In the feudal history of traditional Chinese civilization, the emperor has always been an important topic that all royal power politics cannot avoid, from more than 200 years BC to the formal establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, the imperial rule of feudal kingship has continued on the land of China for more than 2,000 years, and it should be known that the traditional Chinese civilization has only been more than 5,000 years until today.
Leaving aside the uncivilized stage of the sages and ancients, it can be said that the vast majority of Chinese history was carried out under the rule of absolute kingship, so compared with the current harmonious, democratic and equal social environment in New China, the absolute kingship in ancient times was both sacred and inviolable.
However, from the current point of view, the social environment of absolute royal power is doomed to cause the rise and fall of the country, and the glory and disgrace are entirely pinned on the emperor himself. The country ruled by the emperor who worked hard was naturally not bad, and the king who coveted pleasure could not escape the fate of the country, and such examples abounded in the long river of history.
But from another point of view, no matter who the emperor is, they have the supreme pursuit of power, even if human life is limited, but the pursuit of power and money is unlimited.
This also led to the feudal emperors were extremely interested in the magic of prolonging life, but they also wasted their bodies in vain because of the feudal shackles, and Qin Shi Huang died violently at the age of 49.
The hegemon of the world
After experiencing the Division of the Central Plains between the Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons and the Seven Heroes of the Warring States, the Qin State turned out to be a ruler, relying on the Jiangshan Sheji that was firmly established by its ancestors in the Qin Dynasty. In 221 BC, the State of Qin officially completed the annexation of six countries, the State of Qin unified the world, and Qin Shi Huang also became the true hegemon of the Central Plains.
In politics and war, Qin Shi Huang was an ambitious and courageous politician and military man. After the unification of the whole country, the measures he formulated, such as unifying weights and measures, building the Great Wall to resist aggression, and unifying the currency, also stabilized the society to a certain extent, and made a great role in promoting the development of modern society in later generations.
Therefore, in many books in history, the discussion of the emperor through the ages, Qin Shi Huang is always the one who is included in the discussion, under the feudal society at that time, these reform measures supported by Qin Shi Huang have a long-term vision of modern society.
But the emperor of the ages, who was so confident and so majestic, also had two fatal shortcomings, which were the backwardness of traditional feudal social thinking that led to the defects in his character.
This first shortcoming is the tyrannical character, after a long-term situation in the world, Qin Shi Huang, as the first overlord to realize the unification of the Seven Kingdoms, naturally had a sense of superiority that was different from ordinary people. Why unify the six countries yourself and not everyone else?
The ancients who believed in feudal superstition and feng shui believed that this proved that Qin Shi Huang was the chosen son of heaven, and the flattery of others made Qin Shi Huang do whatever he wanted, and the extreme pursuit of power made him gradually lose the fundamentals of being a man and the responsibility of a king of a country, so the rule of tyrannical Qin was also drowned in the tide of the people's rebel army.
This second fatal shortcoming is the pursuit of the art of immortality in violation of the laws of nature, it can be said that in the feudal period hundreds of thousands of years ago, people were ignorant and ignorant to believe in immortal emperors, but Qin Shi Huang instilled this belief in a sacred mission, and it is no wonder that later kings have followed suit.
Behind the art of immortality
Qin Shi Huang's pursuit of the art of immortality reached the stage of extreme obsession with madness, on the one hand, he overhauled the palace to attract Taoist monks and monks from all over the world to enter the palace, and listened to them all day long to talk about some cultivation methods that prolong life and strengthen the body, if Qin Shi Huang just listened to it alone as a leisure after being tired, it didn't matter.
The key point is that Qin Shi Huang's ambition is to be an immortal emperor, this technology and ability has not been really mastered since ancient times, and the so-called immortality only exists in the ancient legends about Pengzu.
However, Qin Shi Huang did not believe in this evil, and he ordered all Daoist monks to consult books to make Dan Medicine, knowing that this Dan Medicine was not the elixir of Taishang Laojun in Journey to the West.
Limited by the ability of ancient technology and chemical extraction, the metal composition of the Dan Medicine refined by these Daoists was extremely high, and even after these Daoists produced the Dan Medicine in various experiments, they did not know what they had refined. Looking at Qin Shi Huang's trusting and expectant eyes, they could not dispel the enthusiasm of the First Emperor for insisting on tasting.
In this way, hundreds of Dan medicines that can be used as a heavy metal poison for several years have been in the stomach, and the body of Qin Shi Huang, who has just passed the age of 30, has begun to decline year by year, and his temper has become extremely grumpy, which is enough reason to explain why he burned books and became tyrannical.
Qin Shi Huang's excessive pursuit of the art of immortality gave the jianghu warlocks who were eager to make a fortune and enter the official position an opportunity, and many half-hanging jianghu langzhong began to sell their so-called ancestral drugs like Qin Shi Huang.
Qin Shi Huang, who could not distinguish between true and false, looked at so many home remedies in front of him to realize his dreams, but he still chose to make various attempts, including Yuan Shui, the culprit who finally led to his death.
The culprit - Yuan Shui
There was a warlock named Han Tong on the jianghu, he was rumored to have reached the Half Immortal Realm, and the half-believing First Emperor invited him to the palace to consult spells like him, and Han Tong told Qin Shi Huang that he had developed a kind of immortal water called Yuan Shui, which was a liquid medicine made from natural minerals extracted from the essence of chicken blood stone mixed with water quality.
According to Han Tong himself, this drug not only does not decay the body of the dead, but can also be preserved for a long time, and Qin Shi Huang, who has already lost his magic in the art of seeking immortality, is immediately overjoyed, and takes Yuan Shui every day according to the medicine prepared by Han Tong.
You know, even a small child can understand how keeping the flesh from decaying can be compared to the art of immortality? This kind of meta water is actually equivalent to the current preservative, formalin and other drugs.
According to later research, the essence extracted from the chicken blood stone that Han Tong said was nothing more than mercury now regarded as a metal poison, commonly known as mercury, which was widely used in the production of thermometers. Ordinary people can be said to be unable to avoid this heavy metal, and the body of Qin Shi Huang, who took it all day and was eager to drink as water, was already full of holes.
Although he had felt unwell for a long time, under the persuasion of Han Tonglian's deception, Qin Shi Huang still retained the desire for immortality, and it was in his 49-year-old year that the first emperor of the unification of the six kingdoms died violently, and the culprit of everything could only be attributed to his vain and vain thoughts.
In fact, the wish to live a long life and a hundred years is the dream that everyone subconsciously expects, but everything has the principle and rules of development, and facing people's life, old age, illness and death is just the correct idea of self-cognition on the long road of life, so it seems that Qin Shi Huang is also somewhat blinded by desire.