Emperor Qin starts working on his tomb!
Cecelia Spangenberg
The Qin Dynasty Times
246 BC

CHINA-

The new emperor, Qin Shi Huang, has started a new project! He is building his tomb! The new Emperor Qin is quite obsessed with immortality. He has decided to start building his tomb now because he strongly believes in after-life, and what way to show his belief better than building a tomb! He had assigned 7000,000 workers to built this. Not only would his tomb have his body in it, but also more than 8,000 life size statues of Terrocatta Soldiers. Emperor Qin was also in charge of the Terrocatta Army so now he's representing them in his tomb.

Before Emperor Qin had started ruling, there had been 7 major states in China that were usually at war with each other. Emperor Qin was the first ruler of a unified China. Emperor Qin thought of not only China as his kingdom, but the whole world! He had also traveled to China’s sacred mountains and claimed to have connected with the gods and communicated with powerful spirits. Because of Emperor Qin’s beliefs of him ruling the world, the thought of death was completely out of the question for him. Ever since he had started ruling, he has been trying different pills and potions trying to find the solution to achieving immortality. He had even had his servants travel to the mythical islands of the immortals to look for magic herbs to solve his problem. Emperor Qin became more frightened of death between 227 and 218 BC, due to the fact that at least 3 attempts to assasinate him were made.

Some people think Emperor Qin’s idea of building his tomb is a great idea, and praise him for his obsession with immortality. For example, Aiwei, who has worked with Emperor Qin since he started ruling, thinks its a marvelous idea and that it is very important to have a nice, religious tomb that represents parts of his life, such as the Terrocatta soldiers. Considering that Emperor Qin wants to live forever, a tomb is very important because it would be where he would spend eternity. Other people such as Li-jian, who is just a villager that lives in Emperor Qin’s kingdom, disagrees with Qin’s idea and thinks it is just plain wrong. Li-jian believes that it is unnatural for his emperor to take pills and potions because the fact is, people aren’t meant to live forever. Most importantly, he disagrees with the building of the tomb. He doesnt think that people should be forced to work on Emperor Qin’s tomb, especially since many of them died due to them working so hard, and going many days without sleep or food.