Qin Shi Huang, the "emperor of the ages," was the founder of China's centralized feudal monarchy for more than 2,000 years, and people have always had mixed praises and criticisms about him, and those who hate him say that he is cold-blooded and ruthless, burns books and pits Confucianism, and labors and hurts the people to build the Great Wall; those who appreciate him feel that he was the first emperor to unify China and unify the language, which made China the only country in the world without cultural faults.
We are all too familiar with these things, so there are not too many examples, so today we will take a look at the Qin Shi Huang in the eyes of foreigners. In the West, people often compare Qin Shi Huang in China with Julius Caesar in Rome, and in any ranking of outstanding emperors in the world, Qin Shi Huang is basically 1st or top 3.
But Europeans actually hate Qin Shi Huang, and even American professors have publicly stated that Qin Shi Huang has "harmed" Europe! What's going on here? This starts with the Great Wall.
The Great Wall, also known as the Great Wall, is a world cultural heritage site and the pride of our Chinese. Dating back to the Western Zhou Dynasty, it lasted for more than 2,000 years, connecting the vast lands of northern and central China, and according to surveys by the Department of Cultural Relics and Surveying and Mapping, the Qin and Han Dynasties and the early Great Wall exceeded 10,000 kilometers, with a total length of more than 21,000 kilometers.
People who do not understand historical knowledge always say "Meng Jiang Nu wept on the Great Wall" - after Qin Shi Huang unified China, more than 100,000 people were recruited from all over the country, just to build the Great Wall, it does not matter whether you ordinary people want to or not, you are caught you, there is a scholar named Wan Xiliang was also arrested, he is the husband of Meng Jiangnu.
When her husband was arrested to repair the Great Wall, Meng Jiangnu cried every day, yueyue cried, she traveled a long way to the Great Wall, asked the people of the Great Wall where their husbands were, and the people said that they had died of exhaustion. Meng Jiang nu suddenly cried bitterly, the crying was tremendous, and in an instant, more than 800 miles of the Great Wall collapsed one by one, and all below it were white bones, highlighting the sins of Qin Shi Huang in order to build the Great Wall.
But historians also objectively said that if the Great Wall had not been built, it would not have been hundreds of thousands of civilians who died, but tens or millions of ordinary people, and the Xiongnu at that time had long looked at the "big fat meat" of the Qin Dynasty, and in the face of the fierce, fast-moving, and extremely aggressive nomadic people, the soldiers of the Qin Dynasty were difficult to resist.
However, with the Great Wall, the nomads had to take a detour, why did they come to attack the Qin Dynasty? Because there was not enough food to eat, when they finished the detour to attack, everyone's legs were hungry and weak, let alone win the battle.
Of course, these 100,000 people are innocent, but people forget the purpose of Qin Shi Huang to preside over the construction of the Great Wall, and the 1 million or 10 million people protected by the Great Wall only remember Qin Shi Huang's tyranny and let 100,000 people die of exhaustion. On this point, the benevolent see the benevolent, the wise see the wise, and they cannot unify their ideas.
So the nomads can't come to China, but they are hungry, what to do? The western conquest of Europe became the next target of the nomadic empire.
There is a Professor of Chinese History at Boston University in the United States, named Barfield, who published an article called "Dangerous Borders: Nomadic Empire and China", which tells the story of the Great Wall that effectively resisted the attack of most nomads, but there was no food to eat them, what to do? They began to move west, "killing" all the way to Europe, and more than one nomadic people attacked them.
According to historical records, the Huns, Turks, Rourans, and Mongols, even small tribes that could not be named, all attacked Europe, and Europe at that time had no resistance to the nomadic peoples, allowing them to invade unscrupulously.
In 1260, the Western crusaders, which claimed to be "invincible", were defeated by the Mongol army led by Guo Kan, and many Western historians said that if the Mongol army did not return, but continued to march west, the history of the West would change from then on, and even be completely taken by the Mongols.
In the face of the powerful Mongol iron cavalry, the Europeans were angry and afraid, and could only throw the "black cauldron" to Qin Shi Huang, thinking that he had built the Great Wall and blocked the nomads, so as to "harm" them and beat them.
As China's "first ancient military project", the Great Wall has silently protected us for thousands of years, which is really worthy of every Chinese's pride!