Qin Shi Huang: The First Emperor of China

this episode is brought to you by curiosity stream a subscription streaming service that offers thousands of documentaries and non-fiction titles for just 2.99 a month more on them in a bit sometimes he is called chian shi huang and sometimes she huan di sometimes he is called yin zhang and other times zhao zhang they all refer to the same person regardless of the moniker the man behind the name represents one of the most important figures in the history of china he was the founder of the qian dynasty it was short-lived only lasting 15 years but it had a great impact on the country that is because the qian dynasty was the first to rule over a united imperial china before becoming emperor chiang shi huang was king of the qian state and during an explosive time known as the warring states period he emerged victorious in a battle for supremacy against his neighboring kingdoms conquering them all and bringing them under his dominion this would have been enough to earn qian xi huang a place in the history books but the new administrative policies that he introduced also represented a stark departure from the way things had been done for centuries trying to ensure that china would never have a warring states period again then there were the ambitious construction projects chief among them the famed great wall of china and the thousands of terracotta warriors that still guard the emperor's mausoleum to this day qin shi huang spent the last years of his life in a bizarre pursuit of the elixir of life so that he could live forever things might not have worked out exactly as he would have wanted in the end but his actions certainly immortalized him as one of china's greatest rulers before we examine the life of chiang shi huang we should take a look at the state of china itself prior to it being reunified under his reign there was a powerful dynasty called the zhao which ruled over a large territory but not quite all of what is traditionally considered the core chinese mainland they were led by a king who had the mandate of heaven he was recognized as the son of heaven and he possessed the divine right to be ruler technically the zhao dynasty lasted for almost 800 years from the 11th century bc until the middle of the 3rd century bc however as early as the 8th century bc the power of the king started to diminish as local military leaders and noblemen began to assert their authority the king simply didn't have the power to keep all these ambitious upstarts in line and at the same time fight off the neighboring powers that were trying to invade consequently the territory splintered into hundreds of small states on paper they were all still loyal to the king but in reality each one of them wanted to assert their sovereignty of course simply being autonomous wasn't good enough so pretty soon the states started fighting with each other in order to grow their hedge money this led to some of these states becoming large and powerful enough that they declared independence breaking off from the zhao dynasty completely and even going to war against them the tail end of the zhao dynasty was a particularly violent and turbulent time known as the warring states period which lasted for around 250 years from the 5th century bc until 221 bc there was a fight for supremacy between seven kingdoms the qi the qien the chu the han the zhao the way and the yan you'll notice that the show is not among them as by this point the power that the king of zhou still had was merely symbolic he managed to hang on thanks to alliances and conspiracies with other more powerful rulers who wanted to legitimize their own authority with approval from the son of heaven but of course not even this could last forever and the zhao dynasty finally ended in 256 bc when the qin state captured the city of chengzhou and killed king nan was born circa 259 bc as his moniker implies in the qian state he is usually known as qian xi huang or xi huang di but both were in fact titles his actual name was yin zheng sometimes also called zhao zheng however once he had conquered all the other states in unified china he gave himself the new title of huang di or emperor and assumed the regnal names of xi hong-di which meant first emperor and chin shi huang his parentage is somewhat controversial thanks to an ancient historian named sima jiang who indicated that ying's father might not have actually been his real father ostensibly ying-jiang was the eldest son of king joao jigyang of chin and lady zhao according to the historian the king and his future queen met back when he was still known as prince yurin he was being held hostage in zhao another one of the warring states in order to ensure peace between their two kingdoms however the prince was liberated with the help of a wealthy and influential merchant named lu buway who also introduced him to his future wife known at the time as xiaoji but what prince yiran never found out was that zhao was one of lou's former concubines and might already been pregnant with his child when the two married and therefore yin zhiang would have actually have been the son of lou bouwee and not king zhua zhang of course there is no way to verify this it's also possible the historian invented this to slander the former emperor but either way this is a rumor that has persisted for millennia regardless xiaojiang only ruled for three years as king of ching before dying in 246 bc and being succeeded by yin zhang his son however was only 13 years old at the time so lubue stepped in again to serve as his regent again we're going strictly on the word of sima chiang but it seems that once the king was out of the picture liu resumed his affair with the queen dowager zhao or maybe it never really ended in the first place who knows anyway as the years went on and yin zhang was getting closer to assuming control of the kingdom lou was becoming more concerned with the possible consequences of his illicit relationship with the young king's mother therefore he tried to distance himself from queen zhao she was not too thrilled with this idea not necessarily because of her affection for lou but because she still wanted someone to satisfy her desires the two compromised and lou found a good substitute who would have been more than capable of rising to the occasion his name was lao-i and he was allegedly so well endowed that he could spin a wheel on his erect member of course the queen wouldn't have been allowed publicly to have a boy toy so lau-et was always shaved and dressed to look like a eunuch queen zhao was very happy with this arrangement and lao eye quickly became her core favorite she gave him titles wealth and power and the couple might have even had two children together but all of this went to his head and soon enough he started to get ideas about overthrowing yin zhang and installing one of his own sons as the new king around 238 bc ying jiang found out the truth after a drunken lao eye foolishly boasted that he was the king's stepfather our aged he decided that it was time to execute a whole bunch of people so lao i left with nothing to lose tried to stage revolt he couldn't get many people to rally to his cause though and the rebellion was easily crushed laui was killed by being torn apart by horses while three generations of his family were also executed including his two sons with the queen of course as for zhao she was not killed but condemned to live under house arrest for the rest of her days for his role in the affair lu buway was also punished by being stripped of his powers and banished to a remote part of the kingdom he committed suicide by drinking poison a few years later many modern historians put this entire chapter of qin shi huang's life under a big question mark and even argue that lao eye might not have existed at all however whether or not it happened the end result was the same yin zhang assumed full power as the king of ching and was able to dedicate himself towards his true goal which was conquering the six other warring states and before we continue with today's video let me thank today's sponsor curiosity stream curiosity stream is a subscription streaming service that offers thousands of documentaries and non-fiction titles from some of the world's best filmmakers including exclusive originals curiosity streams available on many platforms roku android xbox one smart tvs ios chromecast amazon firearms and kindle and apple tv pretty much everywhere it's offered worldwide and it's constantly updated with amazing timely content right now for instance they have a popular new documentary series the top science stories of 2020. obviously it features a few profiles on covid19 but it also dives into crispr mars robo fossilized dna and several other pieces of exciting news that you might have missed last year and if you're enjoying this specific video on chinese history then why not investigate curiosity stream's catalogue of rich content centered around china a particular note here might be the documentary the mystery of the disorderly warriors right now you can go to curiositystream.com forward slash biographics for unlimited access to the world's top documentaries and non-fiction series and for you guys enter the promo code biographics when prompted during the sign up process and your membership is completely free for the first 30 days it's a great way to support this show and it keeps us making more videos but i really couldn't think of a better fit for sponsorship given that they're all about educational content as well and with that said let us get back to ancient china [Music] right from the start ying jing had an advantage over his adversaries because the kingdom he inherited was the largest and most powerful of the warring state and also had a good position at the western edge of the chinese territory the first of all was han which did not prove to be overly difficult as it was the weakest of the seven kingdoms it was located in the middle of ancient china so ever since it declared independence in the late 4th century bc it had always been surrounded by bigger more powerful states and it could never expand unlike its neighbors the main reason why it had survived thus far was because whenever one state tried to invade it another one usually came to its defense out of self-interest in order to prevent its enemy from growing too powerful but this mattered little to ying since he intended to attack everyone anyway in 230 bc he marched his army into han and the state was conquered that same year afterwards came a much bigger foe the zhao state again a lot of the hard work had been done before yin zheng even ascended to the throne the two states had already had a war a few decades prior it culminated in the battle of chiang ping in 260 bc and ended in a decisive victory for chien therefore the zhao state that yin zheng faced was a much weaker one than it used to be even so this would prove to be the king's longest military campaign one that saw him face many setbacks and even defeats zhao had one big ace up his sleeve his name was lee moo and he is considered one of the greatest generals of ancient china he was one of the main reasons why zhao was not overrun immediately even when xiang gained territory li mu defeated them in combat several times especially at the battle of fey in 233 bc as long as he was still standing the enemy found it difficult to make any permanent headway in zhao if he could not achieve his goal through war yin zhang resulted to deception the details were a bit unclear but he used spies and bribes in order to sow discord in the zhao court specifically he got the king of zhao yomi to distrust li mu and relieve him of his position the former general died around 229 bc after being either executed or forced to commit suicide afterwards ying found it much easier to defeat zhao he captured han dan the state's capital in 228 bc and executed king yumuy in essence the xiao state had been conquered and eliminated as a threat but one of the king's sons prince jia managed to flee to the northern region of the kingdom called dai proclaimed it a new independent state and named himself king he lasted for another six years also before being ultimately vanquished thus completing the total annexation of the zhao state next up zhen set his sight on the kingdom of yan the crown prince dan realized that there would be no match against qin in battle so instead he dispatched an assassin named jin ki to eliminate yin jing in 227 bc jinki approached the qin court posing as a yan nobleman ready to betray his homeland he said that he was in possession of valuable maps of the territory ahead this was always intended as a suicide mission armed with a poison dagger jin ki's deception was only meant to get him close enough to the king to kill him as afterwards he would have surely been struck down by the guards unfortunately for him he failed in his assassination attempt which also provided ying with a great excuse to invade yan not that he really needed one bizarrely enough jingki became somewhat of a folk hero in china and during the han dynasty he was immortalized in poetry songs and stories later he had a mountain in a town named after him and even in modern times he has been the subject of movies and television shows the war went decidedly in ching's favor ying zheng invaded yan in 226 bc and soon enough he captured the capital of ji sheng in a desperate attempt king shi of yan even executed his own son crown prince dan and sent his head to yin zhang as a way of apologizing for the assassination attempt this sort of worked as ying delayed his conquest for a few years but came back in 222 bc to finish the job in reality this was a clear sign to the king of qin that he could focus his attention on the next target as yan was no longer a threat and could be annexed at any time yin jiang began his conquest of the saints of wei and chu around the same time mainly because he believed that otherwise one of them might attack his flanks while he was waging war against the other fortunately for ying he also had one of the most skilled generals of that era in his retinue his name was wang jiang and his son wang ben became a successful commander in his own right in 225 bc ben marched an army and away while his father took on the more difficult task of conquering chu a state that almost rivaled qian in size and power the kingdom of way proved to be an easy target after wang man employed a clever strategy to redirect the waters of the yellow river in order to flood the capital of way the king had no choice but to surrender chu turned out to be much more resilient in fact the first qian invasion which was not led by wang jiang was successfully repelled it wasn't until 224 bc that yin jiang sent another army three times as big this time led by his skilled general to conquer chew and permanently add it to his growing empire even so it took almost two years before wang jiang was ultimately successful only one state was still left to conquer chi and it turned out to be a bit of a pushover yin zhang invaded the kingdom in 221 bc and conquered it later that same year encountering very little resistance some say this was because prior to this he had bribed many officials from chi including the chancellor ho shang in order to ensure that the opposing army was poorly organized and equipped in 221 bc yin zheng had fulfilled his ambition he had conquered the warring states and united ancient china under his rule from now on he was qian shi huang founder of the new qian dynasty just because qian xi huang conquered all the other chinese states did not mean that he was done fighting he had to deal with a lot of rebellions from small armies that refused to recognize his authority but there were also external threats to contend with of them all the most dangerous was the nomadic zhiong new people who claim dominion over a vast territory in the eurasian steppe the origins of the xiongnu is one giant mystery since as a confederation of nomadic tribes they didn't really bother writing things down or settling cities or doing anything that would leave behind some kind of historical record in fact the first mentions we have of them come from the chinese and it has been speculated that the xiongnu were the ancestors of the huns who were also a nomadic people who emerged from the same area a few centuries later anyway the chinese and xiongnu had long lasting conflicts that eventually erupted into a full-blown war but this happened about 80 years after qin shi huang's death during his time the situation was not quite as tense but the emperor still recognized the possible threat posed by the nomadic tribes gathering near his northern border therefore he sent his general miang tiang to launch a victorious preemptive strike against the xiongnu in 215 bc inside his empire chiang xi huang narrowly avoided another assassination attempt this one came courtesy of zhiang liang an official from the former han state who wanted to avenge the conquest of his kingdom his plan was to organize an ambush on the imperial convoy and destroy the emperor's carriage unfortunately for him he picked the wrong one as qian shi huang travelled with two identical carriages for this very reason zhiang yang might have failed but ultimately he had the last laugh as he proved to be instrumental in the fall of the qian dynasty after xi huangdi's death for most of his reign the emperor was concerned with the administration of his empire he wanted to distance himself from the feudal approach that had been present in china for most of the previous thousand years because he knew that as time passed that would lead to the noble families gaining more and more power which would ultimately result in another situation like the warring states therefore he established a central government in the capital of zhiang yang he divided his empire into 36 administrative divisions called jun and forced all the important aristocratic families to live in the capital instead of each one ruling over their own stretch of land far away from the government qian xi huang enacted reforms such as issuing state coinage introducing universal standardization and improving the empire's road and wall network in order to safeguard it against barbarians his most famous construction project was the great wall of china although we should mention that some sections of the wall had existed for hundreds of years by that point dating as far back as the 7th century bc if you want to learn more about this iconic landmark then good news we did a whole video on it on our sister channel geographics so why not check that out after this one as the years went on qian xi huang became more tyrannical than paranoid the main targets of his oppression were intellectuals especially those who followed confucianism he undertook a large-scale campaign to burn most books that didn't have anything to do with medicine agriculture divination or the history of the chiang state basically he didn't want the history of china to exist before his reign in his most infamous act qian xi huang reportedly arrested 460 confucian scholars and buried them alive although he certainly punished and even executed those he perceived as subversive to his totalitarian regime whether or not this specific event actually happened is a matter of debate among historians their biggest concern is that the only source of information comes to us from the han dynasty the one that took power after the qin dynasty fell not only were they enemies but the hand were followers of confucianism and this could have been an attempt to slander their former oppressor in his final years the emperor became quite obsessed with the concept of immortality i suppose that multiple assassination attempts might do that to you he dedicated vast resources to the search for an elixir of life that would allow him to live forever and he traveled throughout his entire empire to meet with alchemists healers and magicians who could have provided him with what he desired of course none of them could and consequently most of them were put to death for being charlatans it was during one of these trips in 210 bc that jian xi huang fell ill and died at the age of 49. his exact cause of death is unknown but it may have been incredibly ironic as the emperor may have inadvertently poisoned himself by drinking an immortality elixir that contained mercury he was buried in a giant mausoleum that he had built for himself surrounded by thousands of sculpted soldiers cavalrymen horses chariots acrobats and musicians better known as the terracotta army tian shi huang was the jian dynasty it was not strong enough to survive without him there was an attempt to turn one of his sons into the new emperor but the qian states many enemies quickly took advantage and rebellions erupted throughout the empire just a few years later the qian dynasty was no more but its legacy became an inseparable part of chinese history so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below also please do subscribe to this channel if you haven't already and check out our fantastic sponsor curiositystream who i will link to below and thank you for watching you

Channel: Biographics

Views: 248,101

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler

Id: b2FUmD1pyVM

Length: 19min 56sec (1196 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021