Qin Shi Huang Dies: China's First Emperor Sought Immortality

Qin Shi Huang was terrified of death. He sent maritime expeditions to find the legendary islands of the immortals in the eastern sea. He consumed mercury pills that his court alchemists claimed would grant eternal life. The mercury was almost certainly killing him. He died in 210 BC on an inspection tour of the eastern provinces, at approximately 49 years old. Born Ying Zheng in 259 BC, he became king of the state of Qin at thirteen after his father's death. By 221 BC, at 38, he had conquered the six rival kingdoms that had divided China for centuries and proclaimed himself Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor, adopting a title that no Chinese ruler had used before. His unification was not merely military. He standardized weights, measures, and coinage across the empire. He imposed a single writing system, replacing the diverse scripts used in the former kingdoms, a reform that enabled communication across vast distances and laid the foundation for a shared Chinese cultural identity. He standardized the width of cart axles so vehicles could use the same road ruts throughout the empire. He built a network of roads and canals connecting the regions. He connected and expanded existing defensive walls along the northern frontier into the precursor of the Great Wall, using forced labor on a massive scale. Hundreds of thousands of workers, many of them convicts and conscripted peasants, died during the construction. His court kept his death secret for months, transporting the body in a closed imperial carriage and continuing to deliver meals to the rotting corpse so the attendants wouldn't know. The prime minister Li Si and the eunuch Zhao Gao forged an edict naming a pliable younger son as successor and ordering the original heir to commit suicide. His tomb complex near Xi'an, discovered in 1974, contained an army of approximately 8,000 terracotta warriors, each with unique facial features, arranged in battle formation to guard the emperor in the afterlife. The main burial chamber has never been excavated. Ancient texts describe rivers of mercury within it. Soil testing has found elevated mercury levels, suggesting the accounts may be accurate. His empire lasted four years after his death. The administrative structures he built lasted two millennia.