Innovation The First Emperor is renowned for his spectacular inventions, which helped to solidify his rule through modernization. During his reign, he instituted money, publishing, and measurement standardization, among other things. With advanced road and canal systems, he linked cities and states. He is also credited with completing the Great Wall, which is probably the most well-known icon still standing today. He is regarded as a military genius, and while his methods included massacre and destruction, some claim that his ultimate success at bringing the states together justifies the violence, a necessary cost of nation-building. We also see the first assembly-line style production in the creation of his terracotta warriors, horses and chariots.
Immortality The burial complex's most intriguing feature is what it says about the young Emperor's fascination with immortality. Driven by a desire to defeat death, the future First Emperor ascended to the throne of the Qin state at the age of 13 and immediately began planning his funeral, as well as his underground palace, a mausoleum attended by thousands of people. An army including over 7,000 terracotta warriors horses, chariots and weaponry intended to protect him in the afterlife. The First Emperor envisioned a subterranean domain that would parallel his worldly existence after corporal death. According to Han-dynasty historian Sima Qian, the First Emperor had a treasury of riches and piles of precious gemstones representing the stars, sun, and moon lining his burial complex. He was profoundly concerned about the world and looked to it for guidance in transitioning to an eternal life. Excavation also revealed other mysterious findings, like strangely high levels of mercury and evidence that the poisonous substance coursed through an intricate system of underground troughs, replicating the topography of the actual rivers and seas carving the surrounding landscape. Some suggest that the emperor believed mercury had life-giving power and so surrounded himself with the toxic element, believing it was yet another way he might live forever.