陕西的土地下,有一 個 墳墓。
Beneath the dirt flow rivers and seas of silver mercury, stand armies of thousands, lay the skeletons of servants, officials, of wives, of virgins, of the workers who constructed this grave of theirs: a necropolis which was once the largest city in the world. Above ground its dead king once created an entire nation, built out of war and terror. His legacy is a unified people which to this day would fight tooth and nail rather than be torn apart.
Nobody is inspired by 嬴政. An early stint with death made him paranoid and untrusting. Everything he did, he did out of fear, of being forgotten, of dying, out of a desire to be immortal. The expanse of his conquests, accomplishments, memorials -- that bloody wall which I climbed a quiet path up, dead people on the bottom and peach trees on the sides -- just belie an awesome depth of terror, desperation, and uncertainty. What a megalomaniac. He died 210 BCE, poisoned by the elixir which was supposed to give him everlasting life.
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