The First Emperor of China

by Jonathan Clements

  With their new offices and responsibilities came new intrusions on their privacy. It could be that it was simply more difficult for the Queen Mother and the Grand Councillor to spend too much time in each other’s company without eliciting suspicion.

  Zhaoji was by no means the first or last woman in Chinese history to attain a powerful position, only to attract accusations of licentiousness. Ying Zheng’s great grandmother, the Queen Dowager Xuan, was the subject of numerous scurrilous rumours, and was personally held responsible for an elaborate intrigue against the Rong barbarians that involved her seducing their leader, bearing him two children, and then leading the army against him that led to his death and Qin’s annexation of his territory.10 Similar barbarian overtures would later occupy Empress Lü, the wife of the founder of the Han dynasty, and mind-boggling scandals would attend the life of Empress Wu, the matriarch of the Tang dynasty. Such misogynistic accusations continue all the way to modern times, with the most recent devil-women in the public eye being Madame Mao in the 1970s, and ‘Horus’ Gu, the murderous wife of the discredited 21st century politican Bo Xilai.

  Confucius himself, in his Spring and Autumn Annals, outlined several occasions when the actions of just ministers were thwarted by the intrigues of their masters’ favourite concubines. Later historians were perhaps guided by such an example into laying the blame for political misdeeds on the interferences of women – however, what makes the Zhaoji story different is that Zhaoji does not seem to have wanted to involve herself in politics.

  Unlike her historical lookalikes, the sexual warrior Xuan, or the Tang dynasty’s Empress Wu, Zhaoji’s fall from grace is depicted along much more simple lines, as the pining of a widow in her thirties, propelled from a simple, relatively carefree life as a well-regarded courtesan into court politics over the mastery of the known world. Nor do the historical records offer any evidence of her own feelings – all we know of her sudden betrothal to Yiren comes from the biographies of the men involved, most notably Lü Buwei, who angrily gave up his favourite bedmate to his royal protégé, presumably with an eye on his political aims.

  Much of what we are told is only discernable in the evidence and accusations presented at the end of the affair. But suffice to say, early in the reign of Ying Zheng, when the boy-king was still in his minority, Buwei hatched a plan to keep Zhaoji occupied and away from the palace. Later authors and playwrights have concocted many variations on the theme, claiming that Zhaoji demanded so much of Buwei’s time that he feared their liaison would be discovered, or that she threatened him that she would expose any number of secret intrigues unless she were sexually satisfied. Whatever led up to it, the final result is stated quite boldly in the Record of the Historian: ‘Lü Buwei, fearing that his affair would be discovered, found a man with a large penis, named Lao Ai.’11

  The well-endowed Lao Ai was soon employed at Lü Buwei’s residence, where he was asked to demonstrate his unique abilities before a crowd. In one of its strangest passages, the Record of the Historian reports Lao Ai cavorting at a party, with a wooden cartwheel suspended on his erect penis. News of this, apparently, soon got back to Zhaoji, who asked if she might meet such a man.

  Lü Buwei offered to go one better, suggesting that he arrange for someone to falsely accuse Lao Ai of a crime sufficiently severe to require castration as punishment. The castrated Lao Ai could then be sent to Zhaoji’s palace permanently. Zhaoji, however, pointed out that the nature of the punishment would rather defeat the object of having Lao Ai in the palace in the first place, but that was already part of Lü Buwei’s plan. He arranged for the accusation and the sentence, leaving it to Zhaoji to supply suitably lavish bribes to the official in charge of castration. When Lao Ai’s time came, the castrators merely went through the motions of the operation without harming him, instead devoting their time to plucking out Lao Ai’s beard and eyebrows, since depilation was one of the most visible signs of a eunuch. At least, such is the claim in the Record of the Historian, the composition of which leads some commentators not only to doubt the provenance of the story, but also whether it was part of the original book at all. Sima Qian, the titular Historian, was a eunuch himself, and one who had been castrated relatively late in life. He thus would have been aware that eunuchs created after puberty continue to grow facial hair, and that plucking Lao Ai’s beard would only provide a temporary disguise. Such a gaffe in the text of the Record of the Historian is enough to call the entire section into question – it seems unlikely that Sima Qian would have made such an error, suggesting in fact that the Lao Ai incident is a later interpolation by someone with a vested interest in further discrediting the Qin dynasty.12

  The subterfuge was a success. The new ‘eunuch’ Lao Ai was bundled off to Zhaoji’s quarters, where he kept her suitably occupied, and away from Lü Buwei. Since Zhaoji was still a young, healthy woman, it is perhaps not surprising that she soon became pregnant, a situation which forced her to find an excuse to move further away from the prying eyes of the court. Before her condition could be known, she announced that a soothsayer had told her to seek a better climate, and moved her entourage out of Xianyang to the old Qin capital further up the valley.

  Zhaoji’s sojourn upriver lasted for longer than she had previously suggested. She had originally claimed to be heading to the old capital for the summer, but stayed there semi-permanently, running a household with many hundreds of servants, headed by her newfound adviser, the ‘eunuch’ Lao Ai.

  Over time, Zhaoji began to tempt fate in much the same way she appears to have tempted it in her earlier liaisons with Buwei. Presumably thinking herself far from the court and untouchable by accusations, she allowed Lao Ai to drop the eunuch routine. There is no note in the Record of the Historian of his facial hair being allowed to grow back, or the switching of the eunuch’s robes in favour of better clothes, but the most obvious sign came in 239 when Lao Ai was somehow promoted to Marquess. Such a promotion was a physical impossibility – eunuchs were forbidden from holding noble office, and this was the main reason that they were permitted such access and responsibility within the palace. It would seem that Lao Ai had got ideas above his station, and someone was bound to find out.

  There were other tensions. Back at the capital, Ying Zheng was now 20 years of age. Traditionally, this would be the time to hold his official ceremony of manhood, to give him the adult cap to wear and possibly an official wife, chosen from the princesses of the other kingdoms. It would, more ominously, also be the time for his regent to step down, and hand over the reins of power to the adult king.

  Something, or someone, was keeping Ying Zheng from holding the ceremony of manhood. Soon after the death of General Meng Ao, one of the prime movers of the early Qin conquests, a tailed star appeared in the west between May and June of 239, an omen of some significance. Indeed it was – to modern astronomers it is the first recorded appearance of Halley’s Comet, but to the observers of the Qin court it suggested further disasters to come.13 Soon afterwards, Ying Zheng’s grandmother, the Lady of Summer, died at what must have been a suspiciously young age. Accordingly, the young king might be expected to enter a period of official mourning, and perhaps hold off his ceremony of manhood.

  Ying Zheng’s younger brother Chengjiao, met with a suspicious end in 239 when the youthful prince, unlikely to have been out of his teens, was somehow given command of an army sent to invade Zhao. The Record of the Historian simply states that, while doing so, he ‘rebelled against the king,’ although the nature of the rebellion is unclear.14 By the strict Legalist terms of the Qin state, simply failing in one’s duty would be considered an insult to one’s lord, so perhaps Chengjiao merely failed to secure a victory. However, although the aged Meng Ao was dead, there were still plenty of other experienced generals who could have led a campaign into enemy territory, particularly towards Zhao – a sensitive target since it was the homeland of the king himself and his mother Zhaoji. If there is any truth in the insinuations that Buwei was the real father
of the king, then perhaps the death of Chengjiao was an expedient way of removing him from the palace before opponents of Buwei might mount a coup. It seems more likely that if there were a coup attempt, it might have been mounted by Chengjiao himself, which might explain the nature of his ‘rebellion’ towards the king, and why his associates were all beheaded in the aftermath of his death.

  The evidence in ancient sources is tantalisingly laconic. While Qin armies continued to fight distant wars in 238, the country was treated to the sight of another spectacular comet, its tail dominating the night sky. Amid such portents, a date for the king’s capping ceremony, at which he would finally be acknowledged as a man, was announced. He was twenty-two.

  Before his ceremony, Ying Zheng visited a place that appears as a single, simple syllable in the Record of the Historian. Its importance only becomes plain when we know that it was the site of the tomb of one of his most illustrious ancestors, Wu, the Warring Duke. Wu was that same scion of the house of Qin, who returned from long campaigns against the barbarians to discover that the palace ‘advisers’ had seized control of the government, through a succession of regencies in the name of child-rulers. It was the Warring Duke who had ordered the execution of the troublesome ministers and seized the reins of power from the courtly usurpers, seemingly instituting a return to the harsh ways of Qin tradition. It was the Warring Duke, or perhaps his vengeful heirs, who first instituted the custom of burying the living with the dead, since he was entombed with 66 of his supporters. The Warring Duke was a symbol of a disinherited heir, fighting back against his usurpers with ruthless, calculating brutality. It would appear that Ying Zheng, the current king of Qin, reached a momentous decision at the graveside of his ancestor.15

  The king’s enemies were to be found among his regents – the aging Lady of Glorious Sun, Lü Buwei and Zhaoji all enjoyed positions of authority for as long as their dependent was still officially a child. The strange events surrounding the death of Chengjiao suggest that there may already have been a faction in Qin that wanted to replace Ying Zheng with a more pliable heir. As had happened before in the history of the Qin, it was possible that somewhere among the regents was a person who would rather kill Ying Zheng and replace him with a new boy-king who would require ‘assistance’. Meanwhile, the regents themselves seemed to have fallen out, so that far from presenting a united front to the world, the Qin state was now split between two factions, both claiming to act in the interests of Ying Zheng, but both secretly plotting to retain power for themselves. A cryptic comment in the Intrigues of the Warring States notes:

  Everywhere in Qin, from those who hold power down to those who hold the handles of wheelbarrows, the question is always the same: ‘Are you the Empress and Lao Ai’s man or are you Lü Buwei’s?’ It matters little whether you go to the gateway of a hamlet or walk the corridors and temples of the capital, the question is the same. 16

  Eventually, matters came to a head. The severity of the punishments dealt out, and the relative fates of the regents are the only suggestions we have of who was truly to blame, and even then it remains possible that history unjustly accuses one or all of them. Shortly after the king’s capping ceremony, at which he might be expected to assume full responsibility for the running of the state, his reign suffered its first obvious coup attempt.

  In their palatial love-nest upriver, Lao Ai and Zhaoji’s relationship was finally discovered; or at least, made public, since it is hard to believe that there were not already suspicions. One story suggests that Lao Ai lost his temper at a party, and drunkenly boasted that he acted in place of the king’s father (in other words, he was sleeping with the king’s mother).17 The more commonly accepted version implies discovery after the fact, with Lao Ai’s treason only becoming clear in the light of his attempted revolution.

  Lao Ai led with the biggest lie possible, and almost got away with it. Somehow, he issued royal orders, backed up with his lover’s royal seal. The palace guard, the elite cavalry, and the watchmen of the capital were but a few of the groups summoned to attack Ying Zheng’s residence – other less likely invitees included two tribes of barbarians. Lao Ai and his palace retainers managed to constitute a fair number of the revolutionaries. Fighting broke out in the streets of Xianyang itself, with Lao Ai’s party facing off against the king’s most loyal supporters. With the palace guard apparently in on the coup, the best the king could arrange was a force of his younger ministers, armed palace eunuchs and the personal retinues of two foreign nobles. It is likely that thousands were involved on both sides, but many may have been duped by the false orders, their contribution simply one of waving detachments of troops through checkpoints, or allowing themselves to be unquestioningly reassigned to postings away from the king’s side. The actual revolutionaries, aware that the plot involved the killing of the ruler of Qin, only numbered in the hundreds, and most of those were slain during the fighting in the streets. When the dust cleared, Lao Ai was on the run and the angry king placed a price on his head of a million coins alive, half a million dead.

  In the aftermath, twenty men were executed for treason, including the leaders of the palace guards, a leading civil servant, and one of the lead archers. Although many thousands were punished, it would seem that even in brutal Qin, they were recognised as innocents caught up in a scheme they had not fully comprehended – refusing a call to arms bearing the royal seal would itself have also been punishable by death, after all. Accordingly, some offenders got away with a sentence of three years’ hard labour, gathering firewood for sacrificial altars and state kilns.18 Around four thousand of Lao Ai’s servants, however, were caught in the middle. Loyal to their lord or Zhaoji herself, they had served the lovers without comment or gossip. Although their silence represented loyalty to one master at the expense of their duty to the king himself, wittingly or not, they had contributed to a coup that almost caused the death of their ruler. They were shipped en masse to the southern marches of Sichuan, and forced to eke out an existence on the frontier.

  Lao Ai was less lucky. Once word got out about his coup attempt and the reward, he and the remnants of his rebel party were rounded up and executed. In Lao Ai’s case, he was pulled apart by four chariots. In accordance with the Legalistic rules set down many decades earlier by Lord Shang, Lao Ai’s crime was one that also shamed his entire family, whether they had known of the coup or not. Accordingly, all of Lao Ai’s relatives were exterminated, including his cousins, siblings, and if they were alive, his parents. Included in the extermination order were the two children he had supposedly sired on Zhaoji herself, rumoured to have been the next boy-kings in line for the ‘regency’ if the coup had somehow worked out. In this manner, the king of Qin ordered the deaths of his two half-brothers, only a short while after discovering they even existed. As for Zhaoji herself, the king issued a stern decree that discussion of her involvement was strictly off-limits:

  Anyone who dares remonstrate with me concerning the matter of the dowager [Zhaoji] will be executed forthwith. Their flesh will be removed from their bones… and their limbs piled around the city gates like a curb around a well.19

  Some of his advisers and associates did not appreciate the seriousness of the announcement, and unwisely expressed opinions about the trustworthiness of Ying Zheng’s mother. The king had 27 of them killed before the courtiers got the message – Zhaoji was off limits, as if the king would rather believe that she had no part in the coup, rather than the unwelcome alternative, that she had been prepared to have her first-born son murdered.

  Someone’s plan had backfired. Lü Buwei may have hoped to remove Zhaoji from interfering in government affairs, but such a decision involves palpable suspension of disbelief in the alleged means of removing her. Lao Ai, with or without the support of Zhaoji herself, may have planned to seize control for himself and his supposed children by Zhaoji. It remains possible that the interfering party was none of the above, but the boy-king himself, attempting to undermine the authority of his regent by prom
oting someone else ahead of him. If that were truly the case, then the Lao Ai Affair was not the culmination of intrigues, but the beginning of one designed to bring the downfall of Lü Buwei.

  The repercussions of Lao Ai’s coup attempt would continue for some years. The events made the state of Qin a laughing stock among some of the other countries, and may have delayed further military conquests by up to a year. Zhaoji herself was confined to her palace, although she was eventually relocated to a residence nearer the capital as a face-saving measure. Her direct involvement in the coup attempt remained unproven, perhaps mercifully so, since proof to the contrary would have required her own son to adjudge her guilty of conspiracy to murder him.

  It was not until the following year, after a mild summer and a bitingly cold winter, that the king’s attentions turned to Lü Buwei himself. After decades of loyal service, as the sponsor and adviser to Ying Zheng’s father, and then as guardian, regent and chief minister to Ying Zheng himself, Buwei’s career was finally at an end. Although he seemed innocent of any charges relating directly to the coup, it was after all, Buwei who had engineered the prolonged dalliance of Lao Ai and Zhaoji in the first place. The king angrily dismissed his Second Father from his palace post, and ordered a purge on all foreign influences in the kingdom. Such a directive, if taken literally, would have been an utter disaster for Qin, since it would be difficult to know where to draw the line. The king himself was born of a mother from Zhao, his wife was a foreign princess, as was his adoptive grandmother. However, the king’s initial ire seemed directed against the so-called Alien Ministers like Buwei, honoured scholars from other countries who had been drawn to Qin by the nation’s long-standing and generous policy on hiring advisers. Three thousand such advisers were responsible for the Annals of Lü Buwei, and it is likely that they were the initial target of the king’s campaign to rid the country of foreign influences. The truth was now out about the ‘Zheng canal’ irrigation scheme recommended by agents of Han – although it had brought prosperity to the kingdom, and may even have saved untold lives during the recent cold snap, its original intention had been to keep the Qin government too busy on internal matters to involve itself in foreign wars.