When Cheng turned 21, he ceremoniously put on the “cap and sword” of adulthood. Image Credit: Philg88, Wikimedia Commons Cheng’s “Cap and Sword” The people in the various kingdoms spoke different languages, had different economic and political systems, and followed a bewildering assortment of different religions. Indeed, there was no conception of China as a discrete land or culture. When he succeeded his father on the Ch’in throne in 246 BC, Cheng inherited a kingdom, but not a nation. The young Cheng, as he was named by his parents, grew up in a war-torn period, the “Warring States” (479-221 BC), when the chivalrous ways of the ancient court had been replaced by the grim brutality of mercenary warlords. ![]() His father, future Ch’in king Tzu-ch’u, was then a hostage in Han-tan, where he became enamored of the beautiful concubine and dancer Zhao Li, Cheng’s future mother. It was an a an act of defiance that no one could have imagined under Tzu Ying’s father, Emperor Cheng “Shih huang-ti” the First August Emperor, a man so fearsome that his very name was still spoken in whispers, 15 years after his death.Ĭheng was born in 259 BC in Han-tan, the capital of the Chao (Zhao) Kingdom. Peasant rebels led by Liu Pang executed the Emperor Tzu Ying along with his palace officials. The towers, pillars and walls, of 277 palaces roared up in flame and the streets ran red with blood. In 206 BC, doom came to Hsien Yang, the glorious capital of the Ch’in (Qin) Empire. Shih Huang-ti possessed “the mind of a tiger,” and operated against his opponents with ruthlessness and treachery.
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