The First Emperor: The Man Who Made China – Part 5/9

April 20, 2010

By 223 BC, Shi Huangdi is ready to unify China. Only the states of Chi and Chu are left, but the Chu army destroys his first invasion force.

Shi Huangdi raises another army and invades again. A million troops face each other. It is a standoff.  To win, Shi Huangdi tricks the Chu generals to make a mistake, and the last great obstacle to the unification of China falls.

The last country, Chi, joins without a fight.  Qin becomes China.  At the age of 34, Qin Shi Huangdi is crowned with a veil of stars.  He is the first god emperor of the Qin people.

The system of governance put into place will long outlast the emperor.

Qin Shi Huangdi commissions a Terra Cotta army that will guard him in death, and the troops are larger than life. In one pit, more than two hundred sets of armor made of stone have been found with no bodies to wear them. It is believed that the armor may have been made for the spirits of dead soldiers who suffered violent deaths in combat so the dead would not become vengeful spirits.

Go to Part 6 of The Man Who Made China or return to Part 4

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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The First Emperor: The Man Who Made China – Part 4/9

April 20, 2010

With this challenge to the throne removed, Shi Huangdi has learned a lesson. He becomes ruthless and rids himself of his mother and his prime minister.

There is a dramatic scene where the prime minister asks for forgiveness for letting the queen mother do what she has done.  The prime minister is exiled and not allowed to see the queen mother again. Within a year, the disgraced prime minister kills himself.

A scholar, who believes in harsh laws, becomes Huangdi’s closest advisor.

By 227 BC, the Qin state has conquered the states of Han, Wei and Zhao.

The state of Yen knows it is next and sends professional assassins disguised as peace emissaries to kill Shi Huangdi.  The emissaries arrive in Xian with gifts.  The assassin strikes.

Since no weapons are allowed in the throne room, there are no armed guards to protect the king. Only the king has a weapon and only the king can call the troops to save him.

Go to Part 5 of The Man Who Made China or return to Part 3

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_________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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The First Emperor: The Man Who Made China – Part 3/9

April 19, 2010

By the time Qin Shi Huangdi is twenty, he has captured thirteen cities from the state of Han and twenty cities from the other states.  Huangdi’s rival countries send a combined army to stop him but they are repelled.

Some of Huangdi’s success is because of the precision weapons Qin craftsmen make for the loyal, highly trained army.

The capital of Qin

However, while the king of Qin is conquering China, there is an enemy scheming to replace him. His mother, the dowager queen, has taken a lover, who masquerades as a eunuch. The queen has had two illegitimate sons with this lover, who steals two royal seals that gives him authority to mobilize troops in an attempt to replace Shi Huandgi with one of the king’s half brothers.

Qin’s prime minister discovers the plot and a trap is set that destroys the rebel army. The dowager queen’s lover is captured, tortured and his mangled body pulled apart by four horses while the queen mother is forced to watch.

While the death sentence is being carried out, Huandgi has his two two half brothers strangled to remove them as a threat to the throne.

Go to Part 4 of The Man Who Made China or return to Part 2

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_________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

 

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The First Emperor: The Man Who Made China – Part 2/9

April 18, 2010

Months after becoming king at thirteen, Shi Huangdi overcomes his mother’s desire to rule in his name and leads his nation to war. He is the youngest king to wage war and soon proves he is also the greatest warrior—he becomes known as the Tiger of Qin.  Shi Huangdi wages war against his enemies for ten years. There are seven countries besides Qin. The seven countries in what we know as China today were Zhao, Yen, Wei, Han, Chi, Chu and Qin.

During the war to conquer Zhao, Shi Huangdi’s army takes ten thousand prisoners. The rules of war say these prisoners must be fed and sheltered. However, Shi Huangdi changes the rules.  He shows his troops what to do by beheading an enemy troop and calls on his army to do the same.

He says, “There is only one way to treat weakness and that is to exploit it. There is only one way for Qin to survive, and that is to conquer.”  All 10,000 Zhao prisoners are beheaded.

Go to Part 3 of The Man Who Made China or return to Part 1

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_________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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The First Emperor: The Man Who Made China – Part 1/9

April 18, 2010

Professor Jeffrey Riegel, from the University of California, Berkeley traveled to China to unlock the truth behind one of the earth’s greatest legends, a man larger than life, the first emperor of China, Shi Huangdi. This nine part series on YouTube (each part runs about 10 minutes) is the documentary film about that emperor.

First Emperor’s Warriers

Shi Huangdi was barely thirteen when his father died (246 BC) after being king of Qin for three years. The legends say Shi Huangdi was a tyrant driven mad by power.

He built a tomb the likes of which humanity has never seen. When the first emperor was buried, he was the most powerful man on earth. He unified an empire that outlasted Rome by a thousand years, and he ruled ten times the population of ancient Egypt.

Go to Part 2 of The Man Who Made China or discover Gold from Dead Tibetan Caterpillars

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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