简介
The.First.Emperor

Qin Shi Huangdi remains a controversial figure in Chinese history. After unifying China, he and his chief adviser Li Si passed a series of major economic and political reforms. He undertook gigantic projects, including the first version of the Great Wall of China, the now famous city-sized mausoleum guarded by a life-sized Terracotta Army, all at the expense of many lives. To ensure stability, Qin Shi Huang outlawed Confucianism and buried many scholars alive. All books other than those officially decreed were banned and burned in what is known as the great Confucian purge. Despite the tyranny of his autocratic rule, Qin Shi Huang is regarded as a pivotal figure....



文本
The great ruler, it's said, was sealed in a bronze model of his world, at the heart of the largest mausoleum on earth, surrounded by rivers and seas of flowing mercury. And so the legend remained for over 2000 years.


Jeffrey Riegel from the University of California wants to separate fact from fiction. He has come to China to examine the latest research on the first emperor, unlocking the truth behind one of the world's greatest legends.


What we knew from these early stories, from these legends was the tale of a person who seemed from those sources to be larger than life, almost, almost impossibly large, as a, as a real figure, as a historical figure. Even though we knew, that of course he had indeed accomplished the unification of the empire, how did he do it? How did it, how did it come about? How, how could such an enormous historical personage exist?

Here I am! Oh Heaven!


The reality of the emperor’s life has long been shrouded in mystery. For 2 millennia the only detailed information came from a single written history compiled 100 years after his death. The Shiji, the records of a grand historian, Sima Qian, the foundation of the legend.

It’s an entire world that Sima Qian has recreated for us, but for 2000 years all we had was this text.
Then in 1974, archeologists found the Terracotta Army. It stunned the world. And the greatest archeological find of the 20th century became the first real physical substance to the legend.
Its scale is unprecedented. Terracotta figures were known about from other burial sites, but never on this scale.

重点词汇讲解
Mausoleum: a special building made to hold the dead body of an important person or the dead bodies of a family陵墓

legend: a very famous person, especially in a particular field, who is admired by other people传说中的人(或事),传奇人物
His heroic feats made him a legend in his own time.
他的英雄业绩使他成了他那个时代的传奇人物。

fiction: 虚构,捏造,想象
That is no fact but fiction.
那不是事实,是虚构出来的。

Unlock: to discover sth and let it come out揭开;表露
He unlocked the secrets of his heart.
他表露了他心中的秘密。

Unification: the act of combining two or more groups, countries etc to make a single group or country 统一

Come about: 发生
How did this come about?
这事是怎么发生的?

Shroud: to keep information secret so that people do not know what really happened 覆盖;掩蔽

Unprecedented: 无先例的,空前的
The rate of growth was unprecedented.
这个成长率是前所未有的。