Tibetans and many other nationalities. The only deviation from reality the sculptors made was in growth. The height of the statue is 1.90-1.95 meters. The Qin soldiers, of course, were not that tall. The warrior's weight is about 135 kilograms. The finished sculptures were fired by craftsmen in huge kilns at a temperature of 1,000 degrees. Then the best artists painted them in natural colors in accordance with the table of ranks.



The soldier is dressed in a short robe and breastplate without decorations, his hair is tied in a knot, his feet are wrapped in windings and shoes with a square toe. The officer is wearing chest armor with decorations, a high hat, and boots on his feet. The general has scaly armor with decorations and a hat in the shape of two birds. Shooters with bows and crossbows, wearing breastplates and short robes. All details of clothing or hairstyle strictly correspond to the fashion of that time. Shoes and armor are reproduced with amazing accuracy.







To install this army, a pit the size of a football field was dug, and when the army took its place, the ancient craftsmen placed solid tree trunks on top, mats on them, then 30 cm of cement and 3 m of earth. Then the grass was sown and the army disappeared. She disappeared forever, not a single chronicler or robber knew about her.


After death Qin Shi Huang was buried in a golden coffin and placed in the middle of a sea of ​​mercury.

The craftsmen made and loaded crossbows so that they would shoot at those who tried to get into the tomb. The heir to the throne ordered to bury alive all the wives and 3 thousand concubines of the emperor, thousands of his slaves, dancers, musicians and acrobats, as well as 17 sons and some ministers.


Then 70 thousand workers were herded there, who equipped and built the crypt with their families, servants who knew about its location. And then the jade doors closed... The entrance was walled up, a hill 120 meters high was poured on top, bushes and trees were planted on the hill so that no one would guess how to get in there.

The tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang is inviolable to this day. The Terracotta Army faithfully serves its Emperor, neither grave robbers nor archaeologists have yet disturbed him

After the death of Qin Shihuangding, his son, the weak and weak-willed Er Shihuangding, ascended the throne. His inept actions on the throne caused a storm of popular indignation. The peasant revolt, which the advisers of the first emperor so feared, nevertheless broke out, and there was no one to suppress it with an iron hand.

It was the Terracotta Army that suffered the first defeat. Outraged crowds plundered and burned the Terracotta Army. It should be noted that this was not just an act of senseless vandalism; the destruction had a purely practical significance. The fact is that the rebels had nowhere to take weapons: Qin Shi Huang melted down or destroyed everything unnecessary to avoid such incidents. And here, quite recklessly, 8,000 excellent sets of real bows and arrows, spears, shields and swords were buried underground. They became the main target of the rebels. Government troops were defeated. The mediocre son of the great ruler was killed.

After one of the rebel leaders, the peasant Liu Bang, seized power and proclaimed himself emperor, order was restored, and the Han dynasty founded by Liu Bang ruled for more than four hundred years and continued many Qin traditions.

More For 2000 years, no one in the whole world knew where the grave of the emperor and his army was, until in 1974, a simple Chinese peasant, Yan Ji Wang, and five of his friends decided to dig a well. They didn’t find water, but they found a life-size statue of an ancient warrior at a depth of 5 meters.This was the main battle formation of Qin Shi Huang - about 6,000 figures. Yan Ji Wan became a millionaire overnight. Now he writes books about his discovery and signs autographs for tourists every day.

Today, a whole city has arisen on the site of the historical find. A huge roof was built over the “army”, like over a large train station. Not all the warriors have been excavated yet, because most of the statues were crushed by a once collapsed roof and a load of earth, they have to be restored from fragments.

Three large pavilions shelter the funeral army of the first Chinese emperor from the weather.Three crypts with a total area of ​​more than 20 thousand square meters. meters

Excavations have been going on for more than 25 years, and there is no end in sight. In 1980, scientists excavated a second column - about 2,000 statues.

In 1994, an underground general staff was discovered - a meeting of senior military leaders.



However, there is an opinion that the found army is only one of the few guarding the Emperor’s necropolis

The reason for the creation of such an army, which could only be created by thousands of sculptors and tens of thousands of workers, apparently lay in the beliefs that forced ancient kings from Northern Europe to Japan to take wives, slaves, warriors and servants with them into the afterlife. But if the leader of the Vikings or Scythians limited himself to dozens of victims who were killed at his grave, then the death of Qin Shi Huang, the Lord of the Universe, entailed the death of thousands of people - everyone who knew access to the tomb. Although by that time human sacrifice was no longer practiced in China, everyone who was supposed to serve the deceased was sent to a better world with the despot.

But no matter how impressive the finds in the crypts of the warriors are, the number of which continues to grow, the main attention of archaeologists is drawn to the tomb of the emperor.

Archaeologists began to lay exploration pits to determine what was under and around the hill. This work is being carried out carefully and slowly,

According to Chinese press reports, over the past ten years, more than forty thousand pits and trenches have been drilled in the area of ​​the tomb over an area of ​​more than ten square kilometers. But this explored area represents approximately a sixth of that occupied by the tomb and its accompanying structures.

When pits were laid in order to determine the size and configuration of the mausoleum, archaeologists twice came across tunnels made by robbers in ancient times. Both tunnels touched the wall of the mausoleum, but did not penetrate it. And although the western and southern walls of the tomb have not yet been fully explored, according to indirect data, scientists are increasingly convinced that the emperor’s mausoleum was not destroyed and plundered, as the chroniclers reported. This allows us to hope that everything inside the mausoleum remains the same or almost the same as on the day the jade doors closed.

And one more interesting detail: the soil samples from the hill have a high mercury content. She could not get there by natural means, therefore, the reports of the historian Sima Qian that on the floor of the tomb there was a huge map of the world, with rivers and oceans made of mercury, are true.

So far, only three crypts have been discovered, 1.5 km east of the tomb, containing thousands of terracotta figurines (known as bing ma yun) and two sets of huge bronze chariots and horses to the west of the mausoleum.








For centuries, robbers have tried to find treasures in the imperial tombs. For some, these attempts cost their lives. Surprisingly, the clay soldiers protected the spirit of their master as best they could. It is said that not a single human skeleton was found among the excavated statues.

Today even the clay from which the walls are made has turned golden. One clay brick from the Qin Shi Huang era costs tens of thousands of dollars. The owner of just one brick can exchange it for, say, a decent mansion in the vicinity of Beijing.

And I “rooted” for the Terracotta Army when they chose “7 New Wonders of the World.” The army failed to become a leader, which is a pity. But she deservesly takes an honorable 8th place. Well, “8th Wonder of the World” sounds good too!


Looking into the empty clay eyes, you are overcome with involuntary trepidation. There is something there, inside. Maybe it’s true that the souls of the warriors, after their earthly life, inhabited the shells prepared for them, and are now forced to languish in terracotta bodies forever, to protect their king, despite the passing millennia.

History of mankind. Vostok Zgurskaya Maria Pavlovna

Qin Shi Huangdi (Born 259 BC – died 210 BC)

Qin Shi Huangdi

(Born 259 BC – died 210 BC)

The Emperor of China, who created a single centralized empire, was an opponent of Confucianism, on whose orders humanities literature was burned and 460 scientists were executed.

In the history of Ancient China, a prominent place belongs to Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, the unifier of the country and reformer, who acted with very cruel methods.

In the middle of the 3rd century BC. e. There were seven independent states on the territory of China - Han, Zhao, Wei, Yan, Qi and Qin. Among them, the Qin Kingdom was the most backward culturally, but had great human and material resources. The reforms of Shang Yang, the first adviser to one of the Qin kings, which made it possible to strengthen the royal power and army of the state, were also important for strengthening Qin. This made it possible for the Qin people to go to war against the “Six Kingdoms East of the Mountains” - as the other six Chinese states were called in the Qin kingdom - and conquer significant territories.

In 246 BC. e. After the death of King Zhuang Xiang-wan, his son Ying Zheng ascended to the throne of the Qin kingdom. He was only 13 years old. The boy came to power in a very cruel era, alien to the ideas of humanism, and, without a doubt, learned examples of barbaric attitude towards people. More recently, in 260 BC. e., just a year before the birth of the prince, after a large-scale battle near Changping (Shanxi province), the Qin people buried 400 thousand surrendered warriors of the Zhou kingdom into the ground alive. Undoubtedly, Ying Zheng knew about this and admired the heroism of his compatriots.

The regent under the young king (in China they were called Vans) was Xiang, a former merchant Lü Bu-wei, who actually ruled the state under Zhuang Xiang-wan. That is why, at first, after Ying Zheng came to power, nothing changed in state policy. But Lü Bu-wei understood perfectly well that upon reaching adulthood, the young king, who was distinguished by his independent and capricious character, would cease to obediently carry out his orders. And he decided to remove the ruler he disliked. The cunning Xiang brought a devoted man named Lao Ai closer to Ying Zheng’s mother. The widow quickly appreciated the merits of the new courtier, and he soon began to enjoy unlimited power.

In 238 BC. e. Lao Ai conspired. He stole the royal seal from the queen and, together with his supporters, tried to capture the Qinyan Palace, where Ying Zheng was at that time. However, the king learned about the danger in time and managed to avoid it. Lao Ai was executed. The same fate befell 19 other major officials who participated in the conspiracy. All members of their clans were executed along with them. Another 4 thousand families involved in the conspiracy were exiled to the distant province of Sichuan and stripped of all ranks.

Ying Zheng understood perfectly well that the main organizer of the conspiracy was Lü Bu-wei. However, he was not so easy to deal with. Only a year later, upon reaching adulthood, the king removed the adviser from his position. And the executions, arrests and torture associated with the coup attempt continued for several more years. Driven into a corner, Lü Bu-wei chose to commit suicide.

The place of Lü Bu-wei was taken by Li Si, a native of the kingdom of Chu. On his advice, the Qin Wang sent a huge army to the Han kingdom in 230. The Han king An Wang was captured, and the Qin people soon occupied the entire territory of their neighbors.

Han became the first state to be completely conquered by the Qin. In 228 BC. e. the same fate befell the kingdom of Zhao. In 225 BC. e. The kingdom of Wei was captured, in 223 - Chu, in 222 - Yan. The last to fall was the kingdom of Qi. All the weapons taken during the battles and from the population in the newly conquered territories were melted down into 12 statues and 12 bells. It is known that the weight of each statue was about 30 tons.

From scattered kingdoms, Ying Zheng created a single empire with centralized power and unified legislation. In 221 BC. e. Wang Qin took the title Qin Shi Huangdi, which meant "First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty" as well as "Earthly God".

The empire of Qin Shi Huang occupied a large territory. In the east, its borders reached the shores of the Bohai Bay and the borders of modern Korea. In the west - to the central part of modern Gansu province, in the south - to the river. Beijiang. The northern border ran along the bend of the river. Yellow River, then followed along the Yingshan ridge to Liaodong. Moreover, the population of the conquered provinces was more than three times the number of Qin residents.

The first six years of the emperor's reign were spent implementing various reforms and grandiose events within the country. First of all, Qin Shi Huang tried to justify in the eyes of the people his right to govern the conquered countries. According to the canonized history of the Qin dynasty, created for this purpose, his family was attributed an origin going back to time immemorial. Among the ancestors was a certain Da Fei, who allegedly helped the legendary rulers of the kingdoms of central China, who taught the Chinese useful skills. With Great Yu he carried out irrigation work, and with Shun he tamed animals.

However, legends alone were not enough. The emperor hastened to promulgate a decree in which he accused the kings of the six conquered states of intending to seize the kingdom of Qin. It was they, in his opinion, who were guilty of starting the wars and therefore were justly punished. This was also supposed to justify the atrocities committed by the Qin army in enemy territories.

It was necessary to think about the system of governing the empire. Most of the emperor's associates, led by Xiang Wang Guan, proposed to put the sons of Qin Shi Huang at the head of the conquered countries. However, the wise Li Si, who did not hold high positions in the state due to the fact that he was not a native of Qin, warned the emperor. He believed that sooner or later this would cause rivalry between the princes and lead to civil strife. He proposed leaving the country under the rule of the emperor. And Qin Shi Huangdi, who strived for unity of command, accepted his project, declaring: “The Celestial Empire has just been united, and to establish [independent] kingdoms again means preparing for war.”

The entire empire was divided into 36 districts, which in turn were divided into counties. Two governors were appointed to each district - a military and a civilian. They governed their territories with the help of an extensive bureaucratic apparatus, were appointed in the capital and could be removed at any time. To avoid unrest and conspiracies, 120 thousand households of noble and wealthy families from the former six kingdoms were relocated to the capital of the Xinyang empire.

In 213, Qin Shi Huangdi ordered the burning of all books kept in private collections, with the exception of fortune-telling books, treatises on medicine, agriculture, military affairs, religious issues and Qin history. (Other historical works were the ideological weapons of his opponents - the hereditary aristocracy.) However, it is noteworthy that these same publications in state libraries and book depositories were left intact.

Along with books from private libraries, the chronicles of all the conquered kingdoms and the books of Confucian scholars perished, which, in fact, was the tyrant’s goal. As a result, only the history of the Qin dynasty remained known to the people, which could be painted in any color: after all, it was now impossible to refute anything on the basis of written sources. Those caught reading or discussing the famous Book of Songs or Shijing (historical documents) were executed, and those who made references to antiquity were sent into exile.

Any dissatisfaction with the new order was brutally suppressed. Prisons where torture was widely used were overcrowded; Convicts dressed in scarlet shirts walked all the roads of the empire.

The state treasury was replenished through extortionate taxes. By the end of the reign of Qin Shi Huang, land taxes, for example, accounted for two-thirds of a farmer's income. The population hid from officials and fled from villages. Buvanzheni appeared in the empire - a whole category of fugitives hiding from taxes and an even more terrible disaster - duties.

There were two main duties in the state - military and labor. Both were life-threatening. It is clear that it is easy to die in war or while protecting the border. But the conditions for performing labor duties were so difficult that they often also ended in death. Here's just one example. To protect the empire from raids by its nomadic neighbors, Qin Shi Huangdi decided to build a Cyclopean wall on the northern border, the remains of which still amaze tourists in China. Before him, defensive structures had already been erected here, but the emperor ordered them to be repaired, expanded and combined into a single complex.

Crowds of people were drawn to the construction of the Great Wall of China. They died in the thousands from hunger and overwork, and those who tried to escape were walled up alive. The people's suffering associated with this grandiose construction is reflected in Chinese folklore. One of the most heartfelt legends in human history tells about the beauty Meng Jiang-nu, who fell in love with the young man Fan Xiliang, who fled from under the defensive walls erected by the emperor.

On the wedding day, guards burst into the house of Meng Jiang-nu's parents, took the groom and walled him up alive in the Great Wall. But Meng Jiang-nu did not want to believe in her husband’s death. She went to the Great Wall. Her tears split the wall exactly where Fan Xiliang's remains lay. And all attempts to restore the wall ended in failure. The officials informed Qin Shi-Huang about what had happened, and he ordered Meng Jiang-nu to be brought to his chambers. Her beauty made a huge impression on the emperor, and he decided to make her one of his wives. But Meng Jiang-nu first demanded that a tomb be built for her late husband, a temple erected in his honor and a sacrifice ritual performed, and Qin Shih-Huangdi himself had to perform it.

The Emperor fulfilled everything. A large fire was lit at Silyan’s grave, on which, according to custom, the sacrificial paper money was to be burned. But when the emperor arrived to perform the ceremony, Meng Jiang-nu herself threw herself into the fire. And that part of the wall that was destroyed by the tears of the beauty, according to legend, remained unfinished.

The Great Wall of China was the pinnacle of ancient Chinese construction technology. But not only defensive structures were the focus of Qin Shi Huang's attention. He saw the construction of magnificent palaces and other structures as a way to exalt his reign. It was not for nothing that the emperor issued a decree on the construction of palaces around the capital according to the best examples of the captured countries. And by the end of his reign, on the territory of the former kingdom of Qin there were 300 palaces out of the seven hundred that existed in the empire.

But even more luxurious was the emperor’s tomb, the construction of which lasted more than thirty-five years and ended after his death. Groundwater interfered with its construction. Then the builders had to pour molten copper into the foundation pit to prevent flooding, and at a distance of 8-10 km, dig huge pentagonal ceramic pipes into the ground, which helped drain the area. Inside the tomb, the builders imitated the vault of heaven and the earth's landscape. At the same time, the rivers and seas were filled with mercury. Skilled craftsmen also made crossbows that would hit anyone who tried to enter the tomb. However, the builders of the tomb suffered a sad fate. Following the example of his father, his heir, Er Shi Huangdi, ordered all the craftsmen who worked on the interior decoration to be walled up alive.

As already noted, general laws were introduced in the empire aimed at strengthening the supreme power. In fact, the laws of the Qin kingdom were extended to the entire empire. Unfortunately, the punishment system was very cruel. The empire had a so-called guarantee system, when in the case of anti-state crimes, three clans of the criminal were destroyed along with the perpetrator: the father’s, the mother’s and the wife’s clan. If a “criminal” kept forbidden literature or, even worse, made critical remarks about the emperor and his rule, his family was destroyed along with him. Depending on the degree of the crime, the main culprit could be quartered. In this case, the arms and legs of the condemned man were tied to four different chariots, then, on command, the bulls were set to gallop and the body was torn into pieces. It was also practiced, including for punishment for economic and criminal crimes, cutting (a living person) in half or into pieces; decapitation after execution, and in especially severe cases - beheading followed by display of the head on a pole in public places, usually in the market square; strangulation with the help of a string, which was twisted around the neck of the condemned person and twisted, then weakening, then strengthening, until the death of the victim; burying alive; cooking in a large cauldron; breaking ribs; piercing the crown of the head with a sharp object such as a nail, cutting out the kneecaps, cutting off the nose, branding, castration and beating on the heels (an extremely painful procedure).

The positive reforms of Qin Shi Huang include monetary reform, weights and measures reform, and writing reform. All of them, of course, were despotic in nature, but had a beneficial effect on the development of the Celestial Empire both during the reign of the Qin dynasty and after its fall.

After the conquest of the “Six Kingdoms East of the Mountains,” the Qin Empire was faced with the functioning of various banknotes. Among them were not only coins of various shapes and weights, but also pieces of jasper, turtle shells, and shells. Qin Shi Huangdi issued a decree introducing the highest gold currency and the lowest copper coin, strictly corresponding to a certain weight. The circulation of jasper, shells and other coin equivalents was strictly prohibited. All of them could only be used as decorations. The shape of the coins was also unified: from now on the copper coin had a round shape with a square hole. In this form, the Qin coin far outlived the history of the Qin dynasty and existed without any changes for over two thousand years.

At the time of the formation of the Qin Empire, approximately the same situation existed with regard to units of measurement of volume, weight and length. This interfered with the normal development of economic relations between individual parts of the empire and made it difficult to collect taxes. Therefore, back in 221 BC. e., immediately after the unification, Qin Shi Huang issued a decree on the adoption of uniform measures of weight, length and volume based on the measuring system of the Qin kingdom. The corresponding standards were produced and sent to all districts and districts of the empire. The text of the imperial edict was applied to the weights and other standards, which testified to their authenticity. Examples of these standards are now the pride of a number of Chinese historical museums.

No less problematic in the initial period of the formation of the empire was caused by the existence of large differences in the depiction of individual hieroglyphs. This made administrative and economic management of individual territories of the state almost impossible. Therefore, under the leadership of Li Si, the outline of hieroglyphs was simplified and unified. At the same time, the grammar, lexical composition and structure of the language remained unchanged. The new style of writing was called Xiaozhuan. It was declared the official state writing style, but never found widespread use. The Lishu style, which was distinguished by even greater simplicity of writing, came into practice. All the lawyers of the empire used it. It was also mainly used for private correspondence. Therefore, the lishu style in subsequent dynasties became the only type of writing, which, however, does not detract from the merits of Qin Shi Huangdi and Li Si, who were the first to attempt to unify Chinese writing.

It is noteworthy that the emperor did not limit himself to sitting in the capital in carrying out reforms. Already in 219, accompanied by a large retinue, he set off on a journey around the country to ensure that his decrees were carried out correctly and to ensure his own popularity among the people. In total, the emperor covered several thousand kilometers. In the territories of the conquered kingdoms, steles were erected, the inscriptions on which proclaimed the merits of the emperor as a peacemaker who put an end to continuous wars; the justice of his reforms and the personal merits of the ruler of the empire were emphasized.

But all the efforts of Qin Shi Huang to strengthen his authority did not achieve their goal. During one of these trips, an unsuccessful attempt was made on the emperor’s life, but the criminal could not be caught. There was also unrest on the borders of the empire. The main opponents of the Chinese at that time were the nomadic cattle-breeding tribes of the Xiongnu (Huns), who lived in the north and often disturbed the borders of the empire. In 215 BC. e. Qin Shi Huangdi sent an army against them, numbering about 300 thousand soldiers, led by the talented commander Meng Tian. In two years, Meng Tian conquered the vast territory of Henandi (modern Hetao County, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region), covering an area of ​​about 400 square meters, from the nomads. km. 44 districts were created in this territory, where 30 thousand families were resettled, providing them with preferential conditions and assigning them the rank of nobility.

At the same time, in the south, Qin Shi Huang's military actions were not defensive, but aggressive. Here the war was waged with numerous Yue tribes, who inhabited the modern Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi and had significant, in the understanding of the Qin people, wealth: rhinoceros horns (expensive medicines were prepared from them), ivory, feathers of rare birds, pearls and other valuables. The emperor sent a 500,000-strong army to the south, led by commander Tu Ju, which had a very difficult time in natural conditions unusual for the northerners. To supply it, it was necessary to build a canal connecting the river. Xianshui with a tributary of the Xijiang river. Lüshui and called by the Qin people “the road of food”. This somewhat improved the position of the army, but success in the campaign was achieved at the cost of new mobilization. Only after receiving reinforcements, Qin troops were able to capture Nam Viet and the eastern part of Aulak, where the districts of Nanhai (modern Guangdong Province), Guilin (modern Guangxi Province) and Xiang (a region in the northeast of modern Vietnam) were established. Residents of the central regions of the Qin Empire were resettled here, again on preferential terms.

State affairs increasingly fell on the shoulders of the emperor. Every day he looked through a huge number of reports and letters. Ancient sources say up to 30 kg of various papers. Over time, he became more and more despotic and did not want to share power with any of his advisers, assistants and heirs. All of them had to just follow orders, not daring to express their thoughts.

Thoughts of his imminent death overwhelmed the emperor. He became obsessed with the Taoist concept of immortality. Several thousand male and female slaves, led by the scientist Xu Fu, were sent in search of a cure for immortality, which, according to legend, was found among monks who lived on the islands of Penglai, Fangzhang and Yingzhou. Hundreds of alchemical scientists were sent throughout Asia in search of the legendary Island of Immortality. Others were forced to search for the recipe for the elixir of immortality. When this failed, Shi Huangdi ordered the execution of more than four hundred people who failed to meet his hopes of immortality.

Several assassination attempts made the emperor suspect everyone of treason. Like most tyrants, he tried not to spend the night in the same place twice and often moved from one palace to another. A servant who accidentally let slip about the ruler’s plans faced a painful execution. In each of the two hundred and seventy imperial palaces, everything was always ready for the arrival of Qin Shi Huang. No one had the right to change the furnishings in them or even rearrange individual things. Any suspicion of treason was punishable by death.

In 212, by order of Qin Shi Huangdi, a special check of officials for trustworthiness was carried out. As a result, over 460 dissatisfied with the regime were buried alive in the ground, and even more were sent into exile to guard the state borders.

However, the repressions did not reduce the number of dissatisfied people. One day in Dongjun County, an inscription appeared on a piece of a recently fallen meteorite: “When the emperor... dies, the earth will be divided.” The culprits could not be found. Then, by order of Shi Huangdi, a piece of stone was crushed into powder, and all the surrounding residents were executed.

Nevertheless, the inscription on the meteorite turned out to be prophetic. Fearing assassination attempts and evil spirits, Qin Shi Huangdi tried to appear before the people as rarely as possible. For this reason, the exact date of his death is not known. We only know that this happened in the summer of 210 BC. e. in Shaqiu (the territory of modern Shandong province).

In a brutal struggle for the throne, almost all the sons and daughters of the first Qin emperor were destroyed, including the eldest son and heir Fu Su. The more successful younger son Hu Hai ascended the throne, taking the name Er Shi Huangdi - Second Emperor of the Qin Dynasty. He followed his father’s example in everything, but was unable to suppress the court opposition and popular uprisings. After the death of Qin Shi Huang, the dynasty lasted only 15 years. However, emperors in China ruled for another two millennia, and the spirit of one of the most significant tyrants in human history lives on in China to this day. It is not for nothing that Emperor Qin Shi-Huangdi was one of the role models of the Great Helmsman Mao Zedong, who, like his example, is gradually becoming mythologized and becoming a pillar of the national identity of the Chinese.