A live-streamed Chinese language lesson under the sky—the ancients were taken aback.

The light in the sky shone again after three days of silence, and this time it was brighter than ever before.

Before the scene had fully unfolded, the deep sound of war drums had already reached everyone's ears.

Ying Zheng put down the bamboo slips in his hand, looked up at the sky, and knew that this episode would finally be about his Great Qin Dynasty.

The moment the scene fully unfolded, everyone in front of Xianyang Palace involuntarily held their breath.

Black armor, black battle flags, a black torrent—that was the army of the Great Qin.

The chariots rolled across the wilderness, raising dust that blotted out the sky.

The scenes shift rapidly, with banners embroidered with different patterns crashing down under the Qin army's offensive. The banners of the six states of Han, Zhao, Wei, Chu, Yan, and Qi disappeared into the dust one after another.

[This scene is so exciting!]

The Qin army's momentum was truly formidable.

Building upon the accumulated achievements of six generations, he wielded his long-term strategies to govern the world, conquering the two Zhou dynasties and eliminating the feudal lords, ascending to the supreme position and ruling the six directions, wielding the rod and whip to discipline the world, his power shaking the four seas!

With six generations of wise rulers, the Qin Dynasty finally achieved great success; history chose the Qin state and Qin Shi Huang.

……

Ying Zheng's gaze swept over the barrage of comments, his face expressionless.

Having inherited the legacy of six generations, he understood the weight of those five words better than anyone else.

From the time Duke Xiao of Qin appointed Shang Yang to reform the state, to King Huiwen of Qin becoming king, King Wu of Qin lifting the tripod, King Zhaoxiang of Qin defeating the state of Zhao at the Battle of Changping, to King Xiaowen of Qin, King Zhuangxiang of Qin, and finally to Ying Zheng—it took the accumulation of six generations to complete the great cause of unification.

This is not his achievement alone.

But he did accomplish something that no previous king had ever dared to even dream of.

Li Si, who was standing to the side, had already stood up and cupped his hands, saying, "Your Majesty, later generations have given Qin's military achievements extremely high praise."

Ying Zheng nodded slightly, without saying a word.

The scene continues. A young emperor stands before the Xianyang Palace, overlooking his empire.

As the camera zooms out, the Great Wall appears as a giant dragon winding its way through the towering mountains.

The imperial highway, straight as an arrow, radiates outwards from Xianyang in all directions, extending to every corner of the empire.

The Lingqu Canal runs through the north and south, with boats traveling through it, connecting Lingnan with the Central Plains.

The scene shifts again, showing the standardization of writing, cart tracks, and weights and measures, with symbols marked "standard" appearing one by one.

The barrage of comments intensified again.

The founder of a unified China: Without Qin Shi Huang, there would be no China as we know it today.

Although he was criticized as a tyrant, the standardization of writing and the unification of cart axles were truly a monumental achievement.

The history of the Qin state, from a small border state to a unified empire, is truly inspiring.

……

Ying Zheng's brows relaxed slightly.

The image freezes, and a voice, seemingly wanting to speak, begins to emerge.

"Hello everyone, I'm Yu Yan Bu Zhi, welcome to the third episode of the 'Ode to the Epang Palace' series. In this episode, we'll respond to this passage."

"It was the six states themselves that destroyed the six states, not Qin; it was Qin itself that destroyed Qin, not the world. Alas! If each of the six states had cherished its own people, they would have been able to resist Qin; if Qin had cherished the people of the six states in return, its rule could have lasted for ten thousand generations, and who could have destroyed it then?"

In Pei County, in a dilapidated alleyway.

Liu Ji squatted in the corner, basking in the sun, a blade of grass dangling from his mouth, squinting at the enormous light screen that had appeared out of nowhere above him.

He was just bored and listened for a while. When he heard "the six states were destroyed by the six states themselves," he even had a sly smile on his lips and thought this person was quite good at talking.

But when he heard the phrase "to make Qin love the people of the six states again," the grass stalk in his mouth stopped moving.

"Tsk." He spat out the grass stem and muttered, "That's said... as if the Qin state could truly love people."

He recalled the scenes he witnessed when he escorted conscripts to Xianyang: starving corpses by the roadside, and fields of flattened crops left unharvested, all the mess left behind by the young men conscripted to repair roads and the Great Wall.

He had seen the eyes of those commoners; they were as empty as dry wells.

Unable to contain his thoughts, he uttered the words that sent a chill down Zhang Liang's spine: "The six states were destroyed by the six states themselves, not by Qin."

Zhang Liang gripped the bamboo slips tightly, his knuckles turning white. He couldn't refute those words.

Countless images flashed through his mind: his grandfather Zhang Kaidi and his father Zhang Ping, two generations of loyal prime ministers.

But what was the state of Han? King An of Han was weak and incompetent, and there was factional infighting in the court. Before the Qin army even reached Xinzheng, Han itself was already rotten to the core.

He had hated the Qin state for so many years, plotting assassinations and scheming to restore the state, but he had never seriously considered one question.

Is South Korea worthy of being revived?

However... his resentment towards the Qin state would not disappear because of this.

"In the previous two episodes, we discussed some issues concerning the Qin Dynasty. In this episode, we'll expand on that and explore what kind of lives people led at the end of the Warring States period. Did the Qin people improve after unification? And how exactly did the Qin Empire collapse?"

"To explain these things clearly, we first need to go back to the end of the Warring States period and see the true nature of that era."

The scene shifts, and a slice-of-life scene from the late Warring States period slowly unfolds.

"During the Warring States period, seven powerful states stood side by side, and war was the norm. According to scholars, there were more than two hundred wars, large and small, during the more than two hundred years of the Warring States period."

What does this mean for ordinary people?

The image shows a middle-aged man wearing coarse linen clothes, with dark skin, calloused hands, and a tired face.

"His name was Zhao Bing, an ordinary farmer from the State of Zhao. This is how he usually spent his day."

"We had to get up before dawn to perform corvée labor, such as digging trenches, repairing city walls, and transporting grain and fodder. Only after completing our corvée labor could we go home to cultivate our few acres of meager land. But when we were halfway through planting, the government would come to conscript us again, this time to go to war."

"In the Battle of Changping, almost all of Zhao's able-bodied men were buried alive by the Qin army."

Zhao Bing's father died in Changping, and his brother also died in Changping.

Zhao Bing was fourteen years old that year and escaped execution because of his young age, but five years later, at the age of nineteen, he was still conscripted.

"This was the fate of ordinary people at the end of the Warring States period: they were either performing corvée labor or fighting wars."

They were either at war or on their way to perform forced labor.

Zhao Bing's eyes were vacant in the picture, like a walking corpse.

That's terrible.

The massacre of 400,000 Zhao soldiers at the Battle of Changping left behind the shattered families of 400,000.

Therefore, when Qin later conquered Zhao, the people didn't resist at all, because there was no one left to fight.

……

Ying Zheng remained expressionless. He knew that in the Battle of Changping between Qin and Zhao, Bai Qi had massacred 400,000 surrendered soldiers. This was a military achievement for Qin, but also a blood debt for Qin.

Meng Yi, standing to the side, carefully spoke up, "If His Majesty had not unified the world, this kind of chaotic war would have continued."

The scene shifts, and a population statistic table from the late Warring States period appears on the sky.

"Let's look at some data. In the Battle of Changping, although Qin won, the Records of the Grand Historian clearly states that more than half of Qin's soldiers died. After the battle, when Bai Qi returned to Qin, he saw that the country was empty and the fields were full of new graves."

The scene transforms into a series of illustrations: a woman kneeling before a new grave, an old man standing blankly by the field with a cane, and hardly any young or strong men to be seen in the entire village.

[No, I thought the story of "Six Generations of Heroes" was a wish-fulfillment novel, why did it suddenly turn out this way?]

Did so many people die in the Battle of Changping? Didn't the Zhao state lose over 400,000 men, and the Qin state lose half their population?

"This is war. In the process of Qin's conquest of the six states, every city that was captured and every flag that fell was accompanied by this kind of scene. It's just that history books only record the names of kings, nobles, generals and ministers, not their names."