The First Emperor of China

by Jonathan Clements

  ‘A hundred times the investment.’

  ‘How much return on helping the ruler of a state establish himself?’ asked Lü Buwei.

  ‘One could hardly count so great a profit.’

  ‘If I were to farm most diligently I would hardly get enough food and clothing for myself,’ said Lü Buwei, ‘but if I establish a country and seat its ruler I should be wealthy enough to pass an estate on to my heirs.’28

  He approached Yiren and pointed out that although he was very minor in the royal house, until such time as Lord Anguo had a legitimate heir, Yiren stood the same chance of any of the other sons of catching his father’s approval. Said Buwei:

  The King of Qin is old, and Lord Anguo is the Crown Prince. I have heard it told that Lord Anguo dotes upon his Lady of the Glorious Sun, but that she is without issue. And yet it stands with her alone to nominate a successor. You have more than twenty brothers, and you are neither the eldest nor the most well-favoured, long having dwelt as a hostage in another state. When the Great King passes on, and Lord Anguo replaces him, what chance do you have against your elder brothers, and those who are closer at hand, day and night?29

  Yiren had doubtless mulled it over himself. Buwei, however, was prepared to offer him a way out – sponsorship. It was Buwei’s belief that the essence of the problem was also its solution; it was the duty of the Lady of Glorious Sun to name a successor, and since she had no child of her own, she was able to recommend anyone. Buwei proposed that he journey to Yiren’s homeland and somehow secure the approval and patronage of the Lady of Glorious Sun.

  The proposal seems bizarre, but Lü Buwei was betting on the future. He also appears to have had plenty of resources at his disposal, since when Yiren agreed, Buwei was immediately able to furnish him with finances. A quarter of a tonne of gold richer, Yiren was encouraged to acquire himself an entourage, and gifts to send to the Lady of Glorious Sun. Buwei himself undertook the journey back to Yiren’s homeland, where he arranged an audience with one of the Lady of Glorious Sun’s relatives – ancient sources disagree as to whether it was a brother or a sister, although the Record of the Historian believes it was the latter. Buwei was able to pass a message on to the Lady of the Glorious Sun, speaking of the good character of Yiren, and claiming that Yiren was the Lady’s greatest fan in Zhao. He also outlined some less flattering truths, that the Lady’s position as the ruler’s favourite would not last forever.

  That which beauty builds is oft destroyed by beauty’s loss. My lady serves the crown prince and is cherished, although she has not brought forth [a child]. If she were swift to bind herself to another’s son, virtuous and kind, and present him as her lawful heir, then while her lord was in the world she should have peace and respect, and a hundred years on, her son becoming king, her power would not diminish…. For youth is the time to trade on manifold glories, lest his love fade in time with your beauty. Is not now the time to speak?30

  Such is the blunt yet poetic speech as recorded in the Record of the Historian, although Sima Qian’s account differs in places from that of one of his sources, the Intrigues of the Warring States. The Intrigues places some of these events in different order, and asides elsewhere imply that the negotiations and diplomacies around Yiren went on for longer than Sima’s account implies. If we follow the Record of the Historian to the letter, the Lady of Glorious Sun wasted hardly any time at all, catching her husband at the next available moment, and entreating him to acknowledge her newly adopted son as his legitimate heir. The Intrigues, however, includes additional information, including a visit by Yiren himself. In the Intrigues account, Buwei’s obsequies are not enough, but Yiren journeys to the presence of the Lady of Glorious Sun, dressed in the national costume of her homeland, the southern state of Chu. If everything else failed, then it was Yiren in person that finally did the trick.31

  The Lady of Glorious Sun approached the king, outlined her concerns over the succession, and delivered a stirring catalogue of Yiren’s many virtues. Although she began dispassionately and calmly, her tears soon welled up as she thanked fate for her position as the queen, and cursed her bad luck for not being able to provide him with a son.32 Faced with such a tearful presentation from his favourite, Lord Anguo swiftly agreed, and presented the queen with a carved jade seal confirming her newly adopted son as the heir. Lü Buwei was dispatched back to Handan with the happy news, and with a new post as Yiren’s ‘tutor’. Yiren, it was said, gained newfound fame as the future king of Qin, basking in the glow of new gifts and embassies from his adopted parents, and enjoying a far better standard of living in Handan. He even took a wife, and the happy couple produced a son, the boy who would grow up to become the First Emperor.

  However, the story is not quite so simple. The relevant passages in the Record of the Historian are some of the most controversial in its many volumes. Although elements of Sima Qian’s chronicle have been confirmed by other sources and indeed by modern archaeology, there are some parts of his account that lead some historians to regard him with mistrust. Chiefly, such suspicions issue from the time in which he wrote, almost two centuries after the events that he described, under the rule of a dynasty that loathed the Qin emperors it had supplanted. Consequently, some have asked whether Sima Qian might not have been above adding some extra scandal to his account of birth of the First Emperor.

  Perhaps Sima Qian had a forgotten source no longer available to us. Some of the stories he tells are, remarkably, based on eyewitness accounts preserved through only a couple of generations. The infamous story of Jing Ke’s assassination attempt, for example, came to Sima Qian from his teacher’s teacher, who had personally known that same doctor who threw his medicine bag at the would-be killer. But the next claim that Sima Qian made in his account is strange only because it is so scandalous – it is not like Sima Qian to repeat something so palpably unlikely unless he either truly believed it, or unless severe pressure was being applied on him to do so.

  According to Sima Qian, Yiren slept with a dancing girl that summer who eventually bore him a son some time in early 259. The boy was named Zheng, which later writers recorded using the character for ‘Politic’, although at the time he may have gained it from a homonym referring to the month of his birth. He was given a surname, Zhao, after the country in which he was born, although this was later changed to Ying, the surname of his father.33 Some time later, Yiren married the mother of this child, making her the future queen of Qin, and her son third in line to the throne.

  But Sima Qian’s account includes an additional story, recounting the events surrounding the couple’s first meeting. According to the Record of the Historian, the dancer in question was Zhaoji, one of the prettiest women in Handan, and, unsurprisingly, a courtesan. She was also Lü Buwei’s mistress, and had been living with him at the time of her first meeting with Yiren. Flushed with his sudden rise in status, the celebrating Yiren had proposed a toast to Buwei, and in the process of doing so, made it clear that he wanted Zhaoji for himself. Sima Qian notes anger on Lü Buwei’s part, and his reluctant agreement to the demands of his newly promoted protégé. But he also reports that the dancer was already pregnant with Buwei’s own child.34

  There is no evidence beyond the words of Sima Qian himself, and strange circumstantial points, such as the mystery of why the infant Ying Zheng did not initially have his father’s surname. Notably, although Sima Qian mentions the pregnancy story in his biography of Lü Buwei, he does not repeat it in the story of the First Emperor. Lü Buwei certainly performed a fatherly role towards both Yiren and Yiren’s son, and would be a guardian and tutor to them both, but if Sima Qian’s insinuations are correct, then he was more than merely an adviser to the future First Emperor; he was his father.

  Similar slurs against Ying Zheng’s parentage can be found in the Book of Han, a much later work that includes a section on prophecies and portents of the Qin dynasty:

  In the 21st year of the Educated Duke of Qin (341 BC), a mare gave birth to a man. In the 20t
h year of the Bright King (287 BC) a stallion died while giving birth. Some explain the strange phenomena as follows: if your herd gives birth to a different species, one of your descendants will have a different surname. Surely when the First Emperor was born, he was the son of Lü Buwei.35

  Such hokum, gossiped the Book of Han, showed that the ruling house of Qin was already in trouble. But regardless of whether the allegations concerning Ying Zheng’s parentage are true, there are other inconsistencies regarding the account of his early years. After dealing so minutely with the details of his parents’ first meeting, the Record of the Historian leapfrogs several years to a Qin attack on the nation of Zhao in 257. A Qin army marched on the city of Handan itself, and Yiren was put under house by local parties intent on executing him to answer for his homeland’s crimes. Yiren, however, was able to escape with the help of Lü Buwei, who arranged for six hundred gold pieces to be paid to his guards. Another source claims that the Lady of Glorious Sun had offered a reward of one thousand gold pieces for Yiren’s safe return, so Lü Buwei, ever the merchant, had found a way of making a tidy profit for himself. But spiriting Yiren out of Handan would not be so easy – someone would have to stay behind as a decoy.

  The Record of the Historian offers nothing further, but a Chinese folktale suggests more to the story. One of Yiren’s servants volunteered, in the full knowledge that his involvement was likely to lead to his death. While the servant donned Yiren’s clothes and made conspicuous appearances at the windows and doors of the compound, Lü Buwei and Yiren made their escape mere minutes ahead of royal messengers bringing grave news. The false prince greeted the new visitors, who solemnly informed him that the order had come down on high from the angry Zhao ruler that he was to be executed. Whatever description the Zhao agents had of Yiren, it was close enough to that of his servant to fool them. By the time the false prince had been discovered, Yiren had had ample time to sneak out of the city and to safety. As all involved had feared, the captured servant paid the ultimate price for his loyalty, and was beheaded.36

  The servant, however, had named a price for his service. Yiren was thereafter obliged to care for the servant’s son Zhao Gao, and rear him as his own along with the young Ying Zheng – a story used to explain events many decades later in the First Emperor’s life. However, neither folklore nor more reliable records are able to say where Yiren’s wife and infant son were while all this was happening. The servant, his own son, and Ying Zheng’s mother all seem to have had the same surname, Zhao, the very same surname that was briefly used for the First Emperor himself. This was not uncommon; figures in ancient China from peasants to princes often used the name of their homeland as their own. We may never know what really happened in Handan, but it would appear that a family with the surname Zhao, who could have been either lowly servants or local gentry, were deeply involved in the early life of the boy who would become First Emperor. Somehow, Yiren’s wife was able to elude capture, thanks to her origins in ‘a wealthy local family.’ One wonders, if she was so noble-born, why the Record of the Historian had previously taken such pains to imply she was a prostitute.

  The siege of Handan marked the end of a long period of Qin victories. Much to the delight of scholars like Xunzi, the Qin army was chased out of Zhao by an army formed of allied states. Although the new coalition was not powerful enough to invade Qin itself, it did force Qin expansionism in a new direction.

  Yiren did not return to Handan. Instead he made good his escape into the hands of the Qin forces, leaving his wife and presumed son among the people of Zhao. The armies of Qin rolled ever eastwards, finally reaching the pontoon bridge that spanned the Yellow River north of the point where it met the river Wei. Armies advanced into Wei and Han, and at some point the supposed ruler of the world made a stand.

  From the nominal centre of the world, his royal domain, the King of the Zhou dynasty sent his highest-ranking minister to talk the king of Qin out of claiming any more territory. Kept waiting and eventually rebuffed from meeting with the Bright King of Qin, the minister returned having accomplished little. His one achievement, it would seem, was an unlikely assurance to the Bright King that the aging ruler of the world, a man in at least his late sixties, would not oppose him. Whether that was the King of Zhou’s intent or not, he changed his mind.

  In 256, when the future First Emperor was three years old, a Qin army captured two towns barely a day’s ride from the capital. Despite alleged assurances on both sides, it was too close for comfort. The King of the Zhou dynasty switched sides, reneged on his non-interference policy, and called for an alliance to head the Qin army off. Before the Qin army could get any closer to the Royal Domain, a combined army containing, as Sima Qian put it, ‘the elite forces of the world’ poured out of an important strategic pass.37

  Supposedly angry at the Zhou King’s betrayal, but perhaps doing what he had planned all along, the Bright King ordered the invasion of the Royal Domain itself. In an ignominious reversal of fortune, the Son of Heaven was obliged to travel to the hated state of Qin in 255 and kneel before the man who was supposedly his loyal vassal. The old man begged the Bright King for mercy, and offered him 36 ‘cities’ with a combined population of 30,000 if he would withdraw from his sacred territory.

  That same year, the old ruler died. His people fled east and the armies of Qin wasted no time in overrunning the Royal Domain. They were looking for the legendary vessels and artefacts used by the ancient kings of Zhou to communicate with Heaven itself. In particular, they were searching for the Nine Tripods, a collection of sacred vessels thought to exercise some form of divine protection upon the rightful ruler of the world.

  The Record of the Historian states that all of the Nine Tripods were recovered. Another story suggests that the Bright King only managed to acquire eight of them, and that the final magical vessel was cast into the river by his retreating enemies, or even that it had ‘flown away’. Despite attempts by the fleeing inhabitants of the Royal Domain to deprive Qin of what it wanted, the Zhou dynasty’s thousand-year rule was coming to an end.

  Seven years later, when the future First Emperor was a ten-year-old boy, playing in his mother’s house in Handan, the news arrived that the Bright King had overthrown the Zhou nobility.

  Despite what appears to have been initial superstitions surrounding the Nine Tripods, the Bright King stopped concerning himself with supernatural problems. The rulers of the world had lost their mandate and their power – such had to be the case, otherwise the Qin armies would never have won. Zhou was finished, and if the dead king’s ancestors could not aid him at his time of greatest need, what possible help could they be now?

  Perhaps the Bright King had a point. After all, centuries of feigned loyalty to the Zhou dynasty was now at an end. Qin had conquered half the known world, including its centre, and other states were falling into line. As the Record of the Historian put it, ‘the whole world came to Qin,’ to pay homage to its ruler. Unfortunately for the neighbouring state of Wei, its own ruler took his time in arriving, and the Bright King flexed his new-found imperial muscles. A Qin army invaded Wei and captured what would undoubtedly be the first town of many. The ruler of Wei took the hint, and entrusted his land and people to Qin’s care.

  There were still disloyal countries to the east – states like Yan, the Land of Swallows, and Qi, the Land of the Devout. There were many armies left to fight, but just as the exterminated Zhou had clung to the notion of supremacy long after their power had gone, the ruler of Qin seemed keen to establish it before he truly held it in his hand.

  In 253, the Bright King made his true intentions known. He held a ceremony of solemn ritual deep inside Qin territory, in which he communed with the Supreme Deity. Chinese religion was as hierarchical as the society itself, and only someone of equivalent rank on Earth was permitted to address the master of the Sky. In performing the sacrificial ceremony, and performing it in Qin territory, the Bright King announced to the world that he was now its ruler, and that
the divine power of the departed Zhou was destroyed forever.

  Two years later, he was dead.

  2 The King of Qin

  Lord Anguo, Yiren’s father, was now the nominated ruler of Qin. As befitted a bereaved heir, he began his reign uncrowned, with many months of mourning and conspicuous public works. Criminals were pardoned, although in Qin, such a magnanimous gesture hid political aims elsewhere – it was the fate of pardoned felons to be forcibly resettled in newly conquered lands. On the first day of the new Qin year (mid-winter, by our reckoning), Anguo was officially enthroned, and would later bear the reign title of The Learned King. The new ruler stood every chance of leading Qin into new victories. Perhaps he might even offer more royal sacrifices and make another grab at proclaiming himself not merely king, but emperor?

  Three days later, he was dead, too.

  Yiren, the former forgotten hostage child in Handan, was now the new ruler of Qin, with the reign-title of Merciful King. The Ladies of Summer and Glorious Sun were now Queen Dowagers – the principal wife of the departed king forced to share her royal widowhood with the new king’s real mother. Zhaoji, the former entertainer from Handan, was now the queen of Qin, and her son Ying Zheng, was the new heir. But the man who benefited most of all was Lü Buwei.

  The merchant’s gamble had paid off. After backing Yiren’s campaign to be nominated heir, and bankrolling Yiren’s public face of royal magnanimity, Buwei was now Grand Councillor, directly involved in the policies of the new government.

  As with the early days of his father’s brief reign, the Merciful King pardoned criminals, handed out noble titles to his father’s loyal retainers, and ordered several projects to improve public works. To the east, the last vestiges of the Zhou dynasty hatched a plot to bring the new king down – or at least, the king fabricated enough evidence to suggest it was true.