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Updated: August 27, 2024
Originally the governor of a small town, he had, soon after the death of Hwangti, gathered round him the nucleus of a formidable army, and while nominally serving under one of the greater princes, he scarcely affected to conceal that he was fighting for his own interest.
Buddhism had first come into China in the reign of Tsin Shi Hwangti; but that imperial ruffian had made short work of it: he threw the missionaries into prison, and might have dealt worse with them, but that a "Golden Man" appeared in their cell in the night, and opened all doors for their escape. Buddhist scriptures, probably, were among the books destroyed at the great Burning.
The child began by assuming that astounding title: Ts'in Shi Hwangti, the First August Emperor: peace to the ages that were past; let them lie in their tomb; time now should begin again! Childish boyish swank and braggadocio, said the world; but very soon the world found itself mistaken. Hwangti; but no sitting on his throne in meditation, no letting the world be governed by Tao, for him!
Don't argue with him; it is dangerous! certainly there was an Elixir of Life, decantable into goblets, from which Ts'in Shi Hwangti might drink and become immortal, the First August Emperor, and the only one forever! Certainly there were those Golden Islands eastward, where Gods dispensed that nectar to the fortunate; out in your ships, you there, and search the waves for them!
After this success Liu Pang was proclaimed emperor as Kao Hwangti, meaning Lofty and August Emperor, which has been shortened into Kaotsou. He named his dynasty the Han, after the small state in which he was born. Kaotsou began his reign by a public proclamation in favor of peace, and deploring the evils which follow in the train of war.
One wonders what would happen if a Ts'in Shi Hwangti were to arise and do by modern Christendom what this one did by ancient China. I say nothing about the literati, but only about the literature. Would burning it be altogether an evil? Nearly all that is supremely worth keeping would live through; and its value would be immensely enhanced.
History would go; yes; but a mort of pernicious lies would go with it. But when all is said, China was not unfortunate in having a strong giant of a man, a foreigner withal, at her head during those crucial decades. Ts'in Shi Hwangti guarded China through most of that perilous intermission between the cycles. It was the good that he did that mostly lived after him.
The world could have conceived of no other way of dealing with the situation. But Ts'in Shi Hwangti could, very well. He abolished the feudal system. He abolished nationalities and national boundaries. There should be no more Ts'in and Tsin and Ts'u; no more ruling dukes and marquises.
From 850 to 240 all these figures are of course approximations: there was pralaya in China; on the other side of the world, it was the period of Celtic eruptions and probably, disruption. While Tsin Shi Hwangti, from 246 to 213, was establishing the modern Chinese Empire, the Gauls made their last incursion into Italy.
Only, what they had done in China was a mere Ts'in Shi Hwangti, because Laotse and Confucius had not failed spiritually to prepare the ground, they must send forth Adept-souled Augustus and Tiberius to do, if human wisdom and heroism could do it, in Italy; because Pythagoras' Movement had failed. The Roman Empire was the European attempt at a China; China was the Asiatic creation of a Rome.
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