On the edge of forever

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Tang Dynasty

"Best is the emperor who is barely known.
Next the ruler who is loved and honoured.
Then the despot who is feared.
And finally the tyrant reviled.
Govern quietly
And the people will realize
They are responsible
For their own well-being.

(Lao Zi;the Dao De Jing ).




Xi'an served as the ancient capital for 12 Chinese dynasties from 1000 BC to 1000 AD. Xi'an was already a major world city at the time when Homer wrote the poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. (I'm ignoring the debate about who actually wrote the poems here).



Later during the Tang Dynasty (18 June 618 - 4 June 907 AD), Xi'an (then called Chang'an) was the largest city in the world, the cosmopolitan capital of the world's richest and most powerful state. The Tang era was a golden era of Chinese art and literature.

The First Emperor and the Terracotta Warriors

Xi'an is though probably best known for the nearby Terracotta Warriors. The Terracotta Army was buried with Emperor Qin Shi Huang, China's First Emperor. He was the ruler of the state of Qin from 247 BC to 221 BC and was the first Emperor of a unified China from 221 BC till 210 BC.



Although Qin Shi Huangi unified China, he has traditionally been considered a barbaric monster in Chinese historiography. He certainly didn't follow the advice of Lao Zi that I quoted at the start of this blog. The First Emperor was responsible for massive loss of life in his pre-unification campaigns. As Emperor he press ganged tens of thousands of Chinese into monumental public projects - roads, canals, palace complexes and the first Long (Great) Wall. Later Dynastic historians condemned the emperor who had burned classic literature and buried Confucian scholars alive. Lia Yi (a Han era historian 201- 160 BC) said of the Qin Dynasty that: it failed to display humanity and righteousness or to realise that there is a difference between the power to attack and the power to consolidate .



700,000 convict labourers set to work on his mausoleum and tomb alone. Many of those labourers were killed as soon as the work finished to protect the secret location and contents of the tomb. In fact knowledge of the Terracotta Warriors was totally lost to history until a small group of farmers digging a well in 1974 brought a few terracotta arms and legs up to the surface.



When the Chinese Communist Party came to power they took a line that was critical of the crimes of the First Emperor. But during the Cultural Revolution, revisionist Party historians started to re-evaluate the Qin Dynasty. Mao Ze Dong when criticised for his persecution of intellectuals said:

He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive... You revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold.

It seems that Mao was a fan of the First Emperor for the very reasons that most people have condemned Qin Shi Huang.



The Terracotta Warriors are buried in several pits, they are an amazing spectacle. Each Terracotta Warrior is different with a different facial expression. The whole site is an UNESCO World Heritage site.



The UNESCO citation says of the Terracotta Warriors:

No doubt thousands of statues still remain to be unearthed at this archaeological site, which was not discovered until 1974. Qin (d. 210 B.C.), the first unifier of China, is buried, surrounded by the famous terracotta warriors, at the centre of a complex designed to mirror the urban plan of the capital, Xianyan. The small figures are all different; with their horses, chariots and weapons, they are masterpieces of realism and also of great historical interest.

The Tourist attractions of Xi'an

I arrived in Xi'an on the 15th of June by sleeper train from Chengdu (see my last blog). I stayed in the city until the 20th. Whilst in Xi'an I visited a number of the tourist attractions including the Terracotta Warriors Huaqing Pool and the Great Mosque of Xi'an.



The Great Mosque of Xi'an is unlike any other Mosque I have ever seen. It looks like a Chinese Taoist Temple. It is a series of courtyards and interconnecting doorways. The Minaret looks like a Pagoda! Xi'an has a long established Muslim community. The city was the starting point of the overland Silk Road. Along with commerce, ideas and religions travelled along the Silk Road.



Xi'an is also the site of an important incident in modern Chinese history. The Xi Incident took place in 1936 at Huaqing Pool near Xi'an during the Chinese Civil War between the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). On 12 December 1936, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the KMT was suddenly arrested and kidnapped by Marshall Zhang Xueliang. Chiang Kaishek had ignored a request by the Communist Party to cease fighting each other and instead concentrate on fighting the Japanese invaders. Marshall Zhang Xueliang held Chang Kai-shek until he agreed to change his mind!

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Photos

Huaqing Pool
Room of Chiang Kaishek during the Xi incident. A Kuomintang General rebelled, took Chiang Kaishek hostage and forced him to sign a deal with the communists to resist the Japanese invasion.