The Chinese Warriors

China's First Emperor

  At the age of 13,in 246 B.C., Qin Shihuangdi took the throne . As some people saw him, he was a very cruel man. However, Shihuangdi also did some things that changed China in a good way. For example, according to National Geographic  " During his rule, Qin standardized coins, weights, and measures; interlinked the states with canals and roads; and is credited for building the first version of the Great Wall. "  Qin Shihuangdi also did some very cruel deeds. For example, he made numerous and very expensive constructions such as large palatial houses or palaces. To ensure stability to these projects, Shihuangdi burnt many books, and even went to the extent of burning some scholars alive.         

The Terracotta Warriors

      In 1974, workers digging a well  outside of Xi'an struck gold. The workers had unearthed thousands of clay, human sized, ready for battle, Chinese soldiers, who were guarding the tomb of  Qin Shihuangdi. It is called the Terracotta army. The Terracotta army is made up of soldiers, horses, chariots, bowmen, and archers. One surprising fact about this discovery is that no clay figure has the same face. Every figure has certain details that make it different from one another. According to Time For Kids " Experts say that long ago, Emperor Shihuangdi ordered the creation of the clay army, along with a 20-square-mile tomb in which to house it. For 36 years, 700,000 laborers crafted this underground city. It contains models of palaces and towers, and was protected from intruders by automatically-triggered crossbows. The city lay buried for more than 2,000 years." 

My Opinion of the First Chinese Emperor

     In my opinion, I think the first emperor of the Chinese Empire was very cruel and disgraceful. I have many reasons for believing in this opinion. First of all, Qin Shihuangdi was very  hard on punishments. he gave very harsh punishments for relatively "light" crimes. For example, if someone stole a pencil, the emperor would probably( if present at the scene of the crime) scold the person for a hour and give him/her a beating. Second of all, he was very selfish. What I mean by that is the emperor spent lavish amounts of money on building large palaces and other expensive construction projects(like the construction project of his tomb). Finally, the emperor had wanted have the same amount of power in the after life as he did in the real life. So, he killed some of his servants and his wives, so they could still serve him in the after life. This was also the main reason Qin Shihuangdi ordered workers to make the Terracotta army, so the army could protect him in the after life.

A Question and Thought

One question that poses a challenge to me is  " Why did Qin Shihuangdi make a clay army?" If he killed his wives a servants, then why did he not kill his entire army to serve him in the after life. It does not make sense to me. Why would he chose to kill some people, but not others. My final thought is that I can bet that many people hated the emperor. In fact, there were 3 assasination attempts to kill Qin. Yet, he still survived.

Question of the Week

In this blog, I have told you a lot about Qin Shihuangdi. What is your opinion about the first emperor of China? Do you like him, or do you dislike him? Explain why.