It seems that a group of terra-cotta warriors are making the trip from Xian to London, to be exhibited at the British Museum. A rather breathless article in the New Stateman (hat tip, CDT) sets the stage:
"The First Emperor was able to dream on a scale that no one else has ever dreamt," he [Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum] says with a boyish breathlessness. "No one else in history has tried to create a life-sized parallel universe in which he will rule for ever. So much of what modern China is can be seen as a direct consequence of what that man did. There are very few historical figures who changed the world in such a way that we are still living with the consequences."
Yes, but...and a rather large "but" it is....Qin was responsible for enormous crimes against Humanity, and I mean that in the Confucian sense, as the article rightly points out:
...before his death he ordered the mass burning of history books and the execution of their authors. Nearly 500 Confucian scholars are said to have been buried alive for some long-forgotten failure to please the emperor; others were castrated.
We must always keep that context in mind. However impressive the terra-cotta soldiers are, they are the product of a power-crazed, megalomaniac who forced thousands and thousands of people to slave away at the creation of an underground army that would protect him in the afterlife. He destroyed large swaths of Chinese culture - the texts of the hundred schools of thought lost to the world forever. He left much in his wake, but he erased and ruined much as well. I'm with Mencius, who presciently wrote before Qin:
When Confucius said "Whoever invented burial figures deserved no descendants," he was condemning the way people make human figures only to bury them with the dead. (7-8)
By those lights, Qin really, really deserved no descendants.
I'm thinking that Neil MacGregor character needs to pull his head out of Qin Shihuang's arse and read more about Genghis Khan. Genghis was the far greater man in every sense.
Posted by: chriswaugh_bj | September 13, 2007 at 05:08 AM
write less
Posted by: this is gay | September 17, 2007 at 01:47 PM
why would he nuter them!!!???
Posted by: bob | January 22, 2009 at 12:04 PM
it was a form of torture... 0.0
Posted by: N/A | February 25, 2009 at 11:15 PM
Except Shi Huangdi banned Confucian teachings from China, so obviously, he didn't care what Confucius thought. Who cares about what good the Terracotta Warriors did when he standardised currency, language, text and measurement, not to mention revolutionising the political system and creating an intricate and efficient road system.
What he provided for China FAR outweighs the crimes he perpetrated (which were admittedly bad).
Posted by: Nick | April 08, 2009 at 03:15 AM
Qin did all the good things he did for himself.
He didn't care about his people.
He was a tyrant who's tyranny is a tyranical disgrace.
He was selfish.
He wanted to be immortal.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 13, 2009 at 07:24 PM
sounds like george W. bush...
Posted by: tyrone | April 28, 2009 at 10:54 PM
I think Qin Shi Huangdi was a ok man. He did good and BAD things. It kinda hard to choose.............
Posted by: Morgan | March 02, 2010 at 07:09 PM
You guys shut up, so what if he did bad things? If he didn't what he did, today they will not be China and he did bad things because those people did something bad to him, like trying to kill him when he was little!
Posted by: Kraz | March 09, 2010 at 11:11 AM
self centered..and egocentric.
Posted by: darkforces | May 05, 2010 at 07:47 AM
I'am trying to do a Scrapbook about him.Can you help me?
Posted by: Ken | July 12, 2010 at 04:21 AM
he was mean
Posted by: Leah | September 04, 2010 at 05:19 AM
He ate dogs
Posted by: jack mellhorn | November 11, 2010 at 09:26 PM
jk lol. I eat dogs
Posted by: jack mellhorn | November 11, 2010 at 09:30 PM