佚名 · Public domain
Late Warring States to Qin · 259–210 BC
Qin Shi Huang
嬴政 · China
China's first emperor
Born in Handan. In 221 BC he conquered Qi, unified the six states and called himself 'First Emperor'. With his chancellor Li Si he standardised weights and measures and carried out other reforms, linked the walls of the former states into a single Great Wall, built a national network of roads, and built himself a tomb the size of a city, guarded by life-size terracotta warriors. He died in 210 BC on his fifth tour of the east.
Where the story happened
Places connected with this person
History · Terracotta Army
The underground palace described by Sima Qian
The Western Han historian Sima Qian recorded in the 'Basic Annals of Qin Shi Huang' in the 'Records of the Grand Historian' that after unifying the realm, Qin Shi Huang conscripted 700,000 people from across the country to build his tomb, and that its underground palace used mercury to represent the hundred rivers and the great sea, made to flow by machinery. When the uprisings broke out at the end of Qin, the general Zhang Han diverted the 700,000 tomb workers to suppress them, and only then did work stop. Whether Sima Qian's description is accurate is still debated, and the main tomb has never been excavated.
