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This massive mausoleum was built to replicate his real life and house everything he would need from concubines to soldiers.

0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... A lust for everlasting life resulted in the massive Qin Shi Huang tomb. At just thirteen years old, the boy-king, Ying Zheng (259 BCE – 210 BCE), began to construct his own tomb in today’s Lintong District, Xi’an, in China’s Shaanxi province. At the age of 38, King Zheng would unite all the warring states and become the first Emperor of China, ‘Qin Shi Huang.’ As the emperor’s power and wealth grew, so too did his obsession with his afterlife. He designed and constructed a mausoleum larger and more extravagant than the world had ever seen before. The Qin Shi Huang tomb and his surrounding 38 square mile necropolis would contain every single detail of the emperor’s luxurious life on earth, including a terracotta army to protect him – all of which he would take into the afterworld. Photo of painting of Qin Shi Huang, circa 1850. Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. A Brief History of Qin Shi Huang The Prince Becomes King In 260 BCE, China was in a state of turmoil. Various feudal states divided the country, and the Warring States Period had lasted for 250 years. Seven individual kingdoms tried to establish their dominance and lay claim to the entire country. However, the strongest of these states was Qin. When King Zhuangxiang began his reign in September of 250 BCE, it appeared that he would become China’s first emperor. However, his reign was short-lived. After just three years in power, he died. King Zhuangxiang’s heir was his young son named Ying Zheng. A regent served as temporary ruler until the young king was old enough to rule on his own. Ying Zheng exhibited traits from the very beginning that marked him as calculating and fearless. At the age of 21, he led a revolt against his regent who tried to maintain control. This culminated in bloodshed and removed every obstacle to the king’s reign. ‘Son of Heaven’ Unifies China Despite multiple assassination attempts, the King of Qin managed one successful campaign after another until he defeated all rival states throughout the land. In 221 BCE, the warrior king accomplished something no other leader had. He united the kingdom and created the first Chinese empire. Although he was a harsh despotic ruler, he left behind important legacies: the Great Wall, a vast network of roads that connected his empire, and one system of weights, measures, money, and writing. As he approached his 40th year, the king proclaimed himself ‘Qin Shi Huangdi,’ a name that conveyed his power as the first high-god (or godlike emperor) of Qin. According to Chinese belief, Zheng’s successes conferred upon him the mandate of heaven. As the ‘Son of Heaven’ he would rule from the center of the universe like a god. From this point, the emperor became obsessed with maintaining his divine power (and possessions) – even in the afterlife. Preparations for Everlasting Life The digging and preparation of Ying Zheng’s tomb had begun immediately upon his coronation as king around 246 BCE. As the king grew into a man and later became Emperor, he would amass more power and control than anyone had ever seen in the kingdom. Likewise, he acquired wealth and luxury beyond imagination. The power-hungry emperor wanted to take everything and everyone he needed to his next life. Thus, his engineering designs for his mausoleum became much more grandiose. However, he desperately feared death and hoped that he would never need his to use his mausoleum. Qin Shi Huang embarked upon a mad search for the elixir of life. The legend about the Mountain of Immortality led him to travel three times to the island of Zhifu. He also built secret tunnels beneath his 200 palaces so that he could travel safely unseen, and he forced scholars, alchemists, and magicians to focus all of their attention on finding a cure for mortality. In a bitter twist of irony, Qin Shi Huang died from drinking the mercury that he believed would make him immortal. Ultimately, he could not cheat death and would need his mausoleum after all. Slave laborers had worked day and night for three decades and would not complete the necropolis until 208 BCE, almost two years after the emperor’s death at age 49 in 210 BCE. Construction of the First Emperor’s Mausoleum Designers intentionally built the mausoleum to resemble the capital of Qin, Xianyang. It includes both an inner and outer city, divided by two distinct walls. Archaeologists believe that Qin Shi Huang’s tomb lies in the southwest of the inner city under the mound where it faces east. The Qin Shi Huang tomb lies deep within this mound. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Sylvannus. Sima Qian claimed that 700,000 men, including slaves, built the emperor’s mausoleum. Some historians have pointed out that no city from that period of history had such a population. Hence, they speculate that sixteen to twenty thousand laborers may be a more accurate assessment. Regardless of the number, it is certain that those peasants an...

The Lavish Qin Shi Huang Tomb Was Built for Immortality