The First Emperor of China

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It's March 1974, near Lintong, in China's Shaanxi province.

Spring has been tough.

The rains have held off, plunging the whole region into a deep drought.

To the south, the steep flanks of Mount Li would ordinarily trap water in gullies, funneling it into the lowland wells which feed the orchards of persimmon and pomegranate.

But not this year.

On the edge of the village, six brothers gather among their parched fruit trees.

They squat in the dust, cigarettes smoldering between their fingers, quietly scraping the dry earth.

They are all in their 40s and 50s, born and raised on this same patch of land.

where they tend these orchards, growing fruit to sell and eat.

Simple farmers living in small mud huts, they draw what little they can from the land.

But right now, the one thing their trees need to thrive is the one thing that's in perilously short supply.

Water.

As the sun climbs, The brothers shoulder their spades and head for a shallow cleft in the lower slopes of Mount Lee.

If there's any water to be found, it'll be somewhere along that vein.

They weave through trees just beginning to show fragile shoots of new growth and up to where they're planning to site their new well.

The eldest starts to dig, his spade crunching into the dry earth.

The ground gives grudgingly.

Taking it in turns, by mid-morning they've opened the mouth of a broad pit.

But then they hit a layer of dense red earth, as dry as bone and hard as iron.

The brothers know that long ago this area held large pottery kilns.

So maybe this is a roof.

After a brief discussion, they decide it's better to keep going than start again somewhere else.

It takes two more days to smash their way through the hard, baked layer.

But once they do, they can lift basket loads of soft earth to the surface quickly.

Soon, they start finding fragments of pottery.

Small at first, but then larger pieces.

Still intent on their search for water, they keep digging until one brother, deep in the hole, yells up that he's found a pot, and it's a big one.

Their spirits lift briefly as they all help to raise the jar from the ground.

If it's intact, it'll be useful for storing fruit.

But once it's out, they find it's not a jar at all, but part of a ceramic torso.

Useless, worse than useless, bad luck, because it comes from underground, the dwelling place of the dead.

Then, From down in the ditch comes another shout.

The brothers crowd round, gasps catching in their throats.

Sticking out of the dirt is a head of fired clay.

Two blank eyes staring up, long hair tied in a bun, a splendid moustache.

A whisper of red still clings to his cheek.

Faded pigment, a ghost of the colors this warrior once wore.

One of the brothers touches the head with his spade, and the clunk tells him it's intact and solid.

They may not have found water, but what they have found is something that has lain hidden for over 2,000 years.

The tomb of the first emperor of China and the first glimpse of his vast terracotta army.

In the third century BC, China was a land fractured by war, a patchwork of rival kingdoms struggling for dominance.

Out of this chaos rose a single, extraordinary figure who would reshape the course of history, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.

Through conquest, cunning, and relentless ambition, He unified the warring states into a single empire, laying the foundations for what would become one of the world's world's greatest civilizations.

His achievements were monumental, standardizing currency, weights, measures, and even the written word.

But his reign was also marked by ruthlessness, harsh laws, forced labor, and a suppression of dissent.

But tyrant or visionary, how did this teenage king rise to seize power, overcome his enemies, and declare himself China's first emperor?

What drove him to undertake colossal projects like the early Great War, the canals and roads, and his immense underground mausoleum guarded by the terracotta army?

And how might his obsession with immortality have led to his mysterious death?

I'm John Hopkins.

From the Noiser Network, this is a short history of the first emperor of China.

Before 475 BC, China is a land in turmoil, united neither by border nor a single ruler.

It's a time of shifting allegiances, local power battles, and constant discord.

John Mann is an historian, travel writer, and author of The Terracotta Army, China's First Emperor and the Birth of a Nation.

Before the first emperor, that is around about the 5th century BC, China was a huge mass of minor states and city-states, rather like the Holy Roman Empire became for Europe.

And they were in constant conflict with each other, each one trying to expand itself and defend itself.

And over the years, they whittled themselves down to seven states.

These seven rival states, the Qin, Chu, Zhao, Wei, Han, Yan, and Qi, are locked in brutal conflict.

Known as the Warring States Period, it lasts almost 250 years, as each kingdom fights for superiority, seeking to expand their territories and crush their enemies.

It's a world defined by betrayal and bloodshed, where survival depends on military strength, strategic brilliance, and merciless ambition.

At the heart of the conflict lies a fierce competition for power and resources, but also for control over key trade routes and fertile lands.

As the years pass, advances in warfare like the use of crossbows, cavalry, and large, disciplined infantry armies make the battles increasingly destructive.

Entire cities are sacked, populations enslaved, and countless lives lost.

This constant state of war creates a harsh and pragmatic political culture where rulers rely on cunning advisors, spies and generals to outmaneuver their foes.

It is into this crucible of war that a young boy named Ying Zheng, the future Qin Shi Huang, is born in 259 BC.

He is the son of a concubine of the Crown Prince of Qin and pretty low down the royal pecking order.

That said, the issue of succession is not clear because the Crown Prince's official wife is infertile.

But as a boy, he comes to the attention of an ambitious merchant called Lu Buwei, who sees potential.

and perhaps the promise of fulfilling some ambitions of his own.

Well, his origins are rather obscure because he was a minor prince who had been sent off to a neighboring state as a hostage.

This is common practice at the time.

It ensured reasonable behavior, supposedly, between the warring states.

And he was found by a merchant who saw in him, a minor prince, the possibility of progress.

To cut a long story short, He talked his way into the Qin court, appealed to the queen, queen who was barren, had himself turned into an adopted son.

Ying Jung is now thrust into the heart of a dangerous world.

With Liu Buwei constantly by his side, when the wily merchant is not entertaining the queen, that is, Ying Jung grows up in a court rife with intrigue.

He quickly learns that power is fragile, while trust is something to be bestowed sparingly.

Advisors whisper, alliances shift, and assassinations are not uncommon.

This environment likely instills in him the paranoia he will carry throughout his life.

At the same time, the continual conflict outside Qin's borders is reshaping the landscape of China, and with it, the young Ying Zheng's ambitions.

The fact of constant warfare had two contradictory effects.

One was a worry about how people should live together.

And from that stems what we call Confucianism.

Confucius said that human beings are basically virtuous and you can build on this virtue.

And there was an equal and opposite tendency which said, no, the way to achieve peace was to always prepare for war and constantly fight.

And in order to do that, you had to have an assumption that human beings were not good at all, but were fundamentally bad, untrustworthy, and had to be controlled from the top.

And this was a system known as legalism, which depended on the law and depended on total control of the population.

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The Chin state is known for its strict legalist philosophy, emphasizing obedience and the supremacy of the state over the individual.

This ethos teaches the young prince that peace can only be achieved through total domination, and that these rival kingdoms will never stop fighting unless someone forces them to.

As he watches Qin's armies gradually expand their territory, Ying Zheng begins to envision a future where China could finally be united under his rule.

At the age of just 13, Ying Zheng ascends to the throne of Qin following the death of the crown prince.

But his youth and inexperience make him vulnerable in a court teeming with rivalries.

In addition to contending with the rivalry of his step-siblings, Ying Zheng must navigate the influence of his mother, Queen Dowager Zhao, and her many lovers.

One of these is Liu Buwe, who remains a key advisor and tutor, acting as a sort of regent alongside the Queen Dowager to control the machinery of the state.

For years, Ying Zheng remains little more than a figurehead, watching and learning as Liu Buwei maneuvers to maintain his dominance.

The advisor's position, though, is precarious.

He has powerful allies.

but also enemies who question his loyalty to the young king and peddle in rumors about his relationship with the Queen Dowager.

As Ying Zheng enters manhood, he begins to assert himself.

Seeing how power can be wielded and how easily it can be lost, he quietly prepares to take control.

By the time he reaches his 20s, he is ready to break free from Lu Bu Wei's grip.

and to reshape the kingdom in his own image.

In 238 BC, Ying Zheng turns 21 and holds a grand coming-of-age ceremony in the capital of Jinyang.

No longer a boy king, he formally assumes full control of the throne.

With adulthood comes authority, and he moves decisively against those who threaten his power.

Aware that Lu Bu Wei's influence still poses a danger, Ying Zheng acts with political cunning rather than brute force.

He strips his former mentor of his titles, exiling him from court under the pretense of sparing his life.

I mean the whole thing was an explosive situation, which he as a teenager had to seize control of.

And that's what he did.

He might have pleased his mother and his protector by simply doing as he was asked.

But in fact, what he did was follow the legalist advice of one of his other advisors and sent his mother away into exile, exiled his protector, Liu Bu Wei, who eventually committed suicide, killed his two younger step-brothers and seized power in a very big way.

Liu Bu Wei's death marks the final collapse of the old power structure and solidifies Ying Zheng's absolute control over Qin.

With his enemies eliminated and the old factions dismantled, he is free to pursue his grand ambition, the unification of China.

By the time he becomes sole ruler, Qin has already established itself as the most powerful of the warring states, thanks to its army and military technology, and its adherence to the harsh but efficient principles of legalism.

But the other six rival kingdoms still stand in the way of Ying Zheng's plan to bring the whole country under his rule.

The path to unification comes at a bloody cost as he launches a relentless campaign to conquer them all.

It begins in 230 BC when he invades the small and weakened state of Han.

Over the next decade, his armies systematically defeat his enemies.

But he doesn't stop until he has completely absorbed their lands and dismantled their political structures to eliminate any threat to Qin's supremacy.

Over a period of a decade, we don't have any details of how he actually did it, but the end result was that they all rolled over and he was victorious over them all.

And because Qin was perhaps the strongest of the strong and the most ruthless of the six states, he defeated them all and unified what became the core of China.

And of course, we get the name China from his state, Qin, spelled QIN.

By 221 BC, Ying Zheng is close to achieving what no one before him has managed in over 200 years: total unification under one ruler.

All that's left is to take the last holdout: the wealthy and isolated state of Qi.

King Xian of Qi stands on the balcony of his palace, looking out over the eastern city of Linzi, his capital.

Dawn is approaching, but shadows still cling to the narrow streets and tiled rooftops.

Below him, the city is quiet, too quiet.

The heavy silence of a people holding their breath, braced for a terrible, inevitable fate.

There are no merchants in the square, and families are hiding in their homes, clutching their children close.

Soldiers stand motionless at the gates, hands resting uneasily on the hilts of their swords.

They know.

Everyone knows.

The Chin army is coming.

The king turns away from the balcony and walks slowly back inside, his footsteps echoing in the empty hall.

By the time he finally reaches the gates of the palace, the sky is a glowing fire of pinks and oranges as the sun rises over the open plains and low hills beyond the city.

He surveys the ranks of his soldiers standing in rigid silence, ready to defend.

Their faces are grim, resigned.

Some of them glare at him, others can't quite meet his gaze.

None of them wanted it to come to this.

Then a sound draws his eye to a spot in the distance.

At first, it's just a low, dark shape on the horizon, but it grows taller and sharper until it resolves into the banners and spears of Qin's army.

Dust billows beneath their feet.

as they march, a relentless and indifferent tide.

King Jiang stands still, watching them come, the thud of their war drums carrying on the wind, along with the clipped shouts of commanders.

When the army finally halts, a single rider breaks away from the formation and approaches the king.

A general, his army dented and streaked with dust, He carries himself with the unshakable certainty of a man who has never lost a battle.

He dismounts and strides towards King Xi'an,

who now kneels on the cold, damp earth and holds out the royal seal, the symbol of Qi's sovereignty.

All hold their breath and wait.

The general bends to take the seal.

A moment later, he turns and raises his hand.

Behind him, the banners of Qin unfurl with a soft ripple that carries all the way to the walls of the city.

It's over.

Qi has fallen.

The unification of China is complete.

With Qi's surrender in 221 BC, the warring states period finally comes to an end.

And for the first time in history, China has just one ruler.

To mark his unprecedented achievement, Ying Zheng decides it's time for a rebrand.

He needs a new title, one which befits his glorious status.

It's a big problem as to what he should call himself, because this is unprecedented.

And clearly it had to be related somehow to Qin.

And he was going to be the first of a dynasty of a whole line.

So Qin and first had to be part of the title.

And there was an ancient title of Huang Di, which means August Emperor, and this came from a distant past, and he applied it to himself.

So he called himself Qin Shi Huang Di, the Qin first August Emperor.

As the first to rule a truly unified China, he often embarks on long imperial tours.

inspecting his lands and monitoring the improvements he immediately begins instituting.

But for the first emperor, emperor, conquering China is only the beginning.

Now he moves quickly to consolidate control and set about building an empire that will last for eternity.

Laying the groundwork for a truly unified state, he imposes a uniform system of writing, currency, and measurements.

He even dictates the axle width of carts.

to fit the new imperial roads.

He coordinated then all the seven nations together and instituted a social revolution such as China had never seen before because all these states had separate traditions of script, of number systems, of clothing, of weights and measures and all these were then brought together by the first emperor and coordinated into single systems.

And this was a revolution.

By enforcing a single writing system, the Emperor creates a shared cultural and administrative language that will outlast his reign and form the basis of modern written Chinese.

A standard coinage to replace regional currency streamlines trade and taxation.

The new round bronze coins feature square holes representing the cosmic balance of the world.

The circle of the coin symbolizes the heavens while the square signifies the earth.

But the design serves a practical purpose, too,

with the holes allowing them to be strung together, making them easier to carry and exchange.

At the same time, he abolishes the old feudal aristocracies, stripping nobles of their titles and relocating them to the capital, while dividing the empire into 36 commanderies governed by officials loyal to him alone.

He incorporated the whole lot in his own system.

So he had huge numbers of soldiers in his army, all the bureaucrats he could possibly need, and peasants below who would produce the food for the army.

The big problem then is what to do with that army, because an army has to be employed in order to keep it active, because an inactive army is potentially revolutionary.

And it's from that that came the first emperor's urge to have enormous building projects.

He sets his huge but largely dormant army to work on improving China's infrastructure, building thousands of miles of roads and canals, connecting the capital Xianyang to the farthest reaches of the empire.

This new transport network allows for the rapid movement of armies, goods and officials.

tightening the emperor's control over his vast territory.

And the construction doesn't stop stop there.

Lavish palaces are constructed, including grand administrative complexes to protect the Emperor's authority and accommodate his centralized bureaucracy.

Monumental public works rise across the landscape, all echoing a single message.

The Emperor's power is absolute, and his reach extends to every corner of the realm.

But not all of Qin Shu Huang's building is focused inwards.

As he looks to the empire's borders, his ambition turns to defense, on a scale never before imagined.

He is going to build a wall to keep out the rising barbarian empire to the north.

There was a long tradition of walls in the warring states before because cities and states had begun to build walls to defend themselves.

And as a result of what he had done, the barbarians of the north unified and created their own empire.

And it was against them that he built the Great Wall.

Rather than starting from scratch, the Emperor orders the linking and expansion of existing regional walls built by the former warring states.

Combining them into a single unified defensive barrier stretching across the northern frontier, he creates an early iteration of what will become the Great Wall of China.

It is a staggering display of imperial will.

Hundreds of thousands of conscripted laborers, many of them prisoners or commoners punished for minor crimes, are forced to work under harsh and often deadly conditions.

Though it fails to provide impenetrable protection, the wall leaves a legacy that far outlives the Qin dynasty itself.

Having brought the central plains and the fertile lands along the Yellow and Yangtze River under his rule when he conquered the warring states, he now pushes northwards against the nomadic Xiongnu tribes beyond his borders.

Meanwhile, to the south, his armies drive into the Lingnan region, securing valuable agricultural and mineral wealth for his ever-growing empire.

With the structure of the empire now secured, the first emperor turns his attention to something even more ambitious, reshaping the minds of his people.

In 213 BC, he orders the destruction of ancient texts and the silencing of dissenting scholars.

Still inspired by the harsh legalist philosophy under which he was raised, the first emperor seeks to erase the old world and remake China in his image.

One unified law, one vision of history, one truth.

While scholars mourn the loss of wisdom and tradition, the emperor presses on, pitilessly punishing anyone who defies his edicts.

According to later historical accounts, Qin Shi Huang's war on knowledge reaches its darkest point with an alleged mass execution.

In 212 BC, he is said to have ordered over 400 Confucian scholars buried alive, but defying his regime and criticizing his reforms.

But the true brutality of his rule can never be fully known.

As with so much of early history, this story is told not by contemporaries, but by chroniclers writing decades, even centuries later.

And the most influential among them had little interest in impartiality.

The whole the source of all this information is pretty crucial because it was only written up a couple of hundred years later by a great historian who had his own personal reasons for portraying the first emperor as even worse than he was.

The historian's name was Sima Qian,

and he wrote wonderfully evocative and dramatic accounts of the first emperor in order to criticize his own emperor.

If he'd criticized his own emperor directly, he would have been torn apart very quickly by chariots galloping off in different directions.

So he criticized the first emperor instead.

We cannot say for certain that books were burned, though the historian Sima Qian writes that all works deemed counterproductive to the first emperor's vision of a unified empire are destroyed in this purge.

This allegedly includes an expansive range of texts, from philosophical works to historical records and literary classics.

The aim is to suppress dissenting ideas, particularly those of Confucianism, which advocates for a decentralized, morally guided governance.

Only practical works on medicine, agriculture, and divination are spared, as they are seen as useful for maintaining the empire's practical needs.

But since there is no archaeological evidence to support the specifics of the claims, Sima Qian's account must be taken with a pinch of salt.

Whether fact or fable, the image of a ruler who governs through fear, unifies through force, and destroys history with fire makes for an impressive illusion of a godlike man who will stop at nothing to shape his empire.

Sima Chen makes him extremely scary.

He was pigeon-breasted and rather small, and extremely scary insofar as he had a vile temper.

Anyone who mentioned his mother, for instance, was likely to be executed.

But not everyone is willing to bend to his will.

Across the empire, discontent simmers.

Former nobles, dispossessed scholars, and the people struggling under the weight of forced labor, heavy taxation, and extreme punishments now whisper of rebellion.

Rumors of resistance, potential uprisings, even assassination plots reach his ears.

But despite his best efforts, dissent is not fully extinguished.

As Qin She Huang's empire expands and his power solidifies, his paranoia grows.

But so too does his obsession with immortality.

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From the moment he ascended to the throne, the first emperor has been aware of both the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death.

Despite his successes, his conquests, and everything he's achieved for the empire, he develops a growing sense of vulnerability.

Driven by the fear of death, he embarks on a tireless but ultimately destructive quest to secure eternal life.

The idea of immortality is not new to the emperor or to anyone in China at the time.

In ancient Chinese belief, the soul is seen as having two parts, the Po, the earthly soul which remains tied to the body, and the Hun,

the spirit soul, which journeys into the afterlife.

For centuries, ancient Chinese texts, many of which he has recently ordered destroyed, have spoken of a spirit world mirroring the tangible one.

It's a place where the spirit soul would live on.

surrounded by the same comforts, hierarchies, and protections it enjoyed on earth.

Maybe understanding that true immortality is beyond even the reach of a ruler such as himself, he is also pursuing protections and securities for his spirit life after death.

His approach is both spiritual and practical.

He uses elixirs, secret potions, and mystical solutions to defy the inevitable.

He summons alchemists and shamans, hoping that they can create a draft that will grant him everlasting youth.

Some of those he consults promise him the secret to a long earthly life as well as secure afterlife, only to ply him with concoctions laced with gold, mercury, arsenic, lead, copper, and other toxins.

Though these substances are thought to not necessarily prolong life, but to prevent the body's decay after death, in reality, they serve only to slowly poison the patient.

At the same time, he begins preparations for his eternal soul, ensuring that he will be as protected in the spirit world as he is in this one.

One of his obsessions was to achieve the immortality that had been mooted by Taoist philosophers who thought that by taking various chemicals, it would be possible for the human body to survive death and to have an existence in the spirit world, where it would have an existence similar to something on Earth.

So other emperors, and in a way this emperor, wanted to equip themselves with things, the stuff of this world, in order to look after themselves in the next world.

And that's where the terracotta army comes in.

Work on Chin She Huang's tomb actually begins just months after he became king at the age of 13, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Now, with the unification complete and his empire in place, his ambitions for a mausoleum have adapted into something fit for an emperor who rules by heaven's will.

Determined that even death should not diminish his authority, he orders the construction of an extraordinary subterranean tomb complex that will house him for eternity.

It's designed as a microcosm of life above ground, a symbolic representation of his empire.

And when the time comes, he won't be alone down there.

While there is no record of an official empress by marriage, the first emperor has numerous concubines, many of whom will be required to join him when his spirit-soul journeys into the afterlife.

Those who have borne him one of his 20 sons will live on, but those who have not produced a son by the time of his death will join him in the tomb.

There is even a rumor that the engineers who design and build the tomb will join the emperor in death, knowing as they do the secrets of its layout.

But he has no intention of taking it easy in the afterlife.

Just as he is ruled and conquered in life, So he intends to continue in death.

He will still be an emperor, and every emperor needs an army.

He commissions thousands of larger-than-life-sized clay soldiers, horses, and chariots, all meticulously crafted and positioned in battle formation, ready to fight.

Hundreds of thousands of workers, including artisans, laborers, soldiers, and prisoners, toil day and night to build this gigantic subterranean world.

The terracotta warriors who will populate it have unique facial features and hairstyles, intricate stone armor, and real weapons.

6,000 of these statues will rank in the first pit, ready for battle.

In a second pit will be scores of wooden chariots and many hundreds of horses, cavalrymen, and archers.

1,300 figures in all.

A third pit, much smaller by comparison, will contain 68 well-spaced figures and a four-horse chariot facing the exit ramp.

This is the command center of the terracotta army, from where the action will be directed in the spirit battle, with the chariot ready to carry a messenger into the spectral field.

In addition to the army, there are other representations of the living world.

A real water garden built around an underground spring.

complete with bronze swans, cranes, and geese, all attended by 15 further terracotta figures, some kneeling, some stretched out in relaxation.

And the jewels in the crown will be two exquisite half-sized bronze carriages with moving wheels, removable parasols and weapons, all embellished with rich lacquer and accents of gold and silver.

With work on the monumental tomb in hand, the first emperor embarks on his fifth tour of Eastern China.

Before he and his entourage of servants and guards set off, his youngest son, Prince Hu Hai, on whom the Emperor dotes, pleads to come along too.

With Hu Hai comes his tutor, Zhao Gao, whose father died to save the first emperor's father many years ago, and who has himself risen from palace eunuch to senior court official and the keeper of the seals.

This journey is more than just a tour of the Eastern Empire.

It's another step in the Emperor's pursuit of immortality, a search for hidden sages, enchanted isles, and the elusive elixir of life.

But though the Emperor presses on with imperial certainty, the road is running out beneath his feet.

Just a few weeks into their journey, Chin Shi Huang falls ill.

At first it's dismissed.

fatigue from the road perhaps, or the heat rising off the coastal plains.

But his condition worsens with alarming speed.

His appetite fades, his limbs tremble, his skin turns sallow beneath the heavy robes of state.

Some whisper it's poison.

One too many doses of the potions meant to cheat death, though typhus is another possibility.

Within days, the man who once commanded armies and reshaped a nation cannot stand on his own.

And yet, word of his condition cannot be allowed to spread.

Any hint of weakness could spark panic, or worse, rebellion.

Now, having reached the level plains of eastern China, his convoy of identical black lacquered carriages stands motionless, like a funeral procession paused in time, waiting for news of the Emperor's fate.

It's 210 BC on a grassy plain a couple of hundred miles inland of the Yellow Sea.

The Imperial camp sprawls across the sun-scorched landscape, a maze of silk-draped tents and lacquered carts shimmering in the heat.

Crimson banners flutter from carved wooden poles, each bearing the black symbol of Qin.

Smoke from breakfast fires coils lazily into the air, mingling with the scent of millet porridge, horses, and the faint tang of medicinal herbs.

Guards in iron-scaled armor patrol the camp's perimeter, their movements crisp and quiet, while servants scurry between pavilions, their footsteps muffled by layers of dust and trampled grass.

Zhao Gao, dressed in his deep indigo silk traveling robes, makes his way through the campsite, balancing the Emperor's breakfast on an ornate tray.

His face is a picture of worry and distress.

But it's not just because of his master's failing health.

Only yesterday, Qin Shi Huang called into his tent to take down a brief but vital message.

Fearing that his life is at its end, the Emperor is looking to his succession.

The message must be sent to his eldest but estranged son, Fu Su, in the event of his father's death.

It reads simply, Come to my funeral in Jinyang and bury me.

But Zhao Gao has reservations about sending the missive.

Once heir apparent, the principled Fu Su fell out of favor.

after opposing the emperor over the burial of the Confucian scholars.

Since Since then, he has been languishing far to the north, guarding the frontier surrounded by supporters that stand in direct opposition to Zhao Gao.

Picking his way across the dry earth, Zhao Gao knows only too well that the brief order in his pocket will be read by Fu Su as an apology, recalling him to the capital and clearing his way to the throne.

As he approaches the Emperor's quarters, the guards straighten up and one of them lifts the flap to allow him to carry the tray inside.

Ducking into the tent, he waits for the crisp voice that usually greets him, but instead, he is met with silence.

Laying the tray down, Zhao Gao leans over to confirm his worst fears.

The first emperor lies motionless beneath embroidered covers, his skin waxy, his jaw slightly open.

There is no mistaking it, no need to call for the imperial physician.

He is dead.

Instead of the clamor that should follow, Zhao Gao remains silent.

He does not cry out that the Emperor is gone, but remains inside, thinking it over.

quietly emptying the tea into the dry ground.

No one can know of this yet.

Not even the Emperor's youngest son, camped just a few tents away.

For now, the future of the Empire is in Zhao Gao's hands.

He still holds the Emperor's final letter, the one that could change everything.

Even more importantly, he still holds the Emperor's imperial seals.

In the awful silence, As he stacks the empty breakfast vessels back onto the tray, he knows that the Emperor's death is his his secret to keep for now.

Before anything can be announced, there are decisions to be made.

At the time, he was on a sort of mission all the way around the empire in order to make ritual sacrifices and to show himself to his people.

And he was coming back towards Xiangyang, the capital, when he fell ill and died.

And that released a plot, which is also a wonderful story, insofar as his death was kept secret in order that his succession could be well managed.

Zhao Gao immediately puts a cunning plan into action, carefully orchestrated to keep his power intact.

The Emperor's final decree, recalling his eldest son to the capital to claim the throne, is easily destroyed.

And since he takes dictation for most of the imperial edicts and still has the imperial seals, he simply writes a new command, ordering the succession to Prince Hu Hai, the Emperor's youngest son, who is far more malleable.

To ensure that the elder son Fu Su doesn't take control, Zhao sends a secret order, supposedly from the Emperor, telling the young man to commit suicide.

suicide.

Unaware of his father's death and not suspecting a plot, the prince does as he's told.

In this critical moment, Zhao Gao eliminates the last obstacle standing in the way of his succession plan.

All he has to do now is get the body back some 300 miles to the capital without anyone finding out that the emperor is dead.

This job is made somewhat easier by Qin Shi Huang's paranoia of being assassinated.

The Imperial Party always travels in a convoy of identical covered carriages, which switch and change position as they journey along, so that no one ever knows which one contains the Emperor.

Zhao Gao will use that to his advantage now.

But while the enclosed chariots maintain the secrecy of where the emperor is, his body poses another serious challenge in the form of rapid and fragrant decomposition in the summer heat.

To mask the smell and prevent any suspicion arising during the long journey home, Zhao orders that some of the other carriages be filled with fish.

The fish, preserved in salt, mask the odor of the decaying body.

allowing the Emperor's remains to be transported without raising alarm.

The tactic ensures no one can discern which of the carriages holds the emperor's body, keeping the secret intact until Zhao is ready to reveal the truth.

The official announcement of the emperor's death comes after several weeks, once the entire party have returned to the capital.

By this point, Zhao has ensured that the court has remained in order and that Hu Hai is ready to take the reins.

The Emperor is mourned as a great leader and is interred in his tomb.

But it will be another two years before the mausoleum is completed in 208 BC.

He had to be taken home pretty quickly to Shanyang and then transported to his tomb, which would then have to be filled in.

The Terracotta army is a separate pit, so that was dealt with separately.

But the tomb itself had to be given its grave goods and then covered in a way that would not collapse, presumably with wooden structures and then huge amounts of earth piled on top to create the 150-meter mound up which you can walk today.

Finally, the first emperor can rest with his thousands-strong army of terracotta soldiers to guard him for all eternity.

But Zhao Gao's succession plan begins to unravel almost immediately.

Prince Hu Hai proves inept as an emperor.

He's too easily manipulated and unable to control the vast empire his father built.

His reign is marked by poor decisions, and his failure to manage the court and military weakens his position.

As unrest grows, Factions within the court become disillusioned with his leadership.

In 207 BC, a revolt is staged against Hu Hai, led by a former ally of his father's, along with other disgruntled court members.

Zhao Gao's influence over the young emperor crumbles as the conspiracy unfolds.

Finally, Hu Hai is arrested and ultimately forced to commit suicide, bringing an abrupt end to his reign.

The empire, already weakened by infighting and corruption, quickly fragments.

Shortly after Hu Hai's death, the brief Qin dynasty, lasting only two rulers, collapses swiftly.

But the legacy of Qin She Huang endures.

His brutal consolidation of power, legal reforms, and monumental achievements like the Great Wall and the Terracotta Army leave an indelible mark on history.

Though China fractures once more into warring states after the fall of the Qin dynasty, when it begins to stabilize and expand under Emperor Wu some 150 years later, it does so by building on the foundation laid by the first emperor.

Known for his harsh rule and merciless methods, he unified China through fear and force.

And yet, his vision of a centralized empire and a unified nation continues to shape the future.

Because of the historian Si Ma Qian, he remained absolutely crucial to the idea of unity.

The first emperor's empire lasted only just over a decade.

I mean, it's nothing in many ways.

But what it did was provide a unity that remained part of the Chinese government's aim, of all the empire's aims, from then onwards.

The idea of unity has gripped China, whoever was in command of it, and however scattered and broken it was, up until the present day.

But as with so much of ancient history, it's important to use caution when considering his story.

Despite the vast physical evidence of his ambitious rule, the accounts we have about his life come from a single historian writing many years after his death.

Everything we know about the first emperor should be taken slightly with a pinch of salt.

We have no idea, since there are no other sources, how true it was.

The only thing you can be sure of is that there was a great war, there was unification, he had huge palaces, he did have an enormously rich capital, and we know where all this took place, and there's been good archaeology to back up that.

But some of the more lurid details of how he came to power are to be doubted.

It makes wonderful television, but it may not be as true as the Chinese like to believe.

Next time on Short History, I will bring you a short history of the Manhattan Project.

They were pretty confident that a uranium bomb would work.

because they could do tests with very minute amounts and then scale up their theory to kilograms.

Ultimately, the uranium enrichment process was very inefficient, but by the summer of 1945, they had enough of this variant of uranium for just one bomb.

So, this must be one of the few times in military history where a significant new weapon is deployed without a full-scale test beforehand.

The first test was really Hiroshima.

That's next time.

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