Broken Saints Blog-a-Plenty

As the most powerful man in the east, he took the title Ch’in Shih-huang–first Divine Emperor of China (China’s name today comes from his title.) He declared that his dynasty would last for 10,000 years.

Emperor Ch’in was very ambitious. He formed a controlling central monarchy, developed a uniform code of law, initiated huge public work projects–roads, canals and an impressive new capital.

His palace was massive–a mile and a half long and half mile wide. It had thousands of rooms with one hall that sat 10,000 people. It connected with secret passages to 270 other palaces, so that he could sleep in a different place every night. The Emperor had an obsessive fear about enemies trying to assassinate him.

Ying Zheng has been remembered most because of the Great Wall he built, using many thousands of slaves. (Tradition says that tens of thousands of his forced labourers died during the wall’s construction and their bones were ground up and added to the mortar–the wall is referred to as the “longest cemetery on earth”.) It stretches over mountains and valleys for 1,500 miles (2,400 km). Eight men could march side-by-side along its surface, and the wall was connected by 25,000 towers. Signal messages could be sent from one side of China to the other in a day.

Emperor Ch’in was always thinking about dying. He sent wise men out far and wide to find the fabled Fountain of Youth. They were threatened with death if they didn’t find it. Of course they didn’t.

When the Emperor’s Prime Minister devised a plot against him, he was assassinated, at only forty-one years of age. Because Ch’in’s son was to be the heir and carry on the dynasty, his enemies within the inner circle forged a letter in the Emperor’s name saying the son should commit suicide–he did.