An Army On Parade For 2000 Years Part.I

The ruthless but efficient king of Qin conquered all the rival Warring States to unite China, becoming its first emperor, Shi Huang Di. His empire surrounds him even in death, guarded by an army of nearly 7500 terracotta warriors.

Drunk with success, reveling in their freedom after years of oppression, the peasant soldiers of the rebel army attacked. The emperor’s troops stood fast, their faces impassive as the rabble descended. Still they stood as the enemy soldiers, screaming abuse, stripped them of their weapons and set fire to the ground around them. The emperor’s men had no choice. They were not made of flesh and blood.

As the fires raged, the colorful paint on their terracotta bodies began to disintegrate. The green, purple, blue, and red of their garments – color schemes that identified the individual contingents – gradually took on the same shade of ashen Grey.

Yet, despite the fire that stripped them of their colors each of the pottery warriors remained unique, distinguished from his fellows by the arrangement of his hair and the finer details of his face. The range of different features bore witness to the ethnic diversity of the dominion that stretched from southern China to Mongolia - the empire of the Qin.

The rebels were looters, and the army they disturbed in 206 BC were the silent guardians of a tomb set in the plains around Mount Li 40 Km east of the imperial capital at Xian yang, near present day Xi’an.

Forty years earlier, in 246 BC, the new 13 year –old king of the state of Qin had commanded the construction of a funerary city to house his body after death. By the time he died in 210BC, King Zheng had extended his power over a vast number of territories, and had proclaimed himself the first Emperor of China, Shi Huang Di.

(Cont.)