The Monster That Built the Great Wall
The awe-inspiring terror that was China's first emperor, Qin Shihuang
Halloween’s just around the corner and there are many great horror stories and cautionary tales that permeate Asian culture from the lowest folk tales to the highest literary masterpieces. But given how there are a great many more real-world things to be scared of this year than most, and given how most of us are working from home, it would seem appropriate to talk a little bit about one of history’s all-time most terrifying bosses. A man who declared himself a literal god and quite possibly believed it. A ruler whose atrocities are as incalculable as his impact. Like all great Hollywood monsters, he was a villain with complex and relatable motivations. And like the king of Kaiju, his accomplishments were so was so awe-inspiring that they seem to transcend our common notions of good or bad. While he was, in the end, a very flawed and deeply disturbed human being, he behaved like a force of nature.
He was the first official emperor of China, Qin Shihuang.
Horrifying Beginnings
Born to a prince of the state of Qin while he was held hostage by another state, the young Qin Shihuang was first known as Zhao Zheng. His mother was a concubine who originally belonged to a wealthy merchant with political ambitions, Lu Buwei. For much of his early life and ever after in history, doubt lingered over his true parentage, with childhood bullies and later detractors claiming that he was actually the lovechild of the merchant and no noble at all. Lu Buwei certainly behaved like a father figure, maneuvering Zhao Zheng’s father onto the throne so that Zheng himself could become king at 13 when pops passed. Lu Buwei then acted as regent while the 13-year-old grew into his role as King Zheng. Almost from the beginning of his reign, King Zheng lived in constant fear for his life. First, his own half-brother rebelled and surrendered to another state. Then Lu Buwei became implicated in a plot to overthrow him with another of his mother’s lovers, Lao Ai.
Never one to just crush his enemies, King Zheng ground their entire lineages to dust. Lao Ai’s family was executed to the third degree, while Lao Ai himself was tied to five horse carriages and torn to pieces. His half-brother’s retainers and family members were also executed. His mother was placed under permanent house arrest, and Lu Buwei was driven to commit suicide by poison. Years later, he would also conquer the state where he was a child hostage; torturing and killing all who had mistreated him during his youth. While many royals and nobles grow up surrounded by intrigue and gossip, spending years as a hostage in a foreign kingdom, being forced to endure the ignominy of sharing his rule with a man who was rumored to be his illegitimate father, and facing betrayal from his own mother, her lovers, and his half-brother certainly played a part in his later ruthlessness.
Merciless Monster
It is undeniable that without him, the China that followed for 2,000+ years until the present day would not exist, the “Chin” in “China” is said to come from the “Qin” in “Qin Shihuang”. He united all the disparate kingdoms of the Warring States period into a landmass that more closely resembles modern China than any of the dynasties that came before him. His reign literally changed the physical and psychological landscape. All units of measurement, from weights to wagon axles, were standardized. To further connect the empire, he had the Lingqu Canal dug between north and south. Construction began on what would later be called the Great Wall of China. And he helped codify a common written language amongst the kingdoms he united to form a common culture across the whole empire.
But it’s the way he went about building that legacy that was absolutely horrifying. The walls, palaces, and canals were built with the forced labor of captured enemy soldiers, criminals, and enslaved villagers. It is said that the bones of as many as a million people are buried at the feet of his sections of the Great Wall, intentionally worked to death by the emperor who saw no future for those who opposed his rule. As for a common language and culture, it came with the burning of hundreds of thousands of books and the burying alive of hundreds of scholars. In this, the emperor’s vision was brutally logical: When those who could teach other languages or contradictory narratives were gone, only the emperor’s language and narrative would be left.
God or Devil?
By the time his armies conquered all of China, King Zheng had already changed his title to “Qin Shi Huangdi” or “Qin Shihuang” for short. It meant the “Qin first heavenly emperor”, bringing with it religious connotations that hadn’t existed previously. That’s right, over 2,000 years before Kanye, this guy was already calling himself a god. For this, historians have also referred to Qin Shihuang as China’s First Thearch.
The title might have meant god but in actuality, he seemed more like a demon. Punishments for crimes varied from the chopping off of noses to the now-infamous “death by a thousand cuts”. When a meteor landed in the commandery of Dongjun, a vandal carved the words “The First Emperor will die and his land will be divided” on it. When nobody confessed to the crime, Qin Shihuang had everyone living nearby put to death. Believing that “evil spirits” (i.e. the ghosts of his countless victims and their surviving relatives) would seek vengeance, he became determined to seem invisible to his people while knowing everything about them. He built a labyrinth of tunnels and walkways between his 200+ palaces, and a massive network of spies and informants across the land. The effect was that of an all-powerful being who could materialize and disappear almost without a trace, seemed to know your darkest thoughts, and was capable of unconscionable cruelty for even the most minor of infractions.
Unhealthy Obsession
Dressed all in black, with all the official colors switched to black, China’s fearsomely fearful first emperor was like some kind of gothic Howard Hughes given complete control of an ancient superpower. After surviving several assassination attempts, he became determined to achieve invincibility. He sent his court sorcerer, Xu Fu, and 6,000 virgin sacrifices on two expeditions to search for the elixir of immortality. After the first one was blocked by an enormous sea monster, the emperor had his best archers slay the beast, who turned out to be a whale. Forced to depart again, Xu Fu never returned. Some say this was because he knew he couldn’t come back without the elixir and keep his head, while others say that he found the elixir, but stayed away to keep it out of the hands of this monster.
Unwilling to wait for Xu Fu, the emperor tried to get his court alchemists to homebrew the elixir of immortality. To test their supernatural claims, and to punish all who failed, he had over 460 of them put to death under the cruel belief that those who truly were immortal would return. With each passing day, the emperor grew more desperate, and he began taking all sorts of strange alchemical tinctures and medicines. Bizarre and poisonous ingredients like cinnabar and mercury may have led to his becoming more unhinged. By the end of his 49 years on this planet, China’s first emperor was a deranged ghoul. His hearse-like carriage rattling through dark underground tunnels. The ‘god on earth’ a pale paranoiac clad in black and covered with strange growths and boils brought on by weird concoctions imbibed in the awful delusion of eternal life.
City of the Dead and Damned
Without a doubt, the most megalomaniacal of the first emperor’s projects was his tomb, a real-life necropolis of which archeologists have only uncovered a fraction. Built by over 700,000 forced labor conscripts, the underground city is booby-trapped with crossbow bolts to kill any intruders. It covers 38 square miles and contains palaces, towers, treasure rooms, stables, and rivers of mercury. It is staffed by thousands of terracotta musicians, strongmen, bureaucrats, and the enormous army of terracotta warriors with which Qin Shihuang intended to conquer the afterlife and possibly fight his way back into our world. As vicious in death, as he was in life, the emperor’s childless wives and concubines, along with the craftsmen who knew the secrets of his necropolis, were sealed inside with him for eternity.
Haunting History
Ultimately, Qin Shihuang died after one too many alchemical cocktails. Less than three years after his death, the empire went with him and the land once more descended into civil war. Later rulers would keep the “Huangdi” or “heavenly emperor” title, language, and centralized government system. The political system of unity Qin Shihuang set would be followed for thousands of years. But the first emperor’s own descendants would not be around to see it. Having set a precedent of unimaginable horror and destruction by his rule, the destruction of his dynasty became an easy cause for many to rally around. Within three years, his successor would be forced off the throne and the Qin state wiped out and replaced by kinder, gentler rulers who used him as a cautionary tale.
Raised in chaotic times, surrounded by enemies, and betrayed by his closest kin, China’s first emperor sought to overcome chaos by becoming so fearsome a monster that we feel the echoes of his brutality to this day. He is a terrifying reminder not only of how rule by absolute power can be like living in a horror movie but also of how the monster of that movie is also cursed to live in perpetual terror.
This being a particularly chilling October, I can think of no scarier prospect than that.