How the Title of Emperor Began and Why Qin Shi Huang Stopped Being King

In the last series, the Warring States world was still a field of competing kings. Once the six states were destroyed, that old world stopped all at once.

But the old title of king was still hanging on Ying Zheng. With the whole realm in Qin hands, "King of Qin" had suddenly become too small.

After the Six States Fell, "King" No Longer Fit

By 221 BCE, Qin had destroyed Han, Zhao, Wei, Chu, Yan, and Qi. For the first time, the central states were gathered under one power.

In the old age, many rulers could call themselves kings. Now there was only one.

Ying Zheng understood that if he kept the old title, he would still be speaking the language of a divided world. He wanted a name that matched a new political order.

So he gathered his ministers and told them to discuss a new imperial style. The order was polite on the surface, but the meaning was clear enough. The old title had to go.

"Emperor" Was Built Out of Older Sacred Names

The ministers quickly understood what he wanted. If king was no longer high enough, they had to search further back, into the oldest and most exalted names of tradition.

They first suggested "Grand August One." Ying Zheng still did not like it.

He did not want to borrow a title already used by others. Since he had destroyed the old order, he wanted a title that would also mark a break from it.

So one character was taken from the Three August Ones, and one from the Five Emperors. Together they became "huangdi," emperor.

Once that title was fixed, many related forms were fixed with it. Imperial commands received special names. The ruler's first-person pronoun also became restricted. Language itself was being reorganized around the throne.

He Did Not Want Future Generations Judging Him With a Posthumous Name

Ying Zheng did not stop with the title alone.

In earlier tradition, rulers were given posthumous names after death. Those names were a judgment. Some praised. Some condemned. Even a powerful ruler could still be measured and labeled by later men.

Ying Zheng hated that idea.

He believed that as ruler of the whole realm, he should not wait for later ministers to decide how he would be remembered. So he abolished the older practice.

He called himself the First Emperor. The meaning was ambitious and plain. After him should come the Second Emperor, the Third Emperor, and a line continuing for ten thousand generations.

The irony, of course, is that Qin lasted only to the second generation.

A New Title Also Required a New Political Structure

Once the emperor existed at the top, the state below him had to be reorganized in matching form.

At the center, Qin established the Three Excellencies and Nine Ministers. Government, military oversight, and supervision of officials were all tied into a more unified court structure.

The harder question was local rule.

Some argued that the newly conquered lands were too distant and unstable, so imperial sons should be enfeoffed there as kings. That had old precedent behind it.

Li Si opposed it at once. He argued that the Zhou feudal model had eventually broken apart into endless rivalry. Qin had just finished crushing the feudal lords. Why rebuild them?

That argument matched Ying Zheng's instincts.

So Qin did not re-create a world of hereditary regional kings. It pushed the commandery-county system across the empire instead. Local officials would be appointed from the center, not inherit territory as private power.

That was when "emperor" became more than a grand name. Above stood the emperor. Below stood central offices. Below them stood commanderies and counties. A new imperial skeleton had been put in place.

But once that skeleton was in place, another problem immediately appeared. The empire had been unified. Power had also become more concentrated than ever before.

The next question would be whether one court could also control what people were allowed to say and remember.

In the next episode, we turn to the truth behind burning books and burying scholars.