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Modern Chinese names have two components, a surname (姓) and a given name (名). The nobles of ancient China, however, had two distinct surnames: the ancestral name (姓) comprised a larger group descended from a prominent ancestor, usually said to have lived during the time of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors of Chinese legend, and the clan name (氏) comprised a smaller group that showed a branch's current fief or recent title. The ancient practice was to list men's names separately—Sima Qian's "Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin" introduces him as "given the name Zheng and the surname Zhao"[5][7]—or to combine the clan surname with the personal name: Sima's account of Chu describes the sixteenth year of the reign of King Kaolie as the time when "Zhao Zheng was enthroned as King of Qin".[8] However, since modern Chinese surnames (despite usually descending from clan names) use the same character as the old ancestral names, it is much more common in modern Chinese sources to see the emperor's personal name written as Ying Zheng,[9] using the ancestral name of the family who ruled both Qin and Zhao. The rulers of Qin had styled themselves kings from the time of King Huiwen in 325 BC. Upon his ascension, Zheng became known as the King of Qin[5][6] or King Zheng of Qin.[10][11] This title made him the nominal equal of the rulers of Shang and of Zhou, the last of whose kings had been deposed by King Zhaoxiang of Qin in 256 BC. Following the surrender of Qi in 221 BC, King Zheng had reunited all of the lands of the former Kingdom of Zhou. Rather than maintain his rank as king, however,[12] he proclaimed the new title of emperor (huángdì). This derived from the titles of the divine Three Sovereigns (三皇, Sān Huáng) and the legendary Five Emperors (五帝, Wŭ Dì) of Chinese prehistory.[13] The title was intended to appropriate some of the prestige of the Yellow Emperor,[14] whose cult was popular in the later Warring States period and who was considered to be a founder of the Chinese people. King Zheng chose the new regnal name of First Emperor (Shǐ Huángdì, formerly transcribed as Shih Huang-ti)[15] on the understanding that his successors would be successively titled the "Second Emperor", "Third Emperor", and so on through the generations. (In fact, the scheme lasted only as long as his immediate heir, the Second Emperor.)[16] The First Emperor intended that his realm would remain intact through the ages but, following its overthrow and replacement by Han after his death, it became customary to prefix his title with Qin. Thus: 秦, Qín or Ch‘in, "of Qin" 始, Shǐ or Shih, "first"[3] 皇帝, Huángdì or Huang-ti, "emperor", a new term[18] coined from 皇, Huáng or Huang, literally "shining" or "splendid" and formerly most usually applied "as an epithet of Heaven",[19] the high god of the Zhou[17] 帝, Dì or Ti, the high god of the Shang, possibly composed of their divine ancestors,[20] and used by the Zhou as a title of the legendary Five Emperors, particularly the Yellow Emperor As early as Sima Qian, it was common to shorten the resulting four-character title to 秦始皇,[21] variously transcribed as Qin Shihuang or Qin Shi Huang. The new title carried religious overtones. For that reason, Sinologists—starting with Peter Boodberg[22] or Edward Schafer[23]—sometimes translate it as "thearch" and the First Emperor as the First Thearch.[24] Following his elevation as emperor, both Zheng's personal name 政 and possibly its homophone 正[26] became taboo.[27] The First Emperor also arrogated the first-person Chinese pronoun 朕 (OC *lrəm’,[28] mod. zhèn) for his exclusive use[30] and in 212 BC began calling himself The Immortal (真人, OC *Tin-niŋ,[28] mod. Zhēnrén, lit. "True Man").[12] Others were to address him as "Your Majesty" (陛下, mod. Bìxià, lit. "Beneath the Palace[31] Steps") in person and "Your Highness" (上) in writing.[12] Life Birth A rich merchant in the State of Han, named Lü Buwei, met Master Yiren (公子異人, Gōngzǐ Yìrén). Lü Buwei's manipulation helped Yiren become King Zhuangxiang of Qin.[1] At the time, Yiren was a prince of Qin who resided at the court of Zhao as a hostage to guarantee the armistice between the two states.[32] According to the Records of the Grand Historian, the first emperor was born in 259 BC as Yiren's eldest son.[3][33] Prince Yiren had fallen in love at first sight with a concubine belonging to Lü Buwei and Lü had consented to provide her to his protegé. The Lady Zhao bore the child on 18 February, but he was named Zheng (正) from his birth during the first month (正月, Zhengyue) of the Chinese lunar calendar.[33] His clan name of Zhao came from his father's lineage and was unrelated both to his mother's surname and the location of his birth.[citation needed] According to the Records of the Grand Historian, written by Sima Qian during the next dynasty, the first emperor was not the actual son of Prince Yiren. By the time Lü Buwei introduced the dancing girl Zhao Ji to the prince, she was allegedly Lü Buwei's concubine and had already become pregnant by him.[32] According to translations of the Annals of Lü Buwei, the woman gave birth to the future emperor in the city of Handan in 259 BC, the first month of the 48th year of King Zhaoxiang of Qin.[34] The idea that the emperor was an illegitimate child was widely believed throughout Chinese history and contributed to the generally negative view of the First Emperor.[3] However, modern analysis has concluded that the sentence in the Records of the Grand Historian describing Qin Shi Huang's unusual birth is probably a later interpolation added in order to slander him.[35] John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, in their translation of Lü Buwei's Spring and Autumn Annals, call the story "patently false, meant both to libel Lü and to cast aspersions on the First Emperor."[36] Claiming Lü Buwei – a merchant – as the First Emperor's biological father was meant to be especially disparaging, since later Confucian society held merchants to be the lowest of all social classes.[37] King of Qin Regency In 246 BC, when King Zhuangxiang died after a short reign of just three years, he was succeeded on the throne by his 13-year-old son.[38] At the time, Zhao Zheng was still young, so Lü Buwei acted as the regent prime minister of the State of Qin, which was still waging war against the other six states.[3] Chengjiao, the Lord Chang'an (长安君),[39] was Zhao Zheng's legitimate half-brother, by the same father but from a different mother. After Zhao Zheng inherited the throne, Chengjiao rebelled at Tunliu and surrendered to the state of Zhao. Chengjiao's remaining retainers and families were executed by Zhao Zheng.[40] Lao Ai's attempted coup As King Zheng grew older, Lü Buwei became fearful that the boy king would discover his liaison with his mother Lady Zhao. He decided to distance himself and look for a replacement for the queen dowager. He found a man named Lao Ai.[41] According to the Record of Grand Historian, Lao Ai was disguised as a eunuch by plucking his beard. Later Lao Ai and queen Zhao Ji got along so well they secretly had two sons together.[41] Lao Ai then became ennobled as Marquis Lào Ǎi, and was showered with riches. Lao Ai's plot was supposed to replace King Zheng with one of the hidden sons. But during a dinner party drunken Lào Ǎi was heard bragging about being the young king's step father.[41] In 238 BC the king was traveling to the ancient capital of Yōng (雍). Lao Ai seized the queen mother's seal and mobilized an army in an attempt to start a coup and rebel.[41] When King Zheng found out this fact, he ordered Lü Buwei to let Lord Changping and Lord Changwen attack Lao Ai and their army killed hundreds of the rebels at the capital, although Lao Ai succeeded in fleeing from this battle.[42] A price of 1 million copper coins was placed on Lao Ai's head if he was taken alive or half a million if dead.[41] Lao Ai's supporters were captured and beheaded; then Lao Ai was tied up and torn to five pieces by horse carriages, while his entire family was executed to the third degree.[41] The two hidden sons were also killed, while mother Zhao Ji was placed under house arrest until her death many years later. Lü Buwei drank a cup of poison wine and committed suicide in 235 BC.[3][41] Ying Zheng then assumed full power as the King of the Qin state. Replacing Lü Buwei, Li Si became the new chancellor. Qin Shi Huang (260–210 BC[3]), personal name Zhang, was the King of the state of Qin (r. 246–221 BC[4]) who conquered all other Warring States by and united China in 221 BC.[4] Rather than maintain the title of king borne by the Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty from 220 to 210 BC. The title emperor (huangdi) would continue to be borne by Chinese rulers for the next two millennia. During his reign, his generals greatly expanded the size of the Chinese state: campaigns south of Chu permanently added the Yue lands of Hunan and Guangdong to the Chinese cultural orbit; campaigns in Central Asia conquered the Ordos loop from the nomad Xiongnu, although eventually causing their confederation under Modu Chanyu. Qin Shi Huang also worked with his minister Li Si to enact major economic and politic reforms aimed at the standardization of the diverse practices of the earlier Chinese states.[4] This process also led to the banning and burning of many books and the execution of recalcitrant scholars.[1] His public works projects included the unification of diverse state walls into a single Great Wall of China and a massive new national road system, as well as the city-sized mausoleum guarded by the life-sized Terracotta Army. He ruled until his death, which occurred in 210 BC despite an infamous search for an elixir of immortality.[1] |
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