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Emperor Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huangdi (259 BC – 210 BC),personal name Ying Zheng, was king of the Chinese State of Qin from 247 BCE to 221 BCE (during the Warring States Period). He became the first emperor of a unified China in 221 BCE. He ruled until his death in 210 BCE, calling himself the First Emperor. He was known for the introduction of Legalism and also for unifying China.
Qin Shi Huangdi remains a controversial figure in Chinese history. After unifying China, he and his chief adviser Li Si passed a series of major reforms meant to preserve unification. Together, they undertook gigantic projects, including the first version of the current Great Wall of China, the now famous city-sized mausoleum guarded by a life-sized Terracotta Army, and a massive national road system, all at the expense of many lives. To ensure stability, Qin Shi Huang outlawed Confucianism and is reported to have buried alive many of its scholars. All books other than those officially decreed were banned and burned.
Despite the tyranny of his autocratic rule, Qin Shi Huang is regarded as a pivotal figure in Chinese history whose unification of China has endured for more than two thousand years.The given name was never used except by close relatives. As a ruler, he was referred to as the "King of Qin".
After conquering the last independent Chinese state in 221 BCE, Qin Shi Huang was the king over all of China, an unprecedented accomplishment. To show that he was no longer a simple king like those during the Warring States Period, he created a new title - huangdi, combining the word huang from the legendary Three Huang (Three August Ones) who ruled at the dawn of Chinese history, and the word di from the legendary Five Di (Five Sovereigns) who ruled immediately after the Three Huang. These Three Huang and Five Di were considered perfect rulers, of immense power and very long lives. The word huang also meant "big", "great". The word di also referred to the Supreme God in Heaven, creator of the world. Thus, by joining these two words for the first time, Qin Shi Huang created a title on a par with his feat of uniting the seemingly endless Chinese realm, in fact uniting the world. Ancient Chinese, like ancient Romans, believed their empire encompassed the whole world, a concept referred to as all under heaven.
This word huangdi is rendered in English as "emperor", a word which also has a long history dating back to ancient Rome (although "emperor" derived from imperator, which denoted the head of the military), and which English-speakers commonly deem to be superior to the word "king". Qin Shi Huang adopted the name First Emperor (Shi Huangdi, literally "commencing emperor"). He abolished posthumous names, by which former kings were known after their death, judging them inappropriate and contrary to filial piety, and decided that future generations would refer to him as the First Emperor (Shi Huangdi). His successor would be referred to as the Second Emperor (Er Shi Huangdi, literally "second generation emperor"), the successor of his successor as the Third Emperor (San Shi Huangdi, literally "third generation emperor"), and so on, for ten thousand generations, as the Imperial house was supposed to rule China for that long. ("Ten thousand" is equivalent to "forever" in Chinese, and also signifies "good fortune".)
Qin Shi Huang had now become the First Emperor of the State of Qin. The official name of the newly united China was still "State of Qin", as Qin had absorbed all the other states. The contemporaries called the emperor "First Emperor", dropping the phrase "of the State of Qin", which was obvious without saying. However, soon after the emperor's death, his regime collapsed, and China was beset by a civil war. Eventually, in 202 BCE the Han Dynasty managed to reunify the whole of China, which now became officially known as the State of Han, or Empire of Han. Qin Shi Huang could no longer be called "First Emperor", as this would imply that he was the "First Emperor of the Empire of Han". The custom thus arose of preceding his name with Qin, which no longer referred to the State of Qin, but to the Qin Dynasty, a dynasty replaced by the Han Dynasty. The word huangdi (emperor) in his name was also shortened to huang, so that he became known as Qin Shi Huang. It seems likely that huangdi was shortened to obtain a three-character name, because it is rare for Chinese people to have a name composed of four or more characters.
This name Qin Shi Huang (i.e., "First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty") is the name that appears in the Records of the Grand Historian written by Sima Qian, and is the name most favored today inside China when referring to the First Emperor. Westerners sometimes write "Qin Shi Huangdi", which is improper given Chinese naming conventions; it is more conventional to write "Qin Shi Huang" or "First Emperor of Qin".
