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

"This is what we can deduce from the Records of the Grand Historian. Hu Hai was a complete tyrant. From the time he ascended the throne, he only knew how to enjoy himself, abused the people's labor, and used harsh punishments to kill. He caused the Qin Dynasty to perish after only three years on the throne."

"However," he continued, before changing the subject.

"An archaeological discovery published in full this May, Qin bamboo slips unearthed from Well No. 5 at Rabbit Hill in Yiyang, Hunan, contain a document, the edict of the Jiawu day of the tenth month of the first year of Qin Er Shi (the second emperor of Qin). This is the only original official edict of Qin Er Shi (the second emperor of Qin) discovered to date."

(The Qin Dynasty used the Zhuanxu Calendar, which took October as the beginning of the year. The first month of each year was October, and the order was: October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September.)

"This edict refreshed the historical community's understanding of Hu Hai." (It merely supplemented content not recorded in the Records of the Grand Historian, not that the Records of the Grand Historian was wrong.)

The images on the screen switched, revealing a high-resolution image of an ancient and tattered bamboo slip, with the Qin Dynasty clerical script annotated sentence by sentence in modern Chinese characters.

【What's new?】

Rabbit Mountain? Yiyang? Never heard of it.

[The only one? Isn't it mentioned in the Records of the Grand Historian?]

……

"In the first month after Hu Hai came to power, he introduced a whole set of new policies to benefit the people:"

In the judicial system, amnesty is granted for minor offenses, the scope of joint liability is narrowed, and relatives and friends are not implicated in civil disputes.

In terms of people's livelihood, the government will reduce or exempt small amounts of taxes owed by the people, halt large-scale national projects, reduce corvée labor, and exempt families with only one child and elderly people from guarding distant border areas.

In terms of governance, local officials should be restrained and not allowed to take advantage of the situation to oppress the people.

The three most suffocating shackles of Qin Shi Huang's final years—cruel punishments, heavy taxes, and bottomless corvée labor—were all precisely paused within a month of Hu Hai taking the throne.

Each time a line appeared on the screen, a barrage of question marks would appear in the comments.

【?? I'm not seeing things, am I? This is Hu Haiqian's?】

[What happened to the promised system of extortion, tyranny, and incompetence?]

[I believe Fusu's proposal of this policy, but what about Huhai? Was he implicated?]

……

He sighed, unable to finish his sentence: "Everyone is right, this is not the Hu Hai we know. This shows that when Hu Hai first came to power, he was clear-headed."

He was very clear about the problems in the final years of the First Emperor's reign: excessive corvée labor, cruel punishments, and widespread public resentment.

So, as soon as he came to power, he pulled this stunt, a targeted measure to appease the people and solidify his crumbling throne.

"He even demonstrated astonishing administrative efficiency. This edict was sent from Xianyang and arrived in Yiyang County in Jiangnan in just 25 days. This proves that the postal system and central control of the Qin Dynasty were far more powerful than we imagined."

"So here's the question: how did an emperor who could see through the ills of the times and implement precise policies at the beginning transform into a 'tyrant' who was manipulated by Zhao Gao, slaughtered indiscriminately, and hastened the demise of the Qin Dynasty in just a few months?"

Li Si, standing beneath the sky, stopped struggling, his eyes filled with shock and confusion, while Ying Zheng's brows furrowed even more deeply.

"Actually, the answer lies within the riddle itself. Let's take a look at the opening of this edict."

The scene changes, and the characters on the bamboo slips are highlighted.

The edict begins: "The world has lost the First Emperor, and all are filled with fear and grief. I have received his last edict..." Note that the "I" here does not refer to Hu Hai himself, but to the First Emperor who has just passed away.

In this official edict, Hu Hai, speaking as a "subject," relayed his father's "last will and testament" to prove the legitimacy of his succession.

He spared no expense in administrative costs to deliver this edict to every remote county, including the most unstable areas such as the former territory of Chu, repeatedly explaining it and permanently archiving it.

This, on the contrary, proves that at that time, the rumors of "Huhai usurping the throne and Fusu dying unjustly" must have reached a fever pitch among the court and the public.

Hu Hai's throne was far from secure, so he had to adopt an almost humble approach to conduct a nationwide crisis public relations campaign.

The edict of leniency was his first step in consolidating his throne and winning over the hearts of the people. The other step, which we already know, was Zhao Gao's advice to "strict laws and harsh punishments," and the two began a large-scale massacre of the imperial family and ministers.

Mercy and massacre are two sides of the same coin of fear.

"Furthermore, Hu Hai's lenient policies were only implemented for a few months. After Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rallied the people in Dazexiang and the uprising broke out, he immediately panicked and abolished all the lenient policies. Instead, he intensified the use of harsh punishments and laws, and plunged headlong into the absurd logic woven for him by Zhao Gao that 'a wise ruler should use severe punishments to eliminate dissidents and then enjoy himself.'"

"Through this new historical material, we can re-examine the situation: Hu Hai was not a simple fool or a madman; he was more like a tragic figure with an extremely complex inner world and outstanding abilities and flaws."

Feeling guilty, he spared no expense in using the entire nation's administrative resources to promote his legitimacy. At the same time, at Zhao Gao's instigation, he raised the butcher's knife against the royal family and ministers. Twelve princes were publicly executed in Xianyang, ten princesses were dismembered in Du County, and countless others were implicated.

He was shrewd, so he was able to prescribe a remedy for the people as soon as he took office.

However, he was extremely short-sighted and lacked composure, so when a crisis came, his "shrewdness" immediately gave way to fear, and he reverted to the Legalist school's pure intimidation and control techniques.

In the end, he foolishly chose to trust Zhao Gao, completely abandoning the country and handing over the reins of this out-of-control chariot to an even more destructive madman.

"Thus we see that, with a series of disastrous actions such as calling a deer a horse, purging dissidents, and regicide and internal strife piled up, the Qin Dynasty was completely swallowed up by the wave of uprisings when its central government was paralyzed."

"Therefore, Hu Hai may not have been incompetent, but his ability was merely shrewdness in the realm of power politics, not great wisdom in governing the country."

He can portray a wise ruler, but when a real crisis arrives, he will only use the tools he is most familiar with: violence and fear.

Fear can never truly save an empire.

"Zhao Gao and Hu Hai hastened the demise of the Qin Dynasty. This conclusion drawn by historians remains unshakable. However, the process of this acceleration was more complex than we imagined."

Under the canopy of the sky, the main hall was deathly silent.

Hu Hai collapsed to the ground, trembling violently. He dared not raise his head or look at anyone.

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PS: This chapter was heavily revised later, so the comments and paragraph content may not match.

The complete collection of Qin Dynasty bamboo slips from Well No. 5 at Rabbit Hill, Yiyang, was published in May 2026.

In 2013, 479 inscribed bamboo slips were unearthed from the No. 9 ancient well at the Rabbit Hill site in Yiyang, Hunan Province. These were official documents archived by the Yiyang County Government in the first year of Qin Er Shi (209 BC).

Located in the heart of the former Chu state, the script is a mixture of Qin clerical script and Chu script, serving as primary grassroots archives for Qin's rule over the southern Chu region. The core is divided into two main sections:

1. Yiyang County received an imperial edict from the central government, issued by the Second Emperor of Qin, from the Xianyang Imperial Palace.

2. Yiyang County's own routine administrative archives (mostly bamboo and wooden slips).

The following is a detailed introduction.

Core document 1: The edict issued on the day of Jiawu in the tenth month of the first year of Qin Er Shi's reign (the most important artifact in the entire document, and the only existing original official edict issued by Qin Er Shi).

The declaration of political legitimacy begins with "The world has lost the First Emperor, and all are filled with fear and grief. I have received the imperial edict..." In this edict, "朕" refers to Qin Shi Huang, while Hu Hai refers to himself as "臣" in the edict, relaying his father's last edict to the whole country, thus declaring that he has succeeded to the throne in accordance with the edict, and demanding that each county read it aloud in public and permanently archive it for public display.

A complete set of lenient policies for the people (Hu Hai's self-help policies in the early days of his reign)

The judiciary has granted amnesty for minor offenses and narrowed the scope of collective punishment. Civil disputes will no longer implicate relatives and neighbors, and those convicted of minor offenses can be released to farm after performing labor as atonement.

People's livelihood: Reduce or exempt small tax arrears that people are unable to repay over the years; halt the construction of new large-scale palaces and city walls nationwide; reduce corvée labor; exempt families with only one child and elderly people from guarding distant border areas;

Official governance: restraining local officials and preventing them from arbitrarily oppressing or impeaching the people under the guise of taxes and corvée labor;

-

(Impact 1: Correcting the established conclusion that "Hu Hai was born incompetent and cruel, and began to levy exorbitant taxes as soon as he ascended the throne".)

The image portrayed by the Records of the Grand Historian: Hu Hai, from the time he ascended the throne, only knew how to enjoy himself, abused the people's labor, and used harsh punishments to inflict violence.

New facts revealed in the bamboo and wooden slips: In the first month of his reign, Hu Hai took the initiative to introduce a systematic policy of easing the burden on the people, clearly recognizing the social ills of excessive corvée labor and cruel punishments in the later years of the First Emperor, and adopted targeted measures to appease the people.

However, this only gives us a more concrete picture of Hu Hai's character. The prevailing view in Qin and Han history is that Hu Hai later lived a secluded life in the palace, neglecting state affairs, while Zhao Gao held absolute power and called a deer a horse. The Qin bamboo slips from Rabbit Mountain cannot overturn this historical fact; they can only correct the stereotype that "Hu Hai was incompetent and tyrannical from beginning to end."

Moreover, his implementation of these policies may be an emergency political strategy aimed at winning popular support and consolidating his precarious legitimacy, rather than a reflection of his profound political vision.

After all, Hu Hai's lenient policies were only implemented for a few months and were completely abolished after the uprising broke out. This shows that he lacked the determination to govern the country and had extremely poor crisis management skills. After encountering the rebellion, he completely abandoned the government and trusted Zhao Gao, gradually moving towards tyranny.

The fall of the Qin Dynasty can be explained by two layers of logic:

The underlying cause = the institutional and regional conflicts left by Qin Shi Huang

Direct Accelerator = Hu Hai's inconsistent policies + Zhao Gao's monopolization of power, infighting in the court, and deceiving the emperor and disrupting the government

Without the mistakes of Hu Hai and Zhao Gao, the Qin Dynasty would most likely not have perished after only two generations. Instead, it would have experienced a period of struggle and slow decline, like later dynasties, rather than collapsing in just three years.

The assertion that "Zhao Gao and Hu Hai hastened the demise of the Qin Dynasty" remains an unshakable mainstream historical conclusion.

The Qin Dynasty itself had an intractable social crisis, but it was Hu Hai's policies that tore apart the ruling class and massacred them, coupled with Zhao Gao's abuse of power, his purging of officials, and the internal strife caused by the regicide. These multiple malicious actions accelerated the Qin Empire's demise.

All newly unearthed Qin Dynasty bamboo and wooden slips cannot negate this core historical judgment.

Impact 2: The mystery surrounding whether Hu Hai usurped the throne and the wrongful death of Fu Su.

It remains unclear, but Hu Hai's repeated propaganda in the remote Chu region that he "succeeded to the throne according to the imperial edict" at the expense of the nation's administrative costs proves that rumors of "Hu Hai usurping the throne and Fu Su dying unjustly" had already spread throughout the Qin Dynasty's grassroots, and the legitimacy of the imperial power was widely questioned by the court, the public, and the people.

This indicates that there were two parallel narratives in the Qin and Han dynasties:

Although Hu Hai himself claimed that he was the legitimate successor, the common people at the grassroots level did not agree and believed that Zhao Gao and Li Si had forged an imperial edict to kill Fusu.

Previously, it was thought that the false edict at Shaqiu and the wrongful death of Fusu were fabrications by later generations of the Han Dynasty, but now it seems that the Records of the Grand Historian selected the mainstream narrative records of the time and was not made up out of thin air.

Impact 3: Refreshing the Qin Dynasty's Governance Capabilities

Hu Hai's edict and decree from Xianyang reached remote counties and prefectures in Jiangnan in just 25 days. This is sufficient proof of the Qin Dynasty's administrative capabilities, its complete and efficient postal system, and its central control being far stronger than later generations imagined.

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(II) Core 2: Supporting files for grassroots judicial, economic and household registration systems.

The case of the woman who refused to use the official standard half-ounce coin in the market: After trial, she was sentenced to be abandoned in the market and her body exposed to the elements, which confirmed that the Qin "Money Law" had extremely strict control over currency.

A large number of cases involving private debt and neighborhood disputes: ordinary civil cases only result in fines and short-term local labor service, with very few cases involving corporal punishment or the death penalty;

Household registration, corvée labor, and tax registers: These records document Qin's forced implementation of the Qin system in Chu, the distinction between tax standards in Guandong and Guanzhong, and reflect the regional divide between the former territories of the six states and the central government.

Physical artifacts: The people of Chu used both Chu script and Qin clerical script simultaneously, vividly demonstrating the growing pains of Qin's unification of writing.

(Impact 4: Correcting the one-sided evaluation that "Qin law did not distinguish between light and heavy punishments and was solely based on harsh laws")

In the past, it was generally believed that Qin law was meticulous and cruel, and that common people were often sentenced to death.

The Rabbit Mountain Bamboo Slips and the Yuelu Qin Bamboo Slips mutually verify the hierarchical legal logic:

For daily livelihood issues (debt, fighting, agricultural negligence): the punishments are light, mainly consisting of fines, local labor service, and atonement, and the leniency system is fully implemented.

Serious crimes that undermine the foundation of the state (refusing official bribes, absconding with household registration, failing to fulfill duty while on the frontier, treason): maximum penalties, with the death penalty and joint liability becoming the norm.

The Qin laws were stratified by severity, not indiscriminate harshness. Historical records only amplify the cruel legal provisions and ignore the buffer system for people's livelihood at the grassroots level.

However, we cannot ignore the actual situation in the Qin Dynasty. Although the Qin law contained provisions that made people's livelihood more lenient, the Qin Dynasty was burdened by unlimited large-scale projects during the First Emperor's reign, and the actual burden on the people was still heavy. The bamboo and wooden slips only corrected the impression of "legal provisions" and do not deny the social reality of the people's miserable lives at the end of the Qin Dynasty.

Impact 5: Confirming the regional conflicts in the Qin Dynasty.

The imperial edict specifically differentiated between the people of the six states east of the Hangu Pass, reducing their burdens and offering them separate appeasement. The obvious discrepancies between the written language and laws of the Chu region demonstrate that after Qin's unification, the cultural and economic divide between Guanzhong and the eastern and Chu regions was extremely deep. The lack of acceptance from the remnants of the six states remained a core hidden danger for the dynasty, and this did not arise only after the uprisings.

This archaeological discovery does not change the conclusion that the Qin Dynasty perished.

The greatest contribution of the Rabbit Mountain Qin bamboo slips is that they fill in a completely blank section in the Records of the Grand Historian: the political maneuvering of Hu Hai immediately after he ascended the throne.

The Records of the Grand Historian's account of Huhai's ascension to the throne jumps almost directly from the Sand Dune Plot to the massacre of the royal family and ministers, without any transition in between.

Sima Qian may not have known of the existence of this edict (after all, it was later abolished by Hu Hai himself, and it was very likely deliberately erased from official archives), or he may have thought that this edict, which only lasted for a few months, was not enough to change Hu Hai's historical character, and therefore chose not to write it down.