The First Emperor - Assignment Example

The First Emperor of China The First Emperor of China Introduction The first emperor of China was called Qin Shihaung. He was born in year 259 BC. His mother was Lady Huayang who was the king’s most fond concubine. During his childhood, his name was Ying Zheng. He reigned for a period of eleven years in the first ever large empire of the entire region. Usually, hereditary of power was from the king to the son. However, Qin Shihaung was not a biological son to the king. His mother was the concubine to the king for a long time but childless.

There was a very popular important merchant called Lu Buwei. He made arrangements with King Anguo’s concubine called Lady Huayang to have an intimate relationship with one of Anguo’s son called Zichu. One thing about Zichu was that he was sent as a hostage son of the Zhao Qin because he was not loved. However, Qin Empire kept on attacking Zhao Empire and this made Zichu mistreated in his host country. It was during his stay in Zhao state that Zichu met Lu Buwei and due to pity the latter felt for the former, they came up with a plan of establishing a successor in lady Huayang who was the king’s most fond concubine.

However, Lady Huayang was Buwei’s concubine and Buwei impregnated her before presenting her to Zichu. Therefore, emperor Zheng was neither the son of the king nor the son of Zechu the Prince but the son to the famous merchant Lu Buwei. According to the stories, Qin’s Court was a very democratic court. This court executed wrong doers like the assassinators. The court ruled a death sentence on the assassinators who tried to assassinate the king. In the court, the men in the court were not allowed to carry weapons.

However, the court did not have better measures to ensure that the king was safe while in the court. From the story of assassination, Crown Prince Dan from Yan State organized an assassination to get rid of Qin Shihaung. Jing Ke was to go for the mission accompanied by Qin Wuyang in the year 227 BC. Qin Wuyand was a fearful man so he didn’t execute his duty of presenting a gift to Qin Zheng. Jing Ke tried executing his goal of getting rid of Qin Zheng but didn’t make it and instead the two of them failed in the assassination and were to be killed later on and the Yan state fell a victim of the Qin State and conquered.

Gao Jianli who was an ally of Jing Ke had the urge to avenge his friend’s death. Being the famous lute player and taking advantage of summon by King Zheng to play the lute, he felt he had a good opportunity. Gao Jianli failed in his assassination attempt and later faced execution. Sima Qian had his own purposes in motives in history writing was to help the emperors come up with the necessary reforms. His main aim was to combine his own political witnessed events and the chronology of the region and biography of those considered as important figures.

He interpreted scenarios, accounts and records of the past history. Sima concentrated more on the past regimes because he was unhappy with the regime in which he lived and his work portrayed more of his low opinion towards the regime. ReferencesSima, Q., & Dawson, R. (2007). The first emperor: Selections from the Historical records. Oxford: Oxford University Press