THE DREAMED WALL
“But for a dream, the Great Wall was built; but for the wall, the empire fell.”
He Zi-Qing何自清, Chinese historian
In 214 BC, a tall, red-faced apparition appeared in front of the Emperor. The creature waved a flaming sword and declared, “Hu will be the one that destroys the Ch’in,” then vanished without another word. The Emperor awoke from the nightmare and summoned the imperial astrologer for an interpretation of the dream.
The astrologer declared, “Your Majesty, it is an omen from the god to forewarn the emperor that the Ch’in Empire will fall in the hand of the Hu people.”
Emperor Zheng was alarmed and irritated. He’d just defeated six kingdoms to create a great empire, and now it was being threatened by the Hu barbarians. The northern border of his realm abutted the nomadic Xiong Nu tribes that were collectively known as the Hu people. The nomads launched periodic fall raids to rob, and ravage the Ch’in land. Apparently, the god was warning him of the ultimate threat posed by the northern barbarians, if they were not vanquished.
The Emperor summoned his favorite general, “General Meng Tian, it is early spring, the northern barbarians are just thawing out from the winter freeze, with their horses still thin and weak. A god warned me in my dream that the Hu people will bring down my empire. Now is the time to strike against them. Take 300,000 men and drive them away from my border.”
Three months later, the general reported the mission accomplished, the Hu people had been defeated and retreated north for 300 kilometers. The Emperor was elated but still harbored concerns about the dire warning from the god. He sent an edict to the general, “Good work, now build me a wall. I want a long wall to safeguard the realm from future Hu invasions. Make use of the defensive fortifications built by previous kingdoms, connect them. Draft local levies, slaves and convicts. I want it to stretch from the Eastern Sea to the western Gobi Desert.” The general remained on the northern frontier and started work on the 21,000 kilometers long Great Wall that stretched from Shan-Hai Guan on the Pacific Ocean shore to Jia-Yu Guan at the rim of the Gobi Desert.
In the following year, the emperor abolished the traditional feudal system and replaced it with a centralized mandarin government. Under the new bureaucratic system, local governors and magistrates were appointed by the emperor and became directly accountable to the emperor instead of the feudal lords. Many courtiers, former officials of vanquished kingdoms, objected to the change. They opposed the new bureaucratic system because they were aristocrats who stood to lose their hereditary fiefs and power. Their vehement objections incurred the emperor’s wrath and they paid for it with their lives. The emperor slaughtered 460 leaders of the group as a warning to future dissenters to his rule. Prince Fu Su, the eldest son of the emperor, thought the punishment too harsh and tried to intercede. For his troubles, he was banished to supervise Meng Tian in the building of the Great Wall.
In 210 BC, the Emperor died during a tour of the realm. Prince Fu Su was away building the Great Wall, thus not around to assume the throne. His absence presented an opportunity for Prime Minister Li Si to launch a silent coup d’état. Li Si had been the one that proposed and implemented the new mandarin system of the government. He was afraid Prince Fu Su, once he became the emperor, would kill him, or at least fire him from his position as the Prime Minister. Li Si enlisted the aid of the Senior Eunuch Zhao Gao in a coup plot. Zhao was the mentor and confidant of the twenty-year-old Prince Hu Hai, the youngest son of the emperor, who happened to be present in the touring entourage.
As the Prime Minister, Li Si was the emperor’s right-hand man and managed all affairs for the ruler, and was the one that penned the emperor’s decrees. He forged an imperial decree which ordered Prince Fu Su and General Meng Tian to commit suicide for disloyalty. Only after the conspirators confirmed the prince and the general had both died, did Li Si order the Imperial procession to return to the Capital, Xian Yang. Meanwhile, he purchased large amounts of fish and stored them in the emperor’s carriage. The smell of the fish concealed the stench of the dead emperor’s body in the mid-summer heat from other members of the imperial entourage. At the same time, Li Si continued with governmental functions as if everything was normal until their arrival at the Capital. Once at the Imperial Palace, he secretly brought in the body of the emperor then formally announced his passing. Concurrently, Li Si presented a forged Imperial decree which named Prince Hu Hai as the new emperor.
Hu Hai was young and had been tutored by Zhao Gao thus vulnerable to the influence of his mentor. Unfortunately for Li Si, once Hu Hai was enthroned, Zhao Gao turned on the Prime Minister. Zhao threw Li Si in jail then put him to death. Emperor Hu Hai proved to be a cruel despot, he murdered all thirty-two of his brothers and sisters (counting Fu Su). His repressive policies brought on a revolt that ultimately led to the downfall of the Ch’in Empire, thus fulfilling the prophecy announced by the god in the dream, “Hu will be the one that destroys the Ch’in.”
