Qin Shi Huang (February 25912 July 210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of China (). He invented the title huángdì rather than reuse the existing title for "king" (); the new title was used by monarchs in China and other countries for the next two millennia.
Born in Handan, the capital of Zhao, as Ying Zheng () or Zhao Zheng (), his parents were King Zhuangxiang of Qin and Lady Zhao. The wealthy merchant Lü Buwei assisted him in succeeding his father as the king of Qin, after which he became King Zheng of Qin (). By 221 BC, he had conquered all the other warring states and unified all of China, and he ascended the throne as China's first emperor. During his reign, his generals greatly expanded the size of the Chinese state: campaigns south of Chu permanently added the Yue lands of Hunan and Guangdong to the Sinosphere, and campaigns in Inner Asia conquered the Ordos Plateau from the nomadic Xiongnu, although the Xiongnu later rallied under Modu Chanyu.
Qin Shi Huang also worked with his minister Li Si to enact major economic and political reforms aimed at the standardization of the diverse practices among earlier Chinese states. He is traditionally said to have banned and burned many books and executed scholars. His public works projects included the incorporation of diverse state walls into a single Great Wall of China and a massive new national road system, as well as his city-sized mausoleum guarded by a life-sized Terracotta Army. He ruled until his death in 210 BC, during his fifth tour of eastern China.
Qin Shi Huang has often been portrayed as a tyrant and strict Legalist—characterizations that stem partly from the scathing assessments made during the Han dynasty that succeeded the Qin. Since the mid-20th century, scholars have begun questioning this evaluation, inciting considerable discussion on the actual nature of his policies and reforms. According to the sinologist Michael Loewe "few would contest the view that the achievements of his reign have exercised a paramount influence on the whole of China's subsequent history, marking the start of an epoch that closed in 1911."
Names
Modern Chinese sources often give the personal name of Qin Shi Huang as Ying Zheng, with Yíng () taken as the surname and Zheng () the given name. However, in ancient China, the naming convention differed, and the clan name Zhao (), the place where he was born and raised, may be used as the surname. Unlike modern Chinese names, the nobility of ancient China had two distinct surnames: the ancestral name () comprised a larger group descended from a prominent ancestor, usually said to have lived during the time of the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, and the clan name () comprised a smaller group that showed a branch's current fief or recent title.
The ancient practice was to list men's names separately—Sima Qian's "Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin" introduces him as "given the name Zheng and the surname Zhao"—or to combine the clan surname with the personal name: Sima's account of Chu describes the sixteenth year of the reign of King Kaolie as "the time when Zhao Zheng was enthroned as King of Qin". However, since modern Chinese surnames (despite usually descending from clan names) use the same character as the old ancestral names, it is much more common in modern Chinese sources to see the emperor's personal name written as Ying Zheng, using the ancestral name of the House of Ying.
The rulers of the state of Qin had styled themselves kings from the time of King Huiwen in 325 BC. Upon his ascension, Zheng became known as the King of Qin [Sima Qian]. [Shiji], ["§6: Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin"]. Hosted at [Guoxue.com], 2003. Accessed 25 December 2013. or King Zheng of Qin.Sima Qian. Shiji, ["§5: Basic Annals of Qin"]. Hosted at [Guoxue.com], 2003. Accessed 25 December 2013. This title made him the nominal equal of the rulers of Shang and Zhou, the last of whose kings had been deposed by King Zhaoxiang of Qin in 256 BC.
Following the surrender of Qi in 221 BC, King Zheng reunited all of the lands of the former Kingdom of Zhou. Rather than maintain his rank as king, however,Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A Manual, pp. 108 ff . Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2000. . Accessed 26 December 2013. he created a new title of (emperor) for himself. This new title combined two titles— of the mythical Three Sovereigns (, ) and the dì of the legendary Five Emperors (, Wŭ Dì) of Chinese prehistory.Luo Zhewen & al. The Great Wall, p. 23. McGraw-Hill, 1981. . The title was intended to appropriate some of the prestige of the Yellow Emperor,Fowler, Jeaneane D. An Introduction to the Philosophy and Religion of Taoism: Pathways to Immortality, p. 132. Sussex Academic Press, 2005. . whose cult was popular in the later Warring States period and who was considered to be a founder of the Chinese people. King Zheng chose the new regnal name of First Emperor (Shǐ Huángdì, Wade-Giles Shih Huang-ti) [Sima Qian]. [Shiji], ["§5: Basic Annals of Qin"]. Hosted at [Chinese Wikisource], 2012. Accessed 27 December 2013. on the understanding that his successors would be successively titled the "Second Emperor", "Third Emperor", and so on through the generations. (In fact, the scheme lasted only as long as his immediate heir, the Second Emperor.)Hardy, Grant & al. The Establishment of the Han Empire and Imperial China, p. 10. Greenwood, 2005. . The new title carried religious overtones. For that reason, sinologists - starting with Peter A. Boodberg or Edward H. SchaferMajor, John. Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought: Chapters Three, Four, and Five of the Huainanzi, p. 18 . SUNY Press (New York), 1993. Accessed 26 December 2013. - sometimes translate it as "thearch" and the First Emperor as the First Thearch.Kern, Martin. "The stele inscriptions of Ch'in Shih-huang: text and ritual in early Chinese imperial representation". American Oriental Society, 2000.
The First Emperor intended that his realm would remain intact through the ages but, following its overthrow and replacement by Han after his death, it became customary to prefix his title with Qin. Thus: , Qín or Ch'in, "of Qin" , Shǐ or Shih, "first" , Huángdì or Huang-ti, "emperor", a new term coined from , Huáng or Huang, literally "shining" or "splendid" and formerly most usually applied "as an epithet of Heaven",Lewis, Mark. The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han, p. 52 . Belknap Press (|Cambridge, MA), 2009. . Accessed 27 December 2013. a title of the Three Sovereigns, the high god of the ZhouCreel, Herrlee G. The Origins of Statecraft in China, pp. 495 ff. University of Chicago Press (Chicago), 1970. Op. cit. Chang, Ruth. "Understanding Di and Tian: Deity and Heaven from Shang to Tang Dynasties ", pp. 13–14. Sino-Platonic Papers, No. 108. Sept. 2000. Accessed 27 December 2013. , Dì or Ti, the high god of the Shang dynasty, possibly composed of their divine ancestors,Chang, "Understanding Di and Tian", 4–9. and used by the Zhou as a title of the legendary Five Emperors, particularly the Yellow Emperor
As early as Sima Qian, it was common to shorten the resulting four-character Qin Shi Huangdi to , [Sima Qian]. [Shiji], ["§6: Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin"]. Hosted at [Chinese Wikisource], 2012. Accessed 27 December 2013. variously transcribed as Qin Shihuang or Qin Shi Huang.
Following his elevation as emperor, both Zheng's personal name and possibly its homophone became taboo. The First Emperor also arrogated the first-person pronoun for his exclusive use, and in 212 BC began calling himself "The Immortal" (). Others were to address him as "Your Majesty" in person and "Your Highness" () in writing.
Birth and parentage According to the Shiji written by Sima Qian during the Han dynasty, the first emperor was the eldest son of the Qin prince Yiren, who later became King Zhuangxiang of Qin. Prince Yiren at that time was residing at the court of Zhao, serving as a hostage to guarantee the armistice between Qin and Zhao.Wood, Frances. (2008). China's First Emperor and His Terracotta Warriors, pp. 2–33. Macmillan Publishing, 2008. . Prince Yiren had fallen in love at first sight with a concubine of Lü Buwei, a rich merchant from the state of Wey. Lü consented for her to be Yiren's wife, who then became known as Lady Zhao after the state of Zhao. He was given the name Zhao Zheng, the name Zheng () came from his month of birth Zhengyue, the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar; the clan name of Zhao came from his father's lineage and was unrelated to either his mother's name or the location of his birth. ( says that his birthday, significantly, was on the first day of Zhengyue.) Lü Buwei's machinations later helped Yiren become King Zhuangxiang of QinRen Changhong & al. Rise and Fall of the Qin Dynasty. Asiapac, 2000. . in 250 BC.
However, the Shiji also claimed that the first emperor was not the actual son of Prince Yiren but that of Lü Buwei.Huang, Ray. China: A Macro History Edition: 2, revised. (1987). M. E. Sharpe. . p. 32. According to this account, when Lü Buwei introduced the dancing girl to the prince, she was Lü Buwei's concubine and had already become pregnant by him, and the baby was born after an unusually long period of pregnancy. According to translations of the Lüshi Chunqiu, Zhao Ji gave birth to the future emperor in the city of Handan in 259 BC, the first month of the 48th year of King Zhaoxiang of Qin.Lü, Buwei. Translated by Knoblock, John. Riegel, Jeffrey. The Annals of Lü Buwei: Lü Shi Chun Qiu : a Complete Translation and Study. (2000). Stanford University Press. .
The idea that the emperor was an illegitimate child, widely believed throughout Chinese history, contributed to the generally negative view of the First Emperor. However, a number of modern scholars have doubted this account of his birth. Sinologist Derk Bodde wrote: "There is good reason for believing that the sentence describing this unusual pregnancy is an interpolation added to the Shiji by an unknown person to slander the First Emperor and indicate his political as well as natal illegitimacy". John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, in their translation of Lü Buwei's Lüshi Chunqiu, call the story "patently false, meant both to libel Lü and to cast aspersions on the First Emperor". p. 9 Claiming Lü Buwei—a merchant—as the First Emperor's biological father was meant to be especially disparaging, since later Confucian society regarded merchants as the lowest social class.
Reign as King of Qin
Regency
In 246 BC, when King Zhuangxiang died after a short reign of just three years, he was succeeded on the throne by his 13-year-old son.Donn, Lin. Donn, Don. Ancient China. (2003). Social Studies School Service. Social Studies. . p. 49. At the time, Zhao Zheng was still young, so Lü Buwei acted as the regent prime minister of the State of Qin, which was still waging war against the other six states. Nine years later, in 235 BC, Zhao Zheng assumed full power after Lü Buwei was banished for his involvement in a scandal with Queen Dowager Zhao.
Zhao Chengjiao, the Lord Chang'an (),司馬遷《史記·卷043·趙世家》：（赵悼襄王）六年，封长安君以饶。 was Zhao Zheng's legitimate half-brother, by the same father but from a different mother. After Zhao Zheng inherited the throne, Chengjiao rebelled at Tunliu and surrendered to the state of Zhao. Chengjiao's remaining retainers and families were executed by Zhao Zheng.Shiji Chapter – Qin Shi Huang: 八年，王弟长安君成蟜将军击赵，反，死屯留，军吏皆斩死，迁其 民於临洮。将军壁死，卒屯留、蒲鶮反，戮其尸。河鱼大上，轻车重马东就食。 《史记 秦始皇》
Lao Ai's attempted coup