Qin Shi Huang Dies: China's First Emperor Sought Immortality
Qin Shi Huang was terrified of death. He sent expeditions to find the islands of the immortals. He consumed mercury pills that his court alchemists claimed would give him immortality — mercury that was almost certainly killing him. He died in 210 BC on one of his inspection tours, and his court kept the death secret for months, transporting the body in a closed carriage and continuing to deliver meals to the rotting corpse so the servants wouldn't know. His empire lasted four years after him. But the administrative structures he'd built — standardized weights and measures, a unified writing system, a centralized bureaucracy — became the template that every dynasty for the next two thousand years inherited. He was trying to live forever. He mostly succeeded.
September 10, 210 BC
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