The First Emperor: Selections from the Historical Records (Oxford World's Classics)

208 Pages·2007·1.08 MB·English

by  Sima Qian

oxford world’s classics
THE FIRST EMPEROR
Sima Qian’s Historical Records (Shiji), from which this selection is
taken, is the most famous Chinese historical work, which not only
established a pattern for later Chinese historical writing, but was
also much admired for its literary qualities, not only in China, but
also in Japan, where it became available as early as the eighth cen-
turyad. The work is vast and complex, and to appreciate its nature
it is necessary to make a selection of passages concerning a particu-
lar period. To this end the short-lived Qin Dynasty, which unified
China in the late third century bc, has been chosen for this transla-
tion as a key historical period which well illustrates Sima’s method.
Sima himself lived from 145 bc to about 86 bc. He inherited the
post of Grand Historiographer from his father, and was so deter-
mined to complete his work that he suffered the penalty of castra-
tion rather than the more honourable alternative of death when he
fell foul of the Emperor.
Raymond Dawsonwas an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College,
Oxford. He was Editor of The Legacy of China(1964) and his other
publications include The Chinese Chameleon: An Analysis of European
Conceptions of Chinese Civilization(1967),Imperial China(1972),The
Chinese Experience (1978), Confucius (1982), A New Introduction to
Classical Chinese(1984), and the Analects(Oxford World’s Classics,
1993).
K. E. Brashier is Associate Professor of Religion (Chinese) and
Humanities (Chinese) at Reed College.
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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
SIMA QIAN
The First Emperor
Selections from the
Historical Records
Translated with an Introduction and Notes by
RAYMOND DAWSON
Preface by
K. E. BRASHIER
1
3
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Translation, Introduction, Explanatory Notes © Raymond Dawson 1994
Preface © K. E. Brashier 2007
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First published (as Historical Records) as a World’s Classics paperback 1994
Published as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback, with new Preface by
K. E. Brashier, 2007
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Sima, Qian, ca. 145-ca. 86 B.C.
[Shi ji. English. Selections]
The first emperor : selections from the Historical Records / translated with an
introduction and notes by Raymond Dawson ; preface by K. E. Brashier.
p.cm.--(Oxford World’s Classics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-922634-4 (alk. paper)
1.Qin shi huang, Emperor of China, 259-210 B.C. 2.China -- History -- Qin
dynasty, 221-207 B.C. 3.China -- kings and rulers -- Biography. I.Dawson,
Raymond Stanley. II.Title.
DS747.9.Q254S56 2007
931’.04092 -- dc22
[B]
2007007676
Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Clays Ltd., St Ives plc
ISBN978-0-19-922634-4
13579108642
CONTENTS
Preface by K. E. Brashier vii
Introduction xxi
Note on the Text xxxv
Select Bibliography xxxvii
Chronology xxxix
Map xl
THE FIRST EMPEROR
1. The Birth of the First Emperor 3
2. An Assassination Attempt 11
3. The Biography of the Chief Minister of Qin 23
4. The Builder of the Great Wall 53
5. The Annals of Qin 61
6. The Treatises 95
7. The Story of the Rebel Xiang Yu 103
8. The Story of the Rebel Chen Sheng 135
Explanatory Notes 143
Index 159
This page intentionally left blank
PREFACE
VIEWS OF THE FIRST EMPEROR
Our modern era regards the First Emperor as the glue that
brought Chinese culture together in terms of territory, currency,
measures, roads, written language and more. Books and docu-
mentaries routinely dub him ‘the man who made China’, elevat-
ing him to creator status. Images of his cruelty may persist, but
the warfare, the quest for immortality, and his exacting laws are
now often treated as necessary evils and personal quirks leading to
the much greater prize of unification, of fusing ‘all under Heaven’
ortianxia.
We see the First Emperor of Qin through several different lenses.
First, there is the self-projected image of the Qin ruler, an image
now being reconstructed through the things he left behind, ran-
ging from terracotta warriors to mountain inscriptions. Second,
there is the lens polished by Sima Qian, the Grand Historiographer
who lived a century after the First Emperor. For him, the First
Emperor wasn’t the founder of an imperial tradition that would
last two thousand years; he was the unpopular Qin opportunist
from a few generations ago whose brief dynasty was justifiably
overthrown by the worthy Han, Sima Qian’s own court. Finally,
there is our own lens transforming the First Emperor into the
focal point of operas and video games, of films and theme parks.
Why we choose to see the First Emperor today as epitomizing
martial valour and cultural unity may tell us more about what we
desire out of the present rather than the past. All three lenses—the
First Emperor’s, Sima Qian’s and our own—tell us what we want
to remember and not necessarily what the Qin story actually was.
The First Emperor of Qin’s self-projected image
Had there been no Sima Qian to leave behind his Shiji or
Historical Records that tell us almost everything we know of the
First Emperor, how might we have viewed this man based on the
physical evidence alone? For example, would we see him and his
ancestors as part of mainstream Chinese civilization, or would we
viii Preface
see them as western outsiders relative to the dominant cultural
sphere of the Zhou Dynasty (1122–256 bce)? To be blunt, was
China’s First Emperor Chinese?
If seen through Sima Qian’s lens, the people of Qin historically
derived their culture from their backward western tribal neigh-
bours; they were ‘in the same category as the Rong and Di’, a
classification clearly intended to be derogatory. Mere backward-
ness might not have been bothersome to the Central States had Qin
quietly remained on the periphery, but the Grand Historiographer
lamented that state’s greater ambitions because it ‘favoured vio-
lence and cruelty over benevolence and propriety’.1 In like
manner, its eastern neighbours would complain that Qin ‘pos-
sessed the mind of a tiger or wolf’, failing to recognize ritual or
righteousness in its aggressive pursuits.2This barbarian and even
animal-like stereotype would become embedded within the mar-
ketplace of images over the next two millennia. For example, Tang
poetry would often romanticize the First Emperor’s persona as a
fearsomefighter emerging from the pre-imperial Chinese version
of the Wild West. As Li Bo (701–762) wrote:
The King of Qin swept through every direction, his tiger gaze so
courageous!
Brandishing his sword, he parted the floating clouds, and the feudal
lords all came westward.3
Both geographically and cosmologically, the tiger symbolized the
West throughout imperial history. That is, the First Emperor was
not only branded formidable and terrifying, he was also from
beyond the cultural milieu of the Central States.
Yet archaeology now tells a different story that would deny Qin’s
alien status. Housing scores of elaborate bronze vessels, Qin royal
tombs since at least the eighth century were by no means humble and
backward. Their grave complexes heeded Zhou sumptuary regula-
tions, and their capital cities boasted impressive palaces and temples.
1 Shiji(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985),15.685. For other similar associations between
Qin and its tribal neighbours, see Shiji,5.202and68.2234.
2 Shiji,44.1857.
3 Yu Xianhao, Li Bai xuanji(Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1990),461–4(‘Gu feng’).
Preface ix
Judging from the physical remains, historical archaeologists argue
that the Qin culturally numbered among the Central States
throughout much of its history and only in the fourth centurybce
pursued a different course after adopting major Legalist reforms
that broke up the aristocracy and replaced its power with an
increasingly deified ruler. Labels of barbarianism appear in
Chinese texts only after this time.4
According to another charge levelled against the Qin, this western
state was not only barbaric, it was becoming increasingly savage.
Sima Qian highlights how Qin in 678 bce began the practice of
burying the living with the dead, and other Han commentators
argue such brutality was the natural extension of an earlier tradi-
tion of interring human-shaped figurines in the grave.5 Again
archaeology would dismiss these charges. While it is true that the
Qin led the other states in substituting imitations for real burial
goods, it was not the first step on a slippery slope that led to live
burials. Human sacrifice long predated the Qin state and Zhou
Dynasty as a whole, and in Qin’s time it was no more prevalent
there than anywhere else. Relative to this ancient practice of live
burials, the earliest known Qin case of human-shaped grave
figurines, namely a pair of crudely hewn wooden carvings about
80cm in height, only dates to around 700bce.6Excavated in 2006,
the oldest known Qin terracotta figurines, specifically a pair of ten-
centimetre-tall statuettes found in a ceramics workshop, date back
to the beginning of the Warring States Period (481–221).7 The
charge that Qin was becoming increasingly savage as evinced by
4 Lothar von Falkenhausen, ‘Mortuary Behavior in Pre-Imperial Qin: A Religious
Interpretation’,Religion and Chinese Societyvol.1, ed. John Lagerwey (Hong Kong: The
Chinese University Press, 2004),155; Gideon Shelach and Yuri Pines, ‘Secondary State
Formation and the Development of Local Identity: Change and Continuity in the State
of Qin (770–221bc)’, in Archaeology of Asia, ed. Miriam T. Stark (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing,2006),216.
5 SeeShiji,5.183andMengzi zhengyi(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1996),63(‘Liang Hui
wang’).
6 Von Falkenhausen, ‘Mortuary Behavior in Pre-Imperial Qin: A Religious
Interpretation’,129–30.
7 People’s Daily Online(15August2006), originally reported by the Xinhua News
Agency.