China has experienced 5,000 years of history, experienced dozens of feudal dynasties, and given birth to more than 400 emperors. And the founder of the name "Emperor" everyone knows, that is, Qin Shi Huang.
A young emperor of great talent
Qin Shi Huang Yingzheng can be said to be the "top stream" among the ancient emperors, I believe that no one will not know him, and we can often see the appearance of this name in film and television works. But his life was actually controversial.
The tyranny of Qin Shi Huang in his later years is irrefutable, but the mistakes he committed were not enough to destroy his merits, he was a tyrant, but also a Ming king.
People say that he insisted on building the Great Wall and building spiritual canals to make the people miserable, but they did not see how much good the things he built brought to future generations.
After the unification of the Six Kingdoms, Qin Shi Huang was full of vigor and eager to make meritorious achievements, so he marched south to Baiyue, attacked the Xiongnu in the north, and successively opened up and developed the northern and southwestern regions. The young Yingzheng was not satisfied with the status quo, he was full of ambition and began to make big moves.
There is a great deal of civil engineering and construction, and 4 of them have survived to this day
Qin Shi Huang's work of laboring the people and hurting the people's wealth to engage in construction has always been criticized by people. Under the magnificent building are peasants who have suffered from harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, zhuangding who have been forcibly taken away, and the blood and tears of countless working people.
It is undeniable that Qin Shi Huang was an emperor with great talent, but his behavior obviously exceeded the ability of the state at that time, so it eventually shook the foundation of the Qin Dynasty's rule.
Of the six world-class projects built by Qin Shi Huang, two of them disappeared forever in the long river of history, and the remaining four projects are still attracting the world's attention.
One is Afang Palace, which is known as the "first palace under heaven", but unfortunately, when the rule of the Qin Dynasty was overthrown, it was burned by a fire by Xiang Yu.
Qin Shi Huang's original intention in building the Afang Palace was to make this palace the political center of the entire Qin Dynasty, because the original capital of the country, Xianyang, could no longer afford the prosperous dynasty with a growing population, and the Afang Palace was obviously the next capital.
Because the project was so huge, until the Qin Dynasty was overthrown, the Afang Palace was not completed. The parts that have been built are also described in the Chronicle of History, and a front hall alone is enough to accommodate 10,000 people.
In 1991, the ruins of Afang Palace were identified as the world's largest palace ruins, and it was also the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units announced by the State Council.
The ruins alone are enough to shock the original glory, but unfortunately we did not have the opportunity to see it with our own eyes.
Another vanished building is the Qin Straight Road, which actually existed for a long time until it was gradually abandoned during the Qing Dynasty.
After the unification of the six countries, the crisis was not completely eradicated. One ethnic minority in the north has been eyeing the tiger, and that is the Huns. In order to eradicate the hidden dangers, Qin Shi Huang ordered the general Meng Tian to build the Qin Straight Road, which is 1,800 miles long.
However, according to the "History Book", it is said that Qin Shi Huang was actually more convenient for his own parade, in fact, it is not excluded that there is this reason, but even Qin Shi Huang himself did not wait for the completion of this huge project.
Of these six buildings, four remain to this day. Of course, the most famous of these is the Great Wall.
Speaking of which, Qin Shi Huang will have the idea of building the Great Wall, or the reason why the Xiongnu are indispensable. The northern border of the Qin Dynasty has been harassed by the Xiongnu, but there is no way to eliminate the Xiongnu at once, so Qin Shi Huang thought of a way.
The construction of a multi-functional comprehensive military defense project to facilitate the various city guards to pass on news to each other, even if there was a rapid response to foreign invasion, did achieve the role of stabilizing the rule of the Qin Dynasty at that time, but because of the labor and loss of money, a total of 700,000 Zhuang Ding was requisitioned, which made the people complain.
In fact, the construction of the Great Wall did not start from Qin Shi Huang, its construction history can be traced back to the Western Zhou Dynasty, but Qin Shi Huang is the longest connection and construction distance, and has the "Great Wall" is called.
It is also known by Westerners as "one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World" and in 1987, it was listed as a World Heritage Site.
The second most famous is the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin, which is the first large-scale and standardized imperial mausoleum in Chinese history, which was built from the year when Qin Shi Huang first ascended the throne and took 39 years to complete.
There are countless rare treasures in the imperial tomb, and the richness of the funerary products is jaw-dropping, enough to glimpse the "wealth and wealth" of the Qin Dynasty at that time.
In the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Pit, known as the "Eighth Wonder of the World", was also found. Before the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when the family clans and imperial relatives died, they generally adopted "human martyrdom", what is "human martyrdom"? It is to use the living to bury the dead.
During the Warring States period, this system was abolished in the Qin state, and "tao martyrdom" and "figurine martyrdom" began to be popular, and Qin Shi Huang also followed this rule.
The carving of the "figurines" into the appearance of soldiers also shows the bravery and belligerence of Qin Shi Huang on another level, even after his death, he still wants to lead thousands of troops and horses.
The carving of the Terracotta Warriors is ingenious, and every bit shows the wisdom of the craftsmen at that time. However, the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang had also suffered several times of collapse crisis, and it was almost completely destroyed in the hands of Xiang Yu just like the end of Afang Palace.
But fortunately, after Liu Bang seized the world, he sent the tomb keepers to guard it for generations, and later emperors followed suit, so that the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin was preserved to today.
In 1987, the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Pit found in the Imperial Tomb were inscribed on the World Cultural Heritage List.
The other two buildings are the Lingqu and the Zhengguo Canal. As one of the oldest canals in the world, Lingqu has the reputation of "the pearl of ancient water conservancy architecture in the world".
So what is the significance of the existence of such a canal? Since ancient times, Yangzhou has been a prosperous city, and this prosperity can be seen from the works of poets, so why is Yangzhou's economy so developed, because it is backed by the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and the role of the canal can be imagined.
But in fact, the main purpose of Qin Shi Huang's original construction of the spiritual canal was to serve the military, in order to more conveniently transport grain and grass materials. The Lingqu has since been continuously repaired and is still in use today.
The Zhengguo Canal is more than 300 miles long and is the earliest large-scale water conservancy project built in Guanzhong. It exists purely to serve agricultural development.
In fact, the earliest construction of the Zhengguo Canal was a conspiracy planned by Korea to deal with the Qin State, but unexpectedly, it promoted the development of agriculture, provided sufficient food for the Qin State, and changed the famine situation at that time.
Both the Ling Canal and the Zheng Guo Canal were inscribed on the World Heritage List of Irrigation Engineering.
These buildings were built under the rule of Qin Shi Huang, but the main credit for their construction is still on countless craftsmen and Zhuangding, which is the great crystallization of the wisdom of the ancient working people.