The First Emperor: The Man Who Made China
The First Emperor was only a legend for hundreds of years. There was hardly any evidence of his existence except for a book writing him and was written about a hundred years after his death/reign. That was until The Terracotta Army was discovered and that gave some physical evidence that the Emperor was around. The Terracotta Army was placed in order to protect Qin Shi Huang after death. It was known that little Terracotta dolls are known to protect the people after death.The Terracotta Army was made to mimic the real army by the way it was set up and was also created by using realistic military people and formations. Qin Shi Huang was worried that he would be endangered after death, because the people who lost their lives due to his policies never having received a proper burial.
Qin Shi Huang strengthened his power through war. There were two gentlemen who tried to plan and go through with an assassination. It ended up backfiring and Huang made it out alive. Once Qin Shi Huang was able to overtake all of China, he was able to put in several laws that determine daily life of the citizens. If they did not abide by those laws, they were prosecuted by having their limbs mutilated or had to have tattoos placed somewhere on the face or body. In Huang's quest to become immortal his first idea was to have sex with multiple partners. Later his physician promised him that mercury was the key to immortality. Top of the tomb would have been open to the sky if it was not for the fact that there were tons of dirt that buried the tomb over time. Mercury test of the soil is the only current way archeologist are able to figure out the boundaries and depth of the tomb.
In some ways, it seems to be difficult to be an ordinary person at that time. Qin Shi Huang made several laws impacting the way the people lived in their daily lives. If the people did not obey the laws their limbs would be mutilated and/or had a tattoo on their face or body. It was a visual punishment for those who did not obey, and it was one way for Qin Shi Huang to show everyone that if you do not obey this happens to you. Huang was continually at war which killed plenty of his own people during the time of him trying to strengthen his power. Even though Qin Shi Huang was, or could be considered, a violent emperor he did unify all of China together and set up the path for China.
There was a lot of things that were interesting in the videos. It was interesting knowing that there has been a decent portion of The Terracotta Army that been discovered. The Terracotta Army was set up to protect Qin Shi Huang because of the fact that he knew he was responsible for plenty of people's deaths and those people did not have, what was considered or called at that time, happy death because they did not have their proper burials. The Terracotta Army was Qin Shi Huang way of making sure that no one would come after him after death because of the people he let be killed.
