Qin Shi Huang

The First Emperor who unified China and created the title huángdì, ruling until his death in 210 BC.

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Qin Shi Huang (February 259 – 12 July 210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of China. He invented the title huángdì rather than reuse the existing title for "king"; the new title was used by monarchs in China and other countries for the next two millennia. Born in Handan, the capital of Zhao, as Ying Zheng or Zhao Zheng, his parents were King Zhuangxiang of Qin and Lady Zhao. The wealthy merchant Lü Buwei assisted him in succeeding his father as the king of Qin, after which he became King Zheng of Qin. By 221 BC, he had conquered all the other warring states and unified all of China, and he ascended the throne as China's first emperor.

Quick Facts

Successor: Qin Er Shi
Birth name: Ying Zheng (嬴政) or; Zhao Zheng (趙政)
Birthplace: Handan, Zhao
Died: 12 July 210 BC (aged 49)
Place of death: Shaqiu (沙丘), Qin dynasty (in present-day Pingxiang County, Hebei)
Regnal name: Shi Huangdi (始皇帝)
Issue: Fusu, Huhai
Mother: Queen Dowager Zhao

Lore & Background

Qin Shi Huang worked with his minister Li Si to enact major economic and political reforms aimed at the standardization of the diverse practices among earlier Chinese states. He is traditionally said to have banned and burned many books and executed scholars. His public works projects included the incorporation of diverse state walls into a single Great Wall of China and a massive new national road system, as well as his city-sized mausoleum guarded by a life-sized Terracotta Army. He ruled until his death in 210 BC, during his fifth tour of eastern China. During his reign, his generals greatly expanded the size of the Chinese state: campaigns south of Chu permanently added the Yue lands of Hunan and Guangdong to the Sinosphere, and campaigns in Inner Asia conquered the Ordos Plateau from the nomadic Xiongnu, although the Xiongnu later rallied under Modu Chanyu.

Reader's Guide

According to the Shiji written by Sima Qian during the Han dynasty, the first emperor was the eldest son of the Qin prince Yiren, who later became King Zhuangxiang of Qin. However, the Shiji also claimed that the first emperor was not the actual son of Prince Yiren but that of Lü Buwei. According to this account, when Lü Buwei introduced the dancing girl to the prince, she was Lü Buwei's concubine and had already become pregnant by him, and the baby was born after an unusually long period of pregnancy.

The idea that the emperor was an illegitimate child, widely believed throughout Chinese history, contributed to the generally negative view of the First Emperor. However, a number of modern scholars have doubted this account of his birth. Sinologist Derk Bodde wrote: "There is good reason for believing that the sentence describing this unusual pregnancy is an interpolation added to the Shiji by an unknown person to slander the First Emperor and indicate his political as well as natal illegitimacy".

John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, in their translation of Lü Buwei's Lüshi Chunqiu, call the story "patently false, meant both to libel Lü and to cast aspersions on the First Emperor".