Shih Huang Ti Quotes

Quite amazing how determined kings and emperors have been to destroy books. But civilization is built on such desecrations, is it not? Justinian the Great burned all of the Greek scrolls in Constantinople after he codified the Roman law and drove the Ostrogoths from Italy. And Shih Huang Ti, the first Emperor of China, the man who unified the five kingdoms and built the Great Wall, decreed that every book written before he was born should be destroyed.

Look north, he said, In the middle of that vast plain is a single lonely peak. In the light of the setting sun you can just make out the ruins of A-fang-kung, the palace of the great Ch'in Shih-huang, among the weeds and the high grass. Look west. The wind is rustling the woods where the gray mountain mist hides Mou-ling, the tomb of Emperor Han Wu-ti. In the east you can see the white wall reflecting the green hills where a red rooftop pierces the sky and the pale moon comes and goes. No one leans on the on the jade balustrades at Huang-ch'ing-kung where Emperor Hsuan Tsung frolicked with his ill-fated concubine Yang Kue-fei. Those three emperors were for ten millennia the heroes of our history. Where are they now? [Fenkl translation]

17 SHIH HUANG TI 2 5 9 B.C. 2 1 0 B.C.

The great Chinese emperor Shih Huang Ti, who ruled from 238-210 B.C, united China by force of arms and instituted a set of sweeping reforms. Those reforms have been a major factor in the cultural unity that China has maintained ever since.

The last of these were conquered in 221 B.C., and he could now have declared himself Wang (king) of all China. To emphasize, however, the complete break he was making with the past, he chose a new title, and called himself Shih Huang Ti, which means "the first emperor.