Chronicles of the Qin Dynasty

Chapter 46 45. The instigator [Please read the words]

Ji Heng fell into a long silence.

And Yan Yun stared at him for a long time.

He is no longer young, and his old face is covered with wrinkles, but the look in his eyes still seems as if he is looking at Wang Ziheng, who trusts him wholeheartedly.

Qin Shi knelt beside him and couldn't help but prick up his ears - since Ji Heng made the Terracotta Warriors in the underground palace of Mount Li, why did he still have to be buried alive in Yanyun?
After a long time, Ji Heng slowly spoke.

"Master Yan, I wish you could enter the land of death and still be of great use to me."

He slowly closed his eyes, his stern features softening, gradually taking on a faint sadness that ordinary people couldn't fathom: "Serve Heaven with sincerity, and be faithful as time. We mortals offer sacrifices to the heavens, communicating with the gods, and we should be faithful and trustworthy, using our faith to inspire our aspirations."

Qin Shi couldn't refute this.

Ji Heng was talking about today's universal concept: when offering sacrifices to heaven, one should be sincere and trustworthy, and then it will come with the same integrity as the eternal and unchanging time.

Since mortals pray to God, they need to communicate with each other with sincerity and also use sincerity to inspire people's concept of loyalty.

At this time, lack of integrity is a serious sin and will lead to everyone despising you.

But what does this have to do with burial alive?

She had difficulty listening, but still listened seriously, trying to get closer to Ji Heng's heart.

However, she didn't understand, but Yan Yun seemed to understand. He forced himself to sit up and said, "My King..."

Ji Heng shook his head and continued:

"In the past, the Shang king buried terracotta figurines with him. King Wu defeated King Zhou and replaced him. Later, when the Zhou Dynasty declined and the princes split up, they also did this."

"Although this action spares the people's energy, it is disrespectful to God and lacks sincerity and trust. Confucius in Guandong once said: 'He who first made terracotta warriors will have no descendants!'"

He slowly grasped Yan Yun's aged hand and said in a deep voice, "Master Yan, what Confucius said makes sense."

"If you won't sacrifice yourself for others, why bother making promises to God?"

"Since there is a promise, why should we use terracotta figurines to replace it?"

"It is neither sincere nor kind."

"However, offering sacrifices and burying the dead alive has been a tradition since ancient times. I deeply fear that the Yan army will die in the land of the dead, alone and helpless, so why should I spare their manpower? I only hope that they will serve the Yan army devoutly for a long time."

After hearing this, Qin Shi was also stunned.

She had always thought that burying people alive with the dead was just Ji Heng's way of saying he didn't know how to value the people's strength. She had wanted to slowly test him to see if she could make him realize the preciousness of human power.

But I never thought that the other party had already realized it.

At this time, people treated the dead as if they were alive. In the tombs excavated a thousand years later, the Zhongtian Ziwei was still the center of the underground palace.

There are also tombs from the Yangshao period, an era when written language was incomplete, but the locations of the stars were arranged using leg bones and shells in the underground palace.

Because people firmly believe that there is another kingdom in the sky after death.

Ji Heng may not believe in God, but he cannot firmly believe that there is no country of the dead under the earth.

Yanyun was so important to him that he didn't even dare to bury her with the terracotta warriors...

I am afraid that I will deceive Heaven and make Yan Yun lonely and miserable after his death, or be punished.

Obviously, there are Terracotta Warriors in the underground palace of Mount Li!

When she looked at Ji Heng again at this moment, she was deeply shocked.

Yan Yun burst into tears.

He personally wielded the sword and rode the horse, leading the former Prince Heng, Crown Prince Heng, to the current King of Qin Heng as he grew up.

The other party has been taciturn and silent since childhood, but his ambitions far surpass others!
However, such a heroic king was once angry and stopped his respected teacher with a sword because the previous king ordered him to be buried alive.

This action angered the former queen, who wanted to depose the crown prince and replace him with another prince. The queen was a noble of the Chu State and held military power.

Although he tried his best, he was finally able to save Prince Heng only after his master asked for the white silk himself.

The previous king was Ji Heng's ancestor. Over 170 people, including ministers, officials, and palace ladies, were buried alive with him. Craftsmen and slaves were not counted. It's precisely because of this that, more than ten years after the previous king's death, not a single notable figure came to the great Qin State to submit!

Later, King Heng of Qin finally suppressed the previous king, succeeded to the throne as a young man, and consolidated his country.

There were many hardships to endure, blood and tears to shed, political chaos, and unclear soldiers and generals... Ji Heng had tasted them all!
It was also because of this that he was cruel and overbearing after he ascended the throne. With a single word, he could decide life and death, which was extremely shocking!
Only with these measures could the Qin State stabilize its hegemony, and the whole country adopted the farming and warfare system, which enabled it to conquer the six kingdoms and avenge its previous humiliation.

And now, now for him...

Yan Yun grabbed his arm with his backhand and used the force to sit up.

Although tears welled up in his eyes, his expression was still filled with anger: "My achievements can be proven in my lifetime and cannot be taken away even after my death! Even if tens of millions of people are buried with me, what does it matter?"

"Starting with the old ministers, there is no need to use anyone else for burial."

"I hereby solemnly declare to Heaven that my lifelong ambition shall not be taken away, even in death! When I enter the realm of the dead one day, even if I am left with nothing, I will conquer my king's vast empire once again."

"Your Majesty!"

He sighed sadly, "I have this great wish, Your Majesty, please believe in it and grant it to me."

Ji Heng remained silent. In the stagnant air of the entire hall, he finally nodded slowly, "Yes."

"In the future, I will bury hundreds of pigs, cattle, and sheep with the deceased to pray to the gods of heaven and ancestors, and ask them to bless our Great Qin Army God."

After he finished speaking, he looked at Yan Yun in a slow voice and gently advised again: "Master Yan, there is no need to bother me any more. After I pass away, I will take Master Yan into the underground palace of Mount Li. In the future, we will continue to be king and subject."

Yan Yun closed his eyes tightly, then sighed deeply:
"Your Majesty, please do not teach me to deceive Heaven, but why do you need terracotta warriors in the underground palace of Mount Li?"

However, Ji Heng smiled faintly: "Master Yan, I have always believed that even the common people and ghosts should obey the king's orders."

He said solemnly: "I wish to be called the Emperor, the Son of Heaven."

"The majesty of the Son of Heaven cannot be taken away, even in death."

"I conquered the six kingdoms in my lifetime, and I will unite them again after my death. Thousands of soldiers and horses could defend the Great Qin, but I do not wish them to be buried with me."

"Since this is the case, the king's order should be issued and figurines should be used to replace people."

He spoke slowly, with a powerful voice, and his words were as powerful as the law:
"It is not a sacrifice to heaven. It is my king's teacher, at my command."

He sat there quietly, chatting with Yan Yun as if he was just chatting, but he said such respectable and terrifying words full of arrogance and power, and his expression was terrifyingly calm.

Yan Yun stared wide-eyed, took a few deep breaths, and then suddenly burst into laughter!
The body that was originally hunched due to old age suddenly stretched out, as if there was countless power in the chest!
"Having such an emperor is a blessing for our Great Qin!"

"When Your Majesty enters Mount Li, please do not forget me! Though I am old, I am still as powerful as Lian Po! I only hope that even in the afterlife, I can still follow Your Majesty and once again achieve great military exploits for the Great Qin!"

At this moment, his eyes were filled with passion, as if he had returned to his prime.

Ji Heng also shook hands with him solemnly, and then nodded solemnly: "I will never forget it!"

...

Qin Shi took a deep breath, his emotions were so complicated and indescribable.

Then he looked at the inconspicuous censor who always followed the king in the corner. He picked up his pen and wrote rapidly on the bamboo slips.

Thousands of years later, if history books were to see the light of day, based solely on this conversation between the monarch and his ministers—

King Heng of Qin should be an eternal sage king.

[Jue Fu is combined with faith, and trust inspires ambition] from [Zhou Yi]

[Confucian Zhongni]: Confucius. Confucianism was not popular at the time and was a minority. Confucianism only gained popularity after being proposed by Dong Zhongshu during the Han Dynasty.

Key Point: "The first person to create terracotta warriors, will he have no descendants?" is a quote from Confucius by Mencius (the original quote is not recorded). This reflects Confucius's extreme dissatisfaction with the terracotta warrior system, which he considered unkind.

This lack of compassion doesn't mean replacing human sacrifice with terracotta figurines. Rather, it means preferring to deceive heaven with false behavior and using human forms as burial objects. This not only abandons the virtue of honesty and integrity, but also perpetuates the practice of human sacrifice. (Some of the ideas are from Professor Feng Shi's open class.)
[The system of ministers being buried alive with the dead was explained earlier. It was Duke Mu of Qin. There were 22 generations of emperors between him and Qin Shi Huang. This is a fictional setting.]

The name Qin Shi comes from the core of this chapter. This chapter can be said to be an important turning point.

[The censor was the historian at that time]

[I spent four or five hours writing this, constantly worrying if it would be too dull or too difficult to understand… After all, I set a bar for myself, and it flopped miserably…]