CHINA CULTURE OF THE QIN AND HAN AGE The first Chinese empire - Qin - left excellent monuments of ancient architecture - the Anfan Palace and the "eighth wonder of the world" - the Great Wall of China. The wall, the construction of which was especially significant under Qin Shi Huang,

Although Sima Qian's version dominated for 2000 years, research by professors John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel in translating the annals of Luishi Chunqiu showed a discrepancy between the date of the onset of pregnancy and the birth of the child (year), which allowed them to conclude that the version of Lu Buwei's paternity was falsified, in order to question the origin of the emperor.

Regency of Lü Buwei 246-237 BC e.

Ying Zheng unexpectedly received the throne of the Qin Wang in 246 BC. e. at the age of 13. At this time, the kingdom of Qin was already the most powerful in the Middle Kingdom. Prime Minister Lü Buwei also became his guardian. Lü Buwei valued scholars, invited about a thousand scholars from all over the kingdoms, who argued and wrote books. Thanks to his activities, it was possible to collect the famous encyclopedia "Luishi Chunqiu".

In 246 BC. e. engineer Zheng Guo from the Kingdom of Han began construction of a large 150 km long irrigation canal in present-day Shaanxi. The canal connected the Jinghe and Luohe rivers. The canal was built for ten years and irrigated 40,000 qing (264.4 thousand hectares) of arable land, which led to a significant economic rise of Qin. After completing only half of the work, the engineer Zheng Guo was convicted of spying on the Han, but he explained to the wang the benefits of construction, was forgiven and completed the grandiose project.

After the death of Ying Zheng's father Zhuangxiang, Lü Buwei began to openly cohabit with his mother Zhao. She was presented with the eunuch Lao Ai, who, according to Sima Qian, was not a eunuch at all, but his mother's cohabitant, and that the castration documents were forged for bribes.

Lao Ai concentrated a lot of power in his hands, and Ying Zheng was dissatisfied with his position as a child who was not considered. In 238 BC. e. he came of age and resolutely took power into his own hands. In the same year, he was informed about the cohabitation of his mother and Lao Ai. He was also informed that his mother had secretly given birth to two children, one of whom was preparing to become his successor. Wang ordered officials to conduct an investigation, which confirmed all suspicions. During this time, Lao Ai forged state seal and began to gather troops to attack the palace. Ying Zheng instructed the advisers to urgently gather troops and send them against Lao Ai. There was a battle near Xianyang, in which several hundred people were killed. Lao Ai, his relatives and accomplices were executed, the guilty from among the courtiers were severely punished.

In 237 B.C. e. Lü Buwei was deposed and exiled to the kingdom of Shu (Sichuan) for his connections with Lao Ai, but committed suicide on the way. Ying Zheng Zhao's mother was also sent into exile, who, after exhortations from advisers, was returned to the palace.

Reign with Prime Minister Li Si 237-230 BC e.

After the removal of Lü Buwei, the legist Li Si, a student of Xun Tzu, became prime minister.

Not trusting his advisers, Ying Zheng gave the order to expel all non-Qin officials from the country. Li Si wrote a memorandum to him, in which he argued that such a measure would only lead to the strengthening of the enemy kingdoms, and the decree was canceled.

Li Si provided big influence on the young ruler, therefore, some experts, not without reason, believe that it is he, and not Ying Zheng, who should be considered the true creator of the Qin empire. Judging by the available data, Li Si was determined and cruel. He slandered his talented fellow student Han Fei, a brilliant theoretician of late legalism, and thereby brought him to death (later, after reading Han's writings, Ying Zheng regretted that he had imprisoned him, where, according to legend, he had taken the poison received from Li Si) .

Ying Zheng and Li Si continued successful wars with rivals in the east. At the same time, he did not disdain any methods - neither the creation of a network of spies, nor bribes, nor the help of wise advisers, the first place among which was taken by Li Si.

Unification of China 230-221 BC e.

Everything went towards the unification of China led by the Qin dynasty. The states of Central China looked at Shaanxi (the mountainous northern country that served as the core of the Qin possessions) as a barbarian outskirts. The state structure of the rising kingdom was distinguished by a powerful war machine and a lot of bureaucracy.

At the age of 32, he took possession of the principality in which he was born, at the same time his mother died. At the same time, Ying Zheng proved to everyone that he had a very good memory: after the capture of Handan, he arrived in the city and personally led the extermination of the old enemies of his family, who thirty years ago, during the hostage of his father, humiliated and insulted his parents. The following year, Jing Ke, an assassin sent by Yan Dan, made an unsuccessful attempt on Ying Zheng. The Qin ruler was on the verge of death, but personally fought off the "killer" with his royal sword, inflicting 8 wounds on him. Two more attempts were made on him, which also ended in failure. Ying Zheng captured one by one all six non-qin states into which China was divided at that time: in 230 BC. e. The kingdom of Han was destroyed in 225 BC. e. - Wei, in 223 BC. e. - Chu, in 222 BC. e. - Zhao and Yan, and in 221 BC. e. - Qi. At the age of 39, Zheng united all of China for the first time in history, and in 221 B.C. e. assumed the throne name of Qin Shihuang, founding a new imperial dynasty, Qin, and calling himself its first ruler. Thus, he put an end to the Zhangguo period with its rivalry of kingdoms and bloody wars.

Title of the first emperor

Given name Ying Zheng was given to the future emperor by the name of the month of birth (正), the first in the calendar, the child was named Zheng (政). AT complex system names and titles of antiquity, the name and surname were not written side by side, as is the case in modern China, so the name Qin Shi Huang itself is extremely limited in use.

The unprecedented power of the ruler of the imperial era required the introduction of a new title. Qin Shi Huang literally means "founding emperor of [the] Qin dynasty". The old name wang, translated as "monarch, prince, king", was no longer acceptable: with the weakening of Zhou, the title of wang was devalued. Initially terms Juan("ruler, august") and Di(“emperor”) were used separately (see Three rulers and five emperors). Their unification was intended to emphasize the autocracy of a new type of ruler.

The imperial title thus created lasted until the Xinhai Revolution of 1912, until the very end of the imperial era. It was used both by those dynasties whose power extended to the entire Celestial Empire, and by those who only sought to reunite its parts under their command.

Rule of a united China (221-210 BC)

Board reorganization

The colossal campaign to unify the Celestial Empire was completed in 221 BC. BC, after which the new emperor carried out a series of reforms to consolidate the won unity.

Xianyang was chosen as the capital of the empire in the original Qin possessions, not far from modern Xian. Dignitaries and nobles of all the conquered states were transferred there, a total of 120 thousand families. This measure allowed the Qin emperor to take the elite of the conquered kingdoms under reliable police control.

On the urgent advice of Li Si, the emperor, in order to avoid the collapse of the state, did not appoint relatives and new lands close to the princes.

In order to suppress centrifugal tendencies on the ground, the empire was divided into 36 jun military regions (Chinese trad. 郡, pinyin: June), at the head of which were appointed managers and officials.

The weapons taken from the defeated princes were collected in Xianyang and melted down into huge bells. 12 bronze colossi were also cast from weapon metal, which were placed in the capital.

A reform was carried out under the slogan “all chariots with an axis of the same length, all hieroglyphs are of standard writing”, a single network of roads was created, disparate systems of hieroglyphics of the conquered kingdoms were abolished, a single monetary system was introduced, as well as a system of measures and weights. These measures laid the foundation for China's cultural and economic unity and outlasted the short-lived Qin empire by millennia. In particular, modern Chinese hieroglyphic writing goes back to the Qin script.

Great construction sites

Emperor Qin Shi Huang used the labor of hundreds of thousands and millions of people for grandiose construction projects. Immediately after declaring himself emperor, he began to build his own tomb (see Terracotta Army). He built a network of roads with three lanes through the whole country (the central lane is for the emperor's chariot). Construction was a heavy burden for the population.

The great Wall of China

As a sign of unity, the defensive walls that separated the former kingdoms were demolished. Only the northern part of these walls was preserved, its separate segments were strengthened and interconnected: in this way, the newly formed Great Wall of China separated the Middle State from the barbarian nomads. According to estimates, several hundred thousand (if not a million) people were driven to build the wall. . At the same time, loopholes for archers are designed so as to hit the enemy approaching from the south, which indicates not the Chinese, but the anti-Chinese nature of the fortifications. Also, topographically, the walls are laid with the maximum possible access to the walls from the side of the steppes and deserts, and the inaccessibility for capture from the side of the Chinese state.

Lingqu Canal

Epan Palace

The emperor did not wish to live in the central capital's Xianyang Palace (咸陽宮), but began building the huge Epan Palace (阿房宫) south of the Weihe River. Epan is the name of the emperor's favorite concubine. The palace began to be built in 212 BC. e., several hundred thousand people were driven to the construction, innumerable treasures were stored in the palace and many concubines were housed there. But the Epan Palace was never completed. Soon after the death of Qin Shi Huang, rebellions broke out throughout the Qin-occupied territory, and the Qin empire collapsed. Xiang Yu (項羽) was able to inflict heavy defeats on the Qin troops. At the end of 207 BC. e. the future Han emperor Liu Bang (then Pei Gong), an ally of Xiang Yu, occupied the Qin capital Xianyang, but did not dare to establish himself and a month later let Xiang Yu into Xianyang, who in January 206 BC. e. , struck by unthinkable luxury, ordered the palace to be burned, and his troops plundered Xianyang and killed the inhabitants of the Qin capital.

Detours of the country

During the last ten years of his life, the emperor rarely visited his capital. He constantly inspected various corners of his state, making sacrifices in local temples, informing local deities about his achievements and erecting stelae with self-praise. By detours of his possessions, the emperor initiated the tradition of royal ascents to Mount Taishan. He was the first of the Chinese rulers to go to the seashore.

The trips were accompanied by intensive road construction, the construction of palaces and temples for sacrifices.

Starting from 220 BC. e. the emperor undertook five major inspection trips across the country at distances of thousands of kilometers. He was accompanied by several hundred soldiers and many servants. In order to disorient ill-wishers, he sent several different carts around the country, while he himself was hiding behind a curtain, and even the soldiers did not know whether the emperor was traveling with them or not. As a rule, the purpose of the trips was the Pacific coast, to which the emperor first came in 219 BC. e.

Quest for immortality

In 210 BC. e. the emperor was told that the wonderful islands of the immortals are difficult to reach, as they are guarded by huge fish. The emperor himself went to sea and killed a huge fish with a bow. But he became ill and was forced to return to the mainland. The emperor could not recover from his illness and after a while he died.

"The Burning of Books and the Burial of Scribes"

Confucian scholars saw empty superstition in their search for immortality, for which they paid dearly: as the legend says (that is, it is unreliable), the emperor ordered 460 of them to be buried alive in the ground.

In 213 BC. e. Li Si persuaded the emperor to burn all the books, except for those that dealt with agriculture, medicine, and divination. In addition, books from the imperial collection and chronicles of the Qin rulers were spared.

Growing dissatisfaction with the government

AT last years disillusioned with gaining immortality, Qin Shi Huang traveled less and less frequently around the borders of his state, fencing himself off from the world in his huge palace complex. Avoiding contact with mortals, the emperor expected to be seen as a deity. Instead, the totalitarian rule of the first emperor gave rise to a growing number of disaffected every year. Having revealed three conspiracies, the emperor had no reason to trust any of his associates.

Death

Qin Shihuang's death occurred during a trip around the country, in which the heir Hu Hai accompanied him along with the head of the office, the eunuch Zhao Gao, and the chief adviser Li Si. The date of death is considered to be September 10, 210 BC. e. in a palace in Shaqiu, two months away from the capital. He died after consuming immortality elixir pills containing .

When Qin Shi Huang died suddenly, Zhao Gao and Li Si, fearing that the news of the emperor's death would cause an uprising in the empire, decided to hide his death until they returned to the capital. Most suites, except younger son Hu Hai, Zhao Gao, Li Si, and several other eunuchs were unaware of the emperor's death. The body of the emperor was placed on a wagon, in front of and behind which carts of rotten fish were ordered to hide the putrid smell. Zhao Gao and Li Si changed the emperor's clothes daily, carried food, and received letters, answering them on his behalf. In the end, the emperor's death was announced upon his arrival in Xianyang.

According to tradition, the eldest son was to inherit the empire. crown prince Fu Su but Zhao Gao and Li Si forged the emperor's will, appointing Hu Hai's youngest son as heir. Also in the will, Fu Su and General Meng Tian, ​​who was on the northern border, were ordered to commit suicide. Fu Su faithfully obeyed the order, and General Meng Tian, ​​who suspected a conspiracy, sent a letter several times for confirmation and was placed under arrest. Hu Hai, overjoyed at the news of his brother's death, wanted to pardon Meng Tian, ​​but Zhao Gao, fearing Meng's revenge, had Meng Tian and his brother executed. younger brother Prosecutor Meng Yi, who in the past suggested that Shi Huang execute Zhao Gao for one of his crimes.

Hu Hai, who took the throne name of Qin Ershi Huangdi, nevertheless showed himself to be an incapable ruler. Adherents of the former dynasties immediately rushed into the struggle for the division of the imperial inheritance, and in 206 BC. e. Qin Shihuang's entire family was exterminated.

Tomb

Nothing illustrates the power of Qin Shi Huang better than the size of the burial complex, which was built during the life of the emperor. The construction of the tomb began immediately after the formation of the empire near present-day Xi'an. According to Sima Qian, 700 thousand workers and artisans were involved in the creation of the mausoleum. The perimeter of the outer wall of the burial was 6 km.

To accompany the emperor in the other world, an innumerable terracotta army was sculpted. The faces of the warriors are individualized, their bodies were previously brightly colored. Unlike his predecessors - for example, the rulers of the Shang state (circa 1300-1027 BC) - the emperor refused mass human sacrifices [ ] .

Reflection in historiography

The reign of Qin Shi Huang was based on the principles of Legalism, set forth in the treatise Han Fei Tzu. All surviving written evidence about Qin Shi Huang is passed through the prism of the Confucian worldview of Han historiographers, especially Sima Qian. It is very likely that the information they cite about the burning of all books, the ban on Confucianism and the burial of the followers of Confucius alive reflected Confucian anti-Qin propaganda directed against the legalists.

In the traditional depiction, Qin Shi Huang's appearance as a monstrous tyrant is tendentiously exaggerated. It can be considered established that all subsequent states of China, starting with the reputedly tolerant Western Han dynasty, inherited the administrative-bureaucratic system of government that was created under the first emperor.

Reflection in art

In the theatre

• In 2006, the premiere of the opera The First Emperor took place on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera (New York) (composer - Tan Dun, director - Zhang Yimou). Sang the part of the emperor

The burial complex of Emperor Qin Shi Huang is the most important tourist attraction in China. He is located in ancient city xian, former capital China for a millennium. Many come to this city just to look at the famous Terracotta Army, which today is the most significant part the tombs of the First Emperor, since the burial complex itself is very rarely visited by tourists. Clay warriors, found in 1974, attract all the attention. At the same time, the Terracotta Army is only a secondary element of the burial, located 1.5 km from the tomb itself, outside the line of the ancient defensive walls that surrounded the entire necropolis.

Getting to the Terracotta Army from Xi'an is easy, there is a constant bus number 306 or 5 from the main city railway station square.
The entire area around the tomb of the First Emperor is defiled by the Chinese in the way that only they can do. There is no strength to describe the kilometer-long rows of shops and stalls, I even got lost in this labyrinth of meaningless structures. All this evil is poked so much that it is difficult to find the entrance to the complex itself.

Main excavation.

The Terracotta Army dates back to the 2nd-3rd century BC. and is logically attributed to the burial complex of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, although it is located at some distance from it.
On the this moment more than 8,000 clay warriors have been excavated, and their number is constantly increasing. Warriors have a height of 180-190 cm, the weight of one soldier is about 130 kg.

Almost all the faces of the Terracotta Army are individual.

The entire army was equipped with real weapons - crossbows, pikes and swords, most of which may have been borrowed by the rebellious peasants in ancient times, but even now tens of thousands of arrowheads and other types of weapons have been found.
Photo from the Terracotta Army Museum.

The attention to detail is simply amazing.

It is assumed that there may be thousands and thousands more warriors in the ground. Figures of officials, musicians and acrobats were also found.

Not all warriors arrived in perfect condition, most of the figures were crushed by a heavy roof that collapsed in ancient times.

All the figures were very brightly painted, but the colors died from contact with oxygen when the warriors began to be taken to the surface.
Photo from the Terracotta Army Museum. I just don't understand why they have blue noses? :)

There are many versions that answer the question why all these figures were needed. As you know, in the early days Chinese dynasties Shang, Zhou, it was customary to bury living people, but here they seem to have decided, out of the kindness of their hearts, to replace them with clay copies.
"A warrior who wishes us well."

The figure of the general is the tallest of all, there is something about 2 meters in it.

But there is one nuance here. Previously, the number of people buried with the rulers was relatively small - 100-200 people. The number of Qin Shi Huang's warriors is already more than 8,000, and it is not known how many more will be found. Burying an entire army corps alive was probably beyond the power of even the great First Emperor. So we can talk not so much about the "great kindness" of the ruler, but about his increased desires.
In this sense, Qing Shi Huang's wives were unlucky; according to Sima Qian, they were buried in the same way - in kind. Apparently, the Chinese had a correct understanding of this issue - a clay woman cannot replace a real one) As a result, all the childless concubines were buried, there were harsh times.

Bronze models of Qin Shi Huang's chariots. They are made almost life-size, many parts of the harness and the chariots themselves are made of gold and silver.

Sima Qian also testifies that many craftsmen who worked on the mausoleum were buried together with the emperor. Of course, it was just as problematic to bury everyone as it was for the soldiers, because up to 700,000 people worked during the construction of the tomb. Recently, a mass grave of people was found to the west of the Qin Shi Huang pyramid, but there are only about a hundred people there, perhaps they are workers who died on construction. They died like flies, it was a well-known all-China penal servitude.

"Tai Chi Warrior"

It is probably appropriate to cite the text of Sima Qian here, since this is the main source of our knowledge about the tomb of Qin Shi Huang.

“In the ninth moon, the [ashes] of Shi Huang were buried in Mount Lishan. Shi Huang, having come to power for the first time, at the same time began to break through Mount Lishan and arrange a [vault] in it; having united the Celestial Empire, [he] sent over seven hundred thousand criminals there from all the Celestial Empire. They went deep to the third waters, filled [the walls] with bronze and lowered down the sarcophagus. The crypt was filled with [copies] of palaces transported and lowered there, [figures] of officials of all ranks, rare things and extraordinary jewelry. The masters were ordered to make crossbows, so that, [installed there], they would shoot at those who would try to dig a passage and make their way [to the tomb]. Large and small rivers and seas were made of mercury, and mercury spontaneously overflowed into them. On the ceiling they depicted a picture of the sky, on the floor - the outlines of the earth. The lamps were filled with ren-yu fat in the expectation that the fire would not go out for a long time
Er-shi said: “All the childless inhabitants of the back chambers of the palace of the late emperor should not be driven away,” and ordered all of them to be buried along with the deceased. There were many dead. When the emperor's coffin was already lowered down, someone said that the craftsmen who made all the devices and hid [values] knew everything and could blabbed about the hidden treasures. Therefore, when the funeral ceremony was over and everything was covered, they blocked the middle door of the passage, after which they lowered the outer door, tightly walling up all the artisans and those who filled the grave with valuables, so that no one came out of there. [Above] grass and trees were planted [so that the grave] took the form of an ordinary mountain”

The text is interesting and really, very mysterious.
I am not an expert Chinese translations, but I believe that the meaning in the passage is accurately conveyed. It is noteworthy that Sima Qian does not mention the construction of a giant pyramid in the text. The crypt is pierced in an already supposedly existing mountain. At the same time, most modern scientists recognize the artificiality of the Qin Shi Huang mound. This is such a contradiction..
The road from the Terracotta Army to the actual burial complex passes through very rugged terrain, everything is pitted with pits for some kind of flooded agriculture. I thought that with such a furious digging of the territory by local peasants, it’s not a sin to find the very burial place of the emperor ..

This is what Qin Shi Huang's pyramid looks like now.

The height of the pyramid at the moment is about 50 meters. It is believed that the original structure was twice as large, different height data are given from 83 meters to 120. The length of the side of the base of the pyramid is 350 meters (For reference, the length of the side of the base of the pyramid of Cheops in Egypt is 230 meters)

Do not think that Qin Shi Huang's pyramid is such a heap of earth. Below is one of the reconstructions of the tomb. The pyramid was made of the same material as the Great Wall and almost all houses in China and Central Asia, that is, from compressed earth. This material can be as strong as concrete. For example, some earthen sections of the Great Wall of China, built at the turn of our era, during the Han Dynasty, are still standing, and the later walls of stones and baked bricks, from the Ming era, have already collapsed.

The only thing I don't like about this reconstruction is that there are three large steps. In the photo of the French explorer Victor Segalen, taken in 1909, the first and second large steps are clearly visible, then the pyramid, like the entire landscape, was "bald" and the separation of the steps was well read.

According to Sima Qian, it is possible that at the base of the pyramid there was some kind of natural mountain, where the burial of the emperor was arranged. But maybe, as many researchers think, the First Emperor was not buried in his pyramid, his tomb is somewhere nearby.
The base of the pyramid, hidden by trees.

The top platform of the pyramid of Qin Shi Huang. Now access here has been closed so that tourists do not go "on the head" of the First Emperor of China. It can be seen that the Chinese are trying to mask the upper platform with freshly planted trees. Why is not very clear, probably to completely destroy the brain of various ufologists and other experts on aliens and pracivilizations.

The staircase was dismantled and the opening was planted with trees, so that from a distance it was imperceptible that there was a passage here.

About 200 meters south of the pyramid I found in the thickets a very decent vertical shaft dug by Chinese comrades. Apparently, they are not sitting idly by, and the search for the entrance to the burial, albeit slowly, is underway ..

This photo clearly shows at what distance from the pyramid the Chinese made this mine in the ground.

The mine is located inside the perimeter of the fortress walls that surrounded the entire burial complex. There were several such perimeters. The fortress walls of the tomb of Qin Shi Huang are not much inferior in size to the medieval walls of the city of Xi'an, the total length of the walls of the tomb is 12 km, the average height is 10 meters.

Reconstruction of the funerary city of Qin Shi Huang.

Now the entire courtyard of the burial complex is overgrown with trees and shrubs, and once there were many structures of a ritual nature, only the foundations remained of them. But the walls of the Inner Burial City are visible even now, they are especially well preserved in the south.

Ruins of the southern gate of the complex. There were 10 of them in total.

The photograph, taken from the height of the pyramid, clearly shows the southeast corner of the fortifications.

In some places the walls were preserved to a height of two or three meters.

These bricks are at least 2210 years old...

I wonder why the pyramid is so significantly reduced in size. Of course time and natural disasters did their job, but most likely the tomb of the First Emperor of China was corny not completed.
This is also pointed out by Sima Qian:
“The throne was succeeded by the [declared] heir of Hu Hai, who became the second emperor-ruler - Er-shi-huangdi”…..
“After the death of Shi Huang, Hu Hai showed extreme stupidity: without completing the work at Mount Lishan, he resumed the construction of the Epan Palace in order to fulfill the plans previously outlined by [his father].”

Those. for the son, the palace was more important than the father's tomb. By the way, the Epan Palace is one of the colossal structures ancient China Unfortunately, he did not reach us.

It is for this simple reason that Qin Shi Huang's pyramid is somewhat different from, for example, the more geometrically correct later pyramids of the Han Dynasty. And the point is not even in size, but in the shape of the structure, which just does not exist. The man-made mountain has a square only at the base, and then I have a suspicion that the Chinese designed this on purpose, cutting off part of the loess rock.

Here you can clearly see the first step of the base of the pyramid.

Here is the first high step neatly hidden by planted trees.

At the top, the mound is rounded, the edges are almost completely absent. Because of this, I even got lost there - I went down not from the south, but from the west side, and for a long time I could not understand where I was. Do not forget that one side of the Qing Shi Huang pyramid is 350 meters. And only from the air you can see what is there and how, on the ground only one can see a dense forest and a gradual rise of the soil to the center of the structure.

The general view of the southern courtyard of the burial complex is complete emptiness, although a small line of ancient walls can be discerned.

I originally took this loess terrace, in the photo below, for a dam that protected the burial city of Qin Shi Huang from floods, but the dam is most likely located to the south. The entire province of Shaanxi consists of such loess terraces, so it is not surprising to get confused.

As in many other places in Shaanxi, Chinese peasants have been digging their houses and barns in the terraces for centuries. The photo shows one of them.

The surrounding mountains look much more "pyramidal" than the largest Chinese pyramid. No matter how hard you try, the creations of nature will always be more majestic than any human deeds.