Shih Huang Ti
2012/03/29
Background
The monarch known as Qin Shi Huang from November or December 260 BCE-September10, 210 BCE with personal name Ying Zheng was king of the Chinese State of Qin from 247 BCE to 221BCE officially still under the Zhou Dynasty. Then, first emperor of a unified China from 221 BCE to 210 BCE ruling under the name First Emperor Shih Huang Ti who are the powerful feudal state in northwest China. Why he name himself as Qin Shih Huang Ti? It brings a means First August and Divine Emperor of Qin. ‘First’ because he planned a long line of successors and ‘August and Divine’ as he was now equal to a god ‘Emperor’ which has separate himself from his ancestors who were only kings and dukes, and align himself with mythical emperors of the past.
Shih Huang Ti was the first ruler to unify all of China. He started out as king of Chin the most militaristic of the Warring States. In 221 BC his armies annexed the six states that rivaled Chin aided by espionage, bribery and war. He assumed the title of First Emperor who is Shih Huang Ti of a new dynasty the Chin. During his reign, Shih Huang-Ti destroyed the existing feudal structure and divided the empire into 36 provinces under a centralized administration. Networks of roads and canals were engineered, and the major part of the Great Wall was built. Weights, measures, coins, and written characters were standardized in a quest for cultural uniformity. Yet this also led to the burning of all books that diverged from official Chin philosophy and history. On his death Shih Huang-Ti was buried in great splendor entombed among 6,000 terra-cotta soldiers for him to summon in the afterlife. His autocratic rule and belief in magic had caused such resentment that the Chin dynasty collapsed four years later, even though it formed the model for all later dynasties.
Shi Huang Ti has some difficulty in managing his emperor. He decided to kill or banished those who opposed him or his ideas as one way to overcome workforce diversity. He is notorious for burning virtually all the books that remained from previous regimes. He even banned scholarly discussions of the past. He and his chief advisor Li Si passed a series of major economic and political reforms after unifying China. He undertook gigantic projects, which is including the first version of the Great Wall of China the famous city-sized mausoleum guarded by a life-sized Terracotta Army, and a massive national road system, all at the expense of numerous lives.
Besides, Qin Shi Huang ordered most existing books to be burned with the exception of those on astrology, agriculture, medicine, divination, and the history of the State of Qin. This would also serve the purpose of furthering the ongoing reformation of the writing system by removing examples of obsolete scripts. The book name was the Book of Songs or the Classic of History Classic of History. Who own the book must to be punished especially severely. Qin Shi Huang had some 460 scholars buried alive for owning the forbidden books. His oldest son Fusu criticized him for this act. The emperor's own library still had copies of the forbidden books but most of these were destroyed later when Xiang Yu burned the palaces of Xian Yang
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