During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the power of the Son of Heaven declined, and the power of local princes gradually became stronger, dividing the society into two stages: Spring and Autumn and Warring States.
In the Spring and Autumn Period, the five hegemons competed for power, and after the Warring States Period, the seven heroes stood side by side, and finally the powerful Qin State realized the unification of the whole country.
But what he didn't expect was that the Qin Dynasty, which he had worked so hard to establish, only existed for a short period of fourteen years.
The first was that the edict was tampered with, and the second was that Hu Hai's unreasonable rule led to the outbreak of the peasant uprising and the destruction of the country.
How tragic was the situation at that time, and why can't even Qin Shi Huang's descendants be found now?
The devastated state politics of the Qin Dynasty
The fall of the Qin Dynasty was not a sudden incident.
As early as when Qin Shi Huang consumed a huge amount of labor to build the Great Wall and the Qin Emperor's Mausoleum, it had already caused sharp social contradictions.
And the misery of the Qin Dynasty appeared as early as the end of the reign of Qin II, so the fall of the Qin Dynasty was actually a tragedy from the inside out.
As we all know, Qin Shi Huang liked you to go out on a tour after completing his brilliant career of unifying the world, and finally died of illness on the way.
His original heir, Gongzi Fusu, failed to succeed to the throne in time because he was sent abroad, and finally Hu Hai colluded with the eunuch Zhao Gao and threatened Prime Minister Li Si to make himself emperor.
In order to justify his name, after Hu Hai seized the throne, he brutally purged the Manchu ministers of civil and military affairs and his own brothers and sisters.
Anyone who doubted his succession to the throne was executed, regardless of their affiliation, and in Xianyang and Duyou alone, Hu Hai killed thirty-three siblings and many ministers of the court.
Gongzi Fusu, the general Meng Tian and his son, the first prime minister of the Qin Dynasty, Li Si, and the minister Feng Quji...... They all died tragically under the operation of Hu Hai and Zhao Gao.
In addition, a large number of unjust cases have been created, and officials of the DPRK and China and even their families have been implicated.
Hu Hai also closely supervised the remaining surviving officials, and the slightest suspicion would have been killed.
Such a high-pressure policy made the imperial court very terrifying, and many officials had great hatred for Hu Hai in their hearts, and over time, it directly caused a huge tragedy at the end of Hu Hai's reign.
Tragedy in the palace
The Chen Sheng and Wu Guang uprisings sounded the death knell for the fall of the Qin Dynasty, and although the uprising ended in failure, it also intensified the contradictions inside and outside the imperial court.
The peasant uprising led by Xiang Yu and Liu Bang broke out again, and Hu Hai sent troops to resist in a panic, but in the end, the main force of the army suffered a crushing defeat at Julu, and the elite was almost lost.
Just when Hu Hai was at a loss, there was an emergency in the palace, when the eunuch Zhao Gao, who supported Hu Hai as the emperor, suddenly turned back, led the courtiers who were dissatisfied with Hu Hai to kill him, and set up Ziying as the emperor.
At this time, Zhao Gao already had the intention of abolishing the emperor and standing on his own, but this matter was known to Ziying in advance, and finally lured Zhao Gao to the palace and ordered the eunuch to kill him by surprise.
At the same time, the rebel army led by Liu Bang had broken through Xianyang, and the desperate Ziying surrendered to Liu Bang with hundreds of civil and military officials.
Xiang Yu's cruel methods
Liu Bang was leading the troops into Xianyang and paid attention to benevolence, righteousness, etiquette, and law, not only did he not commit any offense against the people, but also treated the prisoners well in the three chapters of the law, which won the hearts of the people.
But Xiang Yu, who later entered Xianyang City, had a completely different style, he was a descendant of the Chu people during the Warring States Period, and the country was destroyed by the Qin State, so he and the rulers of the Qin Dynasty had a common enmity.
As soon as the army led by Xiang Yu entered Xianyang City, they began to kill wildly, including the nobles and civil and military ministers of the Qin Dynasty who surrendered, and many of them died under Xiang Yu's butcher's knife.
In addition, Xiang Yu did not even let go of their relatives and relatives, and ordered his subordinates to cut down the grass and eradicate the roots, and Xianyang, the former capital of Qin, instantly became a hell on earth.
The army rushed into the homes of the ministers and nobles of the Qin Dynasty, killing all men, women, and children, in a brutal scene. The Afang Palace and other buildings built by the Qin Dynasty were also used by Xiang Yu as evidence that the ruler had oppressed and plundered the people, and a fire burned them.
Descendants who have disappeared
According to the analysis of relevant historical records, the war in the last years of the Qin Dynasty and the brutal massacre of Xiang Yu caused the death of the vast majority of the nobles of the Qin Dynasty.
But there will still be some people who have a chance to survive the slaughter, but then it is difficult to find news of them, why is that?
In fact, the reason is very simple, at that time, there were many Qin clan relatives who hid in the mountains and forests in order to save their lives and lived an isolated life.
Judging from the situation at that time, not all the nobles of the Qin Dynasty were in Xianyang City, and some nobles were canonized and sent to other regions as early as the Qin Shi Huang period;
There were also some nobles who had already found an opportunity to move elsewhere before the arrival of Xiang Yu's army, or when they witnessed the massacre.
For the rest of their lives, in order not to arouse the suspicion of others, they changed their surnames, and the most typical one is "Zhao".
Because Qin Shi Huang was born in the Zhao State, he was called Zhao Zheng when he was a child, and later changed his surname back after being welcomed back to the imperial court.
Therefore, some of the escaped Qin Shi Huang generations did not dare to use the surname "Win" anymore, so they changed back to the original surname, if in terms of blood relationship, they are still the descendants of Qin Shi Huang.
In addition, there is a clan that is also of the same blood as Qin Shi Huang, so the history is very long, but this group of clansmen does exist and belong to the same branch as Qin Shi Huang.
Dating back to the time of Qin Xiaogong, he once advocated the reform of the Shang Dynasty, but was opposed because he touched the interests of the old aristocracy, and his younger brother Ying Jichang also stood on his opposite.
Qin Xiaogong was very angry when he learned of this, and targeted Ying Jichang everywhere in the court.
Later, after the implementation of the Shang Dynasty reform, Ying Jichang was worried that he would be harmed, so he left the Qin State with his family, changed his surname to "Feng", and lived elsewhere. They never returned when the Qin state was strong, and it was even more impossible for them to appear when they perished.
However, the bloodline in the body cannot be changed, from an ethical point of view, their ancestors are the uncles of Qin Shi Huang, and they are naturally the continuation of the bloodline of the Qin Dynasty.
The last point is that Qin Shi Huang has a son, in addition to Gongzi Fusu, and Gongzi Gao.
When Hu Hai brutalized his brother, it was rumored that Gongzi Gao had sacrificed himself to allow his descendants to escape from the Qin Dynasty, and later changed his surname to Gao Fanzhu.
These points fully show that the descendants of Qin Shi Huang were not unable to find and did not completely exterminate the clan, but only changed their surnames in order to protect themselves on the way out.
summary
This is the short-lived Great Qin Dynasty, although it was brilliant for a while, but it only existed for a short period of ten years.
Although the scene was tragic at the time of the fall of the country, Qin Shi Huang still had descendants, and the reason why they could not find it was because they chose to remain incognito.