Qin Shi Huang Wasing, born in 259 BC, was the son of King Zhuang Xiang of qin during the Warring States period, and succeeded to the throne at the age of 13.
Ten years after succeeding to the throne, he eliminated the powerful minister Lü Buwei and began to take power himself.
From 230 BC to 221 BC, he successively destroyed the six kingdoms of Han Zhao, Wei, Chu and Yan Qi, and completed the great cause of unifying China.
After unifying the whole country, Qin Shi Huang did a lot of things:
The first is to call himself emperor. The name "Emperor" was invented by Qin Shi Huang.
Then there is the implementation of the county system throughout the country, with the same text, the same track, the unified currency and weights and measures.
Externally, it was to attack the Xiongnu and conquer Baiyue in the south. The Great Wall was built, the Chi Road was built, and then five cruises across the country.
There are also book burning pits and so on.
In 210 BC, Qin Shi Huang died. Just three years later, the vast empire he had left behind had collapsed.
The imperial system and imperial political system created by Qin Shi Huang were used by later generations until the Qing Dynasty, throughout Chinese history for more than two thousand years; the standard imperial territory he created laid the basic prototype of China's territory.
China's imperial system and imperial model have become unremarkable and taken for granted in the eyes of later generations. Once you return to the historical scene, you will find that these creations were originally born in a chaotic mess, and they were all people who needed great creativity, and summoned them from countless choices, which were not understood at that time, and even fiercely resisted.
It is difficult to understand Qin Shi Huang. Because his true image was obscured by various controversies and insults in later generations. The same Qin Shi Huang, some people said that he was "an emperor of thousands of years", and some people scolded him as nothing more than a tyrant.
Near The Fucheng Gate in Beijing, there is a temple of emperors of the past. When the Ming Dynasty began construction, it was dedicated to 16 emperors representing historical orthodoxy. During the Qing Dynasty, the Kangxi Emperor said that as long as he was not a prince without a way, a martyr, or a subjugated country, he could offer tablets in the temple. In this way, the number of emperors enshrined in the imperial temple increased to 188, and they formed the orthodoxy of Chinese history.
However, whether it is the 16 emperors of the Ming Dynasty or the 188 emperors of the Kangxi Dynasty, there is no Qin Shi Huang in it. Apparently, Qin Shi Huang was classified as the Emperor of the Pathless, which meant that he was not recognized as a true emperor.
The creator of the emperor system is not recognized as an emperor, this phenomenon is very representative, and the attitude of later emperors to Qin Shi Huang is also like this: they must scold him and learn from him, and they are not willing to admit that they are learning from him.
Can such an attitude be a fair evaluation of Qin Shi Huang?
Qin Shi Huang's shaping of the self and the empire, that is, what history really looks like.
What was the perception and reaction to him at that time. For example, Qin Shi Huang destroyed the Six Kingdoms, and how did those people in the Six Kingdoms see what Qin Shi Huang did?
What did later generations evaluate and shape Qin Shi Huang for a variety of purposes, including political purposes.
Obviously, historical evaluations have their own positions and purposes, and it is difficult to be objective.
Speaking of Qin Shi Huang, talking about his personal achievements and historical contributions, talking about how he annexed the Six Kingdoms, unified the world, established the Great Qin Empire, created the emperor system, unified writing and weights and measures, and so on, these are all real achievements.
In fact, all the efforts of Qin Shi Huang were ultimately to weave a story, a story that everyone in the world could understand, accept and be willing to live in, and this story was called "Empire".
Why Weave an "Empire Story"
This is the real legacy left by Qin Shi Huang to future generations.
You must know that those tangible achievements of Qin Shi Huang in military and political affairs soon disappeared.
He built that entity's empire that lasted only fifteen years.
However, until the Qing Dynasty, China for more than two thousand years after that was repeatedly restoring the appearance of the Chinese Empire that Qin Shi Huang wanted in his heart.
Overseas sinologists like to refer to China from Qin Shi Huang to the end of the Qing Dynasty as the Chinese Empire.
That is to say, although the physical empire of Qin Shi Huang soon collapsed, the ideal empire he wanted in his heart became a model of the Chinese Empire.
Why did Qin Shi Huang build this model?
He was the first to establish an empire, the first to become an emperor, at least, he had to first make people accept the two new things of the empire and the emperor, so that he faced a completely different challenge from the emperors who came after him.
He not only wants to provide the legitimacy of the Qin Empire, he also wants to provide the legitimacy of this new political system of the Empire; he not only wants to provide the legitimacy of his own rule, but also to provide the legitimacy of the emperor's new ruler status; he not only wants to turn the people of the Six Kingdoms into the Qin Dynasty, but also to turn the Warring States people into the people of the world.
The later emperors did not need to worry about these problems anymore.
Today, you may feel that empire is a very common thing, the emperor was the standard in ancient times, and it is reasonable for Zhejiang people to be colleagues with Shaanxi people.
However, when Qin Shi Huang first built such a vast area and so many ethnic groups into a behemoth, how could people accept it? How can we convince both the conquered and the conquerors of "one world"?
What was Qin Shi Huang's imperial imagination like?
Qin Shi Huang imagined an empire that adhered to the lofty Mandate of Heaven, encompassed the divine earth, had a deeply rooted history, blended different ideological and cultural traditions, endowed with a vision of eternal peace and well-being, and the self-expectations of the Great Holy King.
Simple explanation: The Chinese Empire was condensed with spiritual resources of multiple dimensions.
The first dimension is the Mandate of Heaven, the favor and permission of the Lord, which allows the Emperor to rule the land.
The second dimension covers the divine earth, that is to say, all kinds of gods of mountains and rivers must be integrated within the territory of the empire according to a certain order, outlining a whole world.
In the third dimension, this empire did not come out of thin air, but inherited a deep historical tradition.
In the fourth dimension, the different ideological and cultural traditions of the north and the south of the world, all identify us as living in the same homeland.
In the fifth dimension, ordinary people also agree that this empire can create lasting peace and well-being for them, and that they share this vision of the world.
The sixth dimension refers to the emperor himself, who is not only a ruler from above, but also a saint who is a moral model, which is the self-expectation of the great holy king.
Understanding these six dimensions, you know that the Chinese imperial system is a very unique existence among all the monarchical systems of human civilization.
These six dimensions unfold an imaginary picture of empire, which provides a legitimacy discourse for the subsequent empire, a vision of the world, and a rise in the style of the ruler.
This is the greatest legacy of Chinese history left by Qin Shi Huang.
What people often say about "the same track of the car, the same book, the same weights and measures, and the currency" are actually just by-products of the empire.
Why is this legacy more important than his empire itself?
Before Qin Shi Huang, the more mature was the Zhou Dynasty's tianxia system. Relatively speaking, this is a relatively loose political body. At that time, the consensus was that Zhou Tianzi was the co-lord of the world, and the princes had only limited responsibility for him. Of course, we know that the Zhou Dynasty later declined. In the same year that Qin Shi Huang's ancestors were crowned princes, King Ping of Zhou was forced to move east to Luoyang, and Western Zhou became Eastern Zhou, and history entered the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States.
The empire imagined by Qin Shi Huang was a grand idea that integrated the gods of heaven and earth.
He provided the basis for legitimacy, a vision of the world, and a man of greater character.
Such a grand idea has the ability to integrate the early loose political system into the world, and it can be competent to "upgrade the version of China's political and cultural system."
This is the historical significance of the imagination of the Qin Shi Huang Empire.
It was such an imagination that made Qin Shi Huang sleep at night like a workaholic, and let him run on his imperial territory with the dignity of an emperor, until he finally died on the way to the fifth inspection of the world. He sacrificed himself, his empire, and his reputation in the hereafter to his imperial imagination. And his imperial imagination also became a model for later dynasties to run their empires.
Qin Shi Huang struggled to run for twelve years, and soon after his death, his empire collapsed. You could say that all his efforts failed, and even in the process of his efforts before he died, there was often frustration.
When he was alive, he was not able to turn his imperial imagination into the imagination of all, and he was not able to turn it into the universal consensus of that era.
His efforts were like an arrow that had been shot but had not reached its target. But he told all those who came after him where and what it looked like. His imperial imagination was that arrow target. After that, history took another century, and the world finally entered the imperial imagination of Qin Shi Huang.