east, one that had begun in China two centuries before. That was the time of King Zheng of the Qin dynasty, the warlord who unified China and ruled from 221 to 210 BC. He was the one history knows as Shihuangdi, the First Emperor.”
“The guy with the terracotta warriors,” Costas said.
Katya nodded. “The warriors were buried with him, surrounding the greatest unexcavated tomb in history. For the legionaries the fantasized image of that tomb may even have been the light at the end of their tunnel, a legend of unplundered riches that may have persuaded them to go east when they had escaped the Parthians. I’ll get to that in a moment. Jack, what do you know about the Res Gestae ?”
“It means things I have done” Jack said. “It was Augustus’ record of achievements, inscribed on bronze plaques and set up all around the empire. Lists of conquests, buildings projects, benefactions, laws, that sort of thing. The record of a man who saw himself as primus inter pares, a citizen who had taken temporary charge to restore the republic. Above all it was a celebration of peace, the pax Romana, the inspiration for the pax Britannica that led men like my great-great-grandfather to believe their purpose was a noble one, that a benign empire was truly possible.”
“And now for Shihuangdi, the First Emperor,” Katya said. “He also left a record of achievements, inscribed on bronze and stone and set up high in the mountains, in places he visited to carry out sacrifices to the cosmic powers. But it’s frighteningly different. Instead of listing vanquished enemies, the First Emperor celebrates internal order. He’s proud of establishing a totalitarian police state. The empire of Augustus, like the British Empire, was cosmopolitan, with a tolerance for cultural diversity that was a linchpin of the Imperial system. China was different. The empire of the First Emperor was an empire of the Chinese people, full stop. The outside world was barely acknowledged. Augustus was a man of the people, a Roman through and through. The First Emperor was an outsider, a warlord who swept down into the Chinese heartland just as Genghis Khan was to do centuries later. But whereas Genghis Khan expended his energy in endless conquests in the world beyond, the First Emperor stopped at the geographical limits of China while he was still bursting with warrior fury. He found his outlet in a mania for control. He didn’t really rule an empire at all. He himself said it. He unified China. He created China. Before him, China was a chaotic land of warring states. He subsumed all that. He turned back the clock to zero.”
“Plus ca change,” Jack murmured.
Katya opened the book. “Virtually everything we know of him comes from the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian, written about a century after the First Emperor’s death. It records admonitions, edicts, laws, tirelessly issued by the Great One. He adjusts rules, sets standards for everything, ‘the ten thousand things.’ He regulates the seasons and the months, rectifies the days, makes uniform the sounds and measures. All under heaven are of one mind, one will. Listen to this. ‘His great rule purifies the folkways, the whole empire acknowledges its sway; it blankets the world in splendid regulation. Posterity will obey his laws, his constant governance knowing not end. The bright virtue of the Great Emperor aligns and orders the whole universe.’ He even erased the concept of doubt.”
Costas whistled. “Sounds like the mother of all control freaks.”
Katya nodded. “Augustus’ creed was feel-good, the creed of a golden age. The creed of the First Emperor was one of order, certainty. And with that came denial of anything that couldn’t be controlled, denial of the outside world. Listen to this: ‘In the twenty-sixth year of his rule he first united the world; there were none who did not come to him in submission.’ And again: ‘Wherever human tracks may reach, there are none who are not his subjects.’ These are patent lies, as anyone who had been beyond the borders would know. But he tried to solve that by preventing anyone from leaving.”
“So what about the gods?” Costas asked. “Or was this guy divine too?”
Katya put down the book and took out a ziplock bag with an object inside. It was the Chinese coin they had found in the burial, with the square hole in the center. “This coin represents two of the most powerful Chinese symbols of cosmological power, in which the earth is square and the heavens are circular. The coin shows the heavens as a delimited concept, as something finite.” She slipped the bag back in her pocket. “To the steppe- dweller, surrounded by vast open spaces and sky, either you’re overawed by it or you see it as the definition of your world. The ancient Chinese attempted to rationalize the heavens, to bring them within their grasp. Take a look at Altamaty’s yurt. The dome shape is a representation of the heavens, like a planetarium. Sitting inside it, surrounded by the vastness of the steppe, you can feel that you’ve drawn the heavens toward you, that you control them. That’s how to understand the First Emperor. His cities, his palaces, were analogues of the heavens, and so was the underground world he created for his eternal existence.”
“Tell us about that,” Costas said.
“That was another difference from the Romans. Augustus may have been deified later, but he lived his life as a mortal. The First Emperor had no need for the afterlife. He’d created his own heaven on earth. When he went to the mountains and sacrificed to the cosmic powers, he was really sacrificing to himself He couldn’t bear to acknowledge his own mortality.”
“You’re talking about the concept of wu di, non-death,” Jack said.
Katya nodded. “For many ancient Chinese, there was no spiritual world beyond the present. The dead formed a community on earth, an analogue of the world of the living. They could even intermingle, in places where the earth and the cosmos are close, where illusion and reality were interchangeable. Places like this, high in the mountains. And for an emperor, wu di was a control concept. Everyone retained their roles-soldiers, courtesans, the emperor himself For him, it meant eternal power.”
“Didn’t the First Emperor try to prolong his actual life?” Costas asked.
Katya nodded wryly. “He sent expeditions to a place called Penglai, the Isles of the Immortals, the mythical dwelling place of the Blessed. He ate from utensils of gold and jade, thought to dispel bodily decay. He employed spells and charms to battle the demons he thought caused aging. And according to Sima Qian, he took mercury, another supposed panacea. That was probably what killed him.”
“And that gets us to his tomb,” Jack said.
Katya flipped the book to a marked page. “The most famous passage of the Records of the Grand Historian” She read it out:
“In the ninth month the First Emperor was interred at Mount Li When the emperor first came to the throne he began digging and shaping Mount Li. Later, when he unified the empire, he had over seven hundred thousand men from all over the empire transported to the spot. They dug down to the third layer of underground springs and poured in bronze to make the outer coffin. Replicas of palaces, scenic towers and the hundred officials, as well as rare utensils and wonderful objects, were brought to fill up the tomb. Craftsmen were ordered to set up crossbows and arrows, rigged so they would immediately shoot down anyone attempting to break in. Mercury was used to fashion imitations of the hundred rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtse, and the seas, constructed in such a way that they seemed to flow. Above were representations of all the heavenly bodies, below, the features of the earth”
“Incredible,” Costas murmured. “And all that stuff’s still there?”
Katya passed him a photograph. It showed a vast mound, surmounted by trees. “There’s no reason to doubt Sima Qian’s description, even though the tomb had been filled and sealed before he was born,” she said. “The discovery of the terracotta warriors in pits outside suggests that his account of the burial chamber may not be exaggerated. Chinese scientists using remote-sensing equipment have even detected high concentrations of mercury under the mound.”
“So you’re saying he wasn’t preparing for the afterlife, but for a kind of parallel existence.”
“The First Emperor had already paved the way in real life, planning his palaces and temples in his capital Xian as imitations of the heavens, with the river Wei as the Milky Way. He aligned political and cosmological order, just as he’d proclaimed in his edicts. He was also mapping his palaces on the stars, imposing the dwellings of a supreme being on the cosmos.”
“And for supreme being, read First Emperor,” Costas said.
“Right. And now for the reason we’re here.” Katya picked up the book and read the next passage:
“After the interment had been completed, someone pointed out that the artisans and craftsmen who had built the tomb knew what was buried there, and if they should leak word of the treasures, it would be a serious affair Therefore, after the articles had been placed in the tomb, the inner gate was closed off and the outer gate lowered, so that all the artisans and craftsmen were shut in the tomb and were unable to get out. Trees and bushes were planted to give the appearance of a mountain.”
