The First Emperor of China

by Jonathan Clements

  The survivors turned their backs on the nine heavenly cities, preferring to dwell in five earthbound forts, subsisting on ‘eye-meat’, a living thing grown in a vat without a skeleton, from which flesh could be plucked, only to regrow as if by magic.2 As time passed, they managed to cultivate the local soil, and began growing fruits and grains. One, so it is said, interbred with local, human women, and soon hybrids of gods and men began to flourish. Life spans began to shorten. Their descendants no longer lived for millennia, but mere centuries. After a few generations, it was rumoured that the gods still knew the secrets of immortality, but that they were keeping them secret from humans. Favours to the gods, it was said, might be repaid with rejuvenation, but none could be sure.

  When another earthly war broke out among the gods and their descendants, the ladder to heaven was destroyed, making it much more difficult to leave. A new weapon was unveiled, a drum that rumbled with the deafening roar of Coiled Antiquity itself, shining like the sun and the moon, harnessing the power of lightning. Its mere sound could destroy half an opposing army. In time its master, the Yellow Sovereign, brought peace to the lands under heaven.3 During his reign on earth, the Yellow Sovereign oversaw the flowering of civilisation, the development of writing and agriculture, the building of houses and the invention of many items that humans now take for granted. He was an enlightened ruler, and his younger days as a warrior ensured that no battles needed to be fought in his later centuries.

  The Yellow Sovereign called his people to assemble a ‘tripod’, a great cauldron-like device in memory of his victories and achievements. When the device was completed, a metal dragon flew down from heaven, and the Yellow Sovereign announced that it was time for him to leave. The dragon could only carry the Yellow Sovereign and seventy of his closest companions. Other gods were left behind, much to their anguish, as there was unlikely to be another visitation from heaven. The Yellow Sovereign’s own daughter was left behind, supposedly because of the heat within her body. Another deity, a warrior who could gather clouds and make rain, was also abandoned in spite of his service to the other gods.4

  The Yellow Sovereign and the other gods did not return, and the people of the earth were left to fend for themselves. In time the magic faded, the lifespans shortened further, and the people under heaven forgot much that the gods had taught them. Earthbound kings clung to rituals and protocols, and aspired to return. A legendary ruler protected his people from the day ten suns appeared in the sky. An ancient queen somehow flew to the Moon. The best of the rulers convinced their peoples to work for the common good, taming the unpredictable rivers and irrigating crops. It was, like all most vaguely defined dreamtimes in myth, a Golden Age, where humanity flourished and great deeds were done.

  All of which inspired one question from the philosophers among the humans. What had gone wrong?

  As the time of legends passed into human history, there were those who asked, if these people of ancient times were so godlike and perfect, why did everything fall apart? In the sixth century BC, Confucius said it was because of their abandonment of protocol – for there was a reason for everything, and the many strange songs and poems of their forefathers were designed to transmit information. Confucius was the first of the scholar-sages, a former civil servant who devoted his life to teaching others, creating a caste of ministers who often had a better knowledge of the past than the people they served. Although Confucius’s political career was short-lived and dogged by intrigues, many of his pupils went on to find prominent posts in the governments of the day. None of them bothered to seek employment at the Centre of the World itself, at the royal domain where the last of the kings of the earth pretended to rule. Although the rulers of the Zhou dynasty still enjoyed nominal overlordship, their power barely extended beyond the walls of their forts, standing on the flood plains of the Wei river.

  The royal domain had a library and a palace, and was a place of pilgrimage of scholars and nobles. It had the most impressive ceremonies and a reputation for great sophistication, but it was merely a shadow. The kings of the Zhou had been unable to control their unruly dukes for centuries. When the master of one state decided to proclaim himself king, a direct challenge to the Zhou overlord, there was nothing the supposed sovereign could do about it. The former vassal states became separate kingdoms in all but name, still paying nominal homage to a powerless ‘capital’ in the centre.

  Something, the sages agreed, had gone awry. Confucius decided that there was something wrong with humanity – born with good points that needed encouraging, and bad points that needed suppressing. The solution, Confucius argued, was to promote a scholar class who might instruct and admonish the men of their time. Part academic, part diplomat, these teachers of men would keep hold of the ancient songs and rituals, to ensure that information was not lost to later generations. However, try as Confucius might to steer the generations that were to come after him, the success of his plans depended on firm foundations. For as long philosophers trusted in his central assertion, that things in olden times were inherently better and should be emulated, then his policies continued. As the decades went on, and the region collapsed into the period of the ‘Warring States’, the policies of Confucius seemed to relate less and less to the real world.

  The Centre of the World, it was said, was the fertile flood plain of the Yellow river. The vassal states huddled around it to the north, south and east, but there was more land elsewhere. The Yellow river had a tributary, the Wei, which led up towards higher ground, through a mountainous valley. This area was the land of Qin, a kingdom little removed from the outlying barbarian regions beyond it. Even though Qin was one of the closest states to the royal domain, it was in a world of its own – life was tough, constantly under threat from the barbarians of the wilderness, and devoid of shared borders with civilised nations.

  The locals had their own myths of divine destiny, carefully preserved in Chronicles of Qin, a document now lost but available when Sima Qian compiled his Record of the Historian. During the time of legends, it said, after the people had fallen from the sky, a girl descended from those early arrivals once swallowed an egg laid by a black bird. Her son became a servant of the rulers, and supposedly did great work in organising an early irrigation scheme. For this, he was conferred with celebratory black flags and the surname Ying, ‘Abundance’ or more colloquially ‘Winner’.

  Based at the western end of the Chinese world, his descendants enjoyed close relations with the rulers. As the legendary Shang dynasty was supplanted by the mighty Zhou, it may even have been the people of the western regions who helped tip the balance of power. Although they would soon aspire to be regarded as another of the civilised nations, it is highly probable that their origins lie not with the Chinese but with the very barbarians that were their sworn enemies. But the outlying regions of the western borders gave the early kings of Zhou something that the others did not possess in such plenty – horses.

  The early ancestors of the First Emperor were prized for their mastery of the beasts that grazed the pastures west of the Yellow river. Four generations after the original acquirer of the Ying surname, we find his great-grandson literally at the side of the first ruler of the Zhou dynasty. When the Shang were finally overthrown, it was a member of the Ying family who served as the charioteer of the man who would be king. Garbled references occupy the dynastic histories for a few more generations – one member of the family, it says, had the body of a bird, but spoke the language of men. But ten generations after the establishment of the Zhou dynasty, the Ying family are still to be found in royal records as masters of the crown horses. Their most famous member was Zao Fu, who served as the king’s charioteer in a legendary ride across the known world, as the ruler rushed from a distant province to suppress a revolt.

  In distant Europe, an empire arose in Assyria, Egypt was riven by civil war, and Greece began to emerge from her dark age. On the steppes of Asia, western barbarians pushed at the borders of the Zhou king.

>   In order to protect his own domain and the nations east of it, the king hatched a plan. He conferred the westernmost region upon the head of the Ying family in 857 BC, creating him the first Marquis of Qin, a name derived from a type of local grain. The family now found themselves forced to look west, beyond their original lands, and to struggle for mastery of a realm that had once belonged to the barbarians, and occasionally still did. Their struggles, however, would only make them stronger.

  After three generations of fighting on the western frontier, the fierce warriors of the Qin Marches had carved out a new state, at a price. The second Marquis of Qin ruled for only a scant couple of years, his son, Qin the Younger was captured by the barbarians of Rong and executed. The fourth Marquis, however, grabbed his territory and held it, and was made the Grand Master of the Western March.

  The people of Qin had gained a reputation for their belligerence. The eldest son of the fourth Marquis resigned his position in the dynasty, preferring to lead further campaigns of vengeance against the remnants of the Rong barbarians. The title passed to his younger brother, who may have tried to placate the barbarians further by letting their ruler marry his sister.5

  Although Qin was still an outlying region, it was no longer a ‘march’. It was now a recognised domain, and its rulers were dukes. In a time when other local rulers conspired against the king of Zhou, it was the dukes of Qin who gave him support. In the mid eighth century a duke of Qin built the land’s first capital, and supposedly obtained a magical rock that could create fires which transformed into ravens. Acquiring such an artifact was a sign of a different kind of aspiration – an attempt not only to match the king of Zhou, but also to surpass him. However, any royal ambitions of the Qin nobility were soon buried under a series of court intrigues as they were forced to turn once more to their western borders.

  Reading between the lines of the Record of the Historian, the period 715-695 BC saw the ruling family of Qin dominated by their advisors. Amid wars with two new invading western tribes, one duke was invested at only eleven years of age. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his youngest son, who was himself murdered five years later. It was only when the eldest son, The Warring Duke, returned from a prolonged campaign against the barbarians that the family line was restored and the advisers executed. The Warring Duke had none of the civilised pretensions of the rest of the royal family; he was a tough man, hardened by years of skirmishes and sandstorms in the far west. In a single 30-year period, Qin somehow got through five dukes, but at the end of all the intrigues, there was a strong ruler once more, and relative peace on the frontier.6

  This, perhaps, was bad news for the king of the Zhou dynasty. Qin had served a valuable purpose as a buffer state, thinned by periodic wars that nonetheless kept the Chinese heartland safe. It had now gained a degree of swagger and confidence – palace bells, unearthed from the era of the Warring Duke, are inscribed with slogans that state the Zhou dynasty to have lost its mandate from heaven, and that the Qin people were the rightful rulers of the world.7 From the accession of Duke Mu the Well-Chosen in 659 BC, Qin turned its warlike attentions away from the frontier, and into the civilised world of the east.

  Qin focussed on its own eastern borders, on a large state already torn by internal strife. The late seventh century saw several periods of heavy drought. Qin supposedly helped its neighbour, only to be spurned when a similar dry spell afflicted its own territory. Qin continued to fight skirmishes with the western barbarians, but also with its civilised neighbours. In one of the Well-Chosen duke’s most famous incidents, he had to be dissuaded from sacrificing a captured enemy king to the Supreme Deity.

  During the period termed ‘the Warring States’ by later historians, successive dukes of Qin intrigued against their rivals. During the lifetime of the famous philosopher Confucius, Qin saw five more dukes come and go; while Confucius visited most of the major states of the period, he did not grace the upstart, conniving people of Qin with his presence.8

  Shortly after the death of Confucius, Qin’s eastern neighbour gave up the ghost in 453 BC, falling apart into three smaller states, with which Qin was swift to establish contradictory diplomatic relations. However, just as Qin stood a chance of exerting greater influence to the east, the country was plunged into internal difficulties once more. A disagreement between a duke and his advisers led to a civil war and the suicide of the ruler during a siege. The dukedom passed between the descendants of the suicidal duke’s two sons, until 385 BC, when the rightful heir gained the upper hand and had the incumbent, his third cousin, drowned in the river, along with the usurper’s interfering mother.

  With a strong ruler in charge once more, Qin gained other accoutrements of civilisation. A new capital was constructed at Xianyang, upriver from the royal domain of the impotent Zhou kings, who appeased their powerful neighbours with lavish gifts. When the Zhou king sacrificed to the Supreme Deity, the meat from the animals killed in the ceremony was sent to the Qin duke as a mark of respect. However, if the king of Zhou was hoping to use bribes and gifts to keep Qin on his side, he would be disappointed. There was already talk of ‘reuniting’ Qin and Zhou, phrased as the incorporation of Zhou’s former march-land back into the royal domain, but in reality an annexation of the royal domain by Qin itself.9 Presumably, it was hoped by the Zhou that this might be achieved by peaceful means – perhaps the intermarriage of some suitable sons and daughters, so that one could inherit both. The Qin aristocracy, of course, would prefer to simply conquer the royal domain as one more territory.

  Respect among the other rulers for the Zhou king was at an all time low, and it was only a Confucian respect for tradition that kept them from disobeying him more openly. Tradition, of course, also held that Heaven’s mandate was revocable. If Heaven were displeased with the king of Zhou, then perhaps it was time for a new dynasty, just as the Zhou had once supplanted the Shang a thousand years earlier. It was clear that the duke of Qin thought himself the ideal candidate.

  In 361 BC, the young nation of Qin gained the philosopher it deserved, a fugitive noble called Lord Shang. The young lord had enjoyed earlier successes as a minister in his home country, but had been forced to flee following the death of his master. The dying princely patron had recommended Lord Shang to his successor, adding that he would only have two choices – put Lord Shang in charge of the government, or have him killed before he could sell his services elsewhere.10 Not willing to leave things to chance, Shang ran.

  The Record of the Historian is less forgiving, and claims that Lord Shang was always a bad seed, and that his supposed ill treatment was the predictable outcome of earlier transgressions.11 Whatever the true reasons behind Lord Shang’s hasty departure, he left with a palpable disrespect for ancient tradition. He decided to go to Qin, a state that had been advertising for learned men to join its government. In his audience with Qin’s Educated Duke (r.361-338 BC), he began by trolling out Confucian platitudes, in which the Duke had no real interest. It was only when Lord Shang dropped the pretence and began discussing harsh realities that the Duke perked up. By 359 BC, Lord Shang was not only a member of the Qin government, but had drawn up sweeping plans to improve the state with legal reform. Most of Lord Shang’s ideas ran in opposition to Confucian orthodoxy, and the duke was afraid that his country would once again be ridiculed as an ignorant upstart. But Lord Shang told his ruler that he could do it the Confucian way and get nowhere, or do it Lord Shang’s way and actually achieve something:

  He who is hesitant to act will acquire no fame. He who falters once the course of action is begun will accomplish nothing…. Those who have thoughts of independent knowledge are certain to be mocked by the people. The stupid only hear of what is already accomplished, but the wise man sees what is to come before it is begun.12

  Confucian practise had been set up deliberately to prevent people like Lord Shang from saying such things. Confucius worked on the principle that laws and rituals from bygone ages represented received wisdom, and that a wi
se man would not attempt to argue with such rules. The Educated Duke, however, was ready to hear a different idea – that ‘tradition’ was nothing more than a lie to keep the ignorant in check, and that the truly wise would do whatever was required.

  Under the authority of Lord Shang, the state of Qin was re-organised. ‘Ten houses’, the old Chinese term for a village, now became a unit of government. The denizens of each cluster of five or ten houses were expected to keep watch and report on their neighbours. Anyone who reported a crime would receive the same financial rewards as a soldier who brought home enemy heads from a battlefield. Anyone who failed to report a crime was cut in half. Citizens were obliged to labour for the state on public works – only farmers and weavers were exempt. Laziness itself became an offence, with enslavement as the punishment for idleness.13

  The nobility of Qin were not excused any of Lord Shang’s rules. As a battlefield aristocracy, the Qin nobles were expected to achieve palpable military results, or risk being struck off the royal lists. Shang’s reforms created a harsh, fascistic society of snooping neighbours and hungry soldiers – a nation whose leaders were obliged by their very constitution to attack and expand beyond their borders. More importantly, they also created an efficient military state, with compulsory levies for public works, and a vast standing army of well-trained, well-equipped infantry. Qin’s new army was a game-changer in ancient China, dwarfing and outclassing the smaller, chariot-centred forces of other states, and dragging the entire continent’s military technology and practice into a new, large-scale form of conflict. This, in turn, destroyed much of the power-base of the local, city-absed aristocracies. Lord Shang forced every state to think on a national, all-encompassing level, in terms of its recruitment, its military operations, and its administration. Ultimately, his reforms would end the era of the dukes, and usher in a time that called for kings.14