Emperor Ch'in or Ch'in shih huang-ti, was the first Ch'in (Qin) Dynasty emperor. Attitudes towards this 3rd century B.C. emperor vary. Some consider his government unprincipled, and him, a violent, superstitious ruler who ordered a bibliocaust and is said to have buried alive some Confucian scholars. Others praise him as a peace-bringing unifier, who built roads and started the Great Wall, and reformer, who standardized weights and measures, and the written language.
Reign: Originally Ying Zheng, Emperor Ch'in was born in 260 and died in 210 B.C. His reign as king had started when he was only 13. His rule as emperor had lasted for 12 years.
Emperor Ch'in put an end to the Warring States period in ancient Chinese history, which ran from about 475-221 B.C. It was a period of violence and chaos during which the philosopher Sun-Tzu is said to have lived and culture to have flourished.
There were about 7 states of China during the Warring States period. Two of these states, the Ch'in and Ch'u, came to dominate, and in 223, the Ch'in defeated the Ch'u, establishing the first unified Chinese state 2 years later, in the 26th year of King Cheng's reign. (As emperor of all China, King Cheng became known as Emperor Ch'in.)
Historical and Archaeological Sources on Emperor Ch'in: In 213 B.C., three years before Emperor Ch'in died, Ch'in ordered a book burning that was to destroy much of the historical record of earlier periods. Ch'in documents were probably destroyed in a palace complex-burning, by Hsiang Yu, in 208. Archaeological remains of the tomb or the emperor, including the famous terra cotta army, and legal documents were found in the 1970s. Another source of information on Emperor Ch'in is the Shih chi (Historical Records), written by Han dynasty historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien in around 100 B.C.
References:
- New Scientist Nov 16, 1978
- Imperial Rulership and Cultural Change in Traditional China, by Frederick Paul Brandauer, Junjie Huang; (1994).
- Encyclopedia Britannica
- The Oxford Companion to Military History.
