Two Emperors, Two Tombs

Being the capital of the Chinese empire through countless dynasties, many emperors have chosen the area near Xi'an as their final resting place. Two such tombs are major tourist attractions of Xi'an. The tomb of emperor Jingdi of the Han dynasty and Qin Shi Huang's army of terracotta warriors. They both took astounding things to the grave with them, but the two could not have been any more different.

Qin Shi Huang was China's first emperor. He conquered China and brought the country together under one unified government. He was a grand reformer, building roads, standardizing measurments and writing, undertaking countless public works projects, unfiying currency, and was the first to start the great wall. He was also a ruthless tyrant, enslaving thousands, slaughtering opponents and other terrible atrocities. He didn't really seem like a nice guy, but he definately got things done. He died at a young age, due to a "life prolonging" medicine made from mercury. He completed all of these great advances for china in less than 30 years of rule.

Being he was a unfying warrior king, death must have never been too far from his mind. Shortly after his acsension to power, he began amassing his great protector army, the terracotta warriors. The first figure was found in 1974 by farmers digging a well. After striking something hard, he pulled up the drill and started to dig. They never expected what they found, a slightly larger than life terracotta figure of a crouched archer, all in one piece. The archer remains the only figure to have been found whole, giving it the name, "the magic archer". Turns out this was not a single figure, but a member of a whole pit of 1,500 figures of various martial duties. Three more pits have been found, yet they suspect many more may remain. One pit, said to be the headquarters has 75 generals, horses, and body guards. The greatest and most famous pit contains at least 7,000 warriors, all facing east and ready to defend Xin Shi Huang's grave. There are
probably more. The excavators have the painstaking job of digging up the pieces and placing them all together like the worst 3D puzzle in the world.

If this is not impressive enough, there are many trivia facts about the warriors that make them even more amazing, and infamous. Each figure is different; no face is the same. The shoes have tread. The roles in society of the members are there in the details, such as whether they are married or not. Every detail was considered. All 54 Chinese minorities are represented. Each figure was painted with exquisite detail and had their own crafted weapons. Every figure was made by a different artist and every artist who worked on the warriors was killed. That means that every clay soldier represents somebody's life. Qin Shi Huang was crazy. There were also wooden chariots that have rotted away, but archeologists have found three great painted bronze chariots.

There still may be thousands of more soldiers in the dirt to defend Qin's tomb. His tomb itself is a different story altogether. Historian fear opening it because of many dangers, including Indian Jones type traps and rivers of mercury. His tomb took 38 years and 700,000 makers to construct and stands as a giant hill overlooking the warriors. Of course, all 700,000 workers were buried along with the emperor in his tomb. It is fabled to contain vast treasures and great wonders, though many historians are sure it was sacked by invading warrior tribes after the fall of his dynasty.

Emperor Jingdi of the Han dynasty was quite different. Though he smashed a rebellion early in his reign, his rule was a peaceful one. He believed in wuwei, which meant "do nothing". This worked quite well for him; he was a respected peaceful emperor of his time. He did lower taxes, cut back on military spending, and other liberal reforms. He was a good democrat.

His tomb reflects his peaceful nature. It was made up of two great mounds, one for him and one for his wife. They stand as the world's largest tombs. Jingdi also chose to bring terracotta figures with him, but they were of a quite different nature. He made a miniature terracotta kingdom. There were servants, eunuchs, wives, horsemen, dogs, pigs, cows, oxen and many others. Most stand about 2 or three feet tall. The people had crafted silk costumes and movable wooden arms (which have all rotted away). It was a dollhouse for an emperor. Though not as impressive or insane as the warriors, it is still pretty cool. As for me, you can just burn me and dump me someplace pretty, that's enough for me. I don't need a massive death toll to remember me.