An Examination Of The Episodes In The Qin Dynasty Part Of Historical Records

Historical Records was interpolated shortly after it appearing in the world, which has been discussed a lot from ancient times. Because Qin government seriously hurt Confucianists, the dominated intellectuals in China, a large number of spiteful interpolations were fabricated in the accounts of Qin Dynasty. If we examine Historical Records carefully, we can find many interpolations in the chapter 6,85 and 87, the main parts of the records about Qin Dynasty, especially in the second half of chapter 87. In the chapter 85,the episode that Lu Buwei(吕不韦)presented his concubine to Zichu(子楚)conflicts with the context. In the chapter 87, Erh-shih huang-ti(秦二世)'s words of blaming Li Si(李斯)and Li Si's memorial on "supervising and responsibility" were both framed by someone abhoring the School of Legalists(法家)；the episode about Li Si's death different from chapter 6 is self-contradictory, so we should take the account from chapter 6, including the time of Li Si's death; likewise, the episode about Erh-shih huang-ti's death are too bizarre to believe. The content of Chapter 6 is relatively reasonable, but there are still many interpolations in the following episodes: "the comments about First Emperor(秦始皇)by Wei Liao(尉缭)","Erh-shih huang-ti massacring his brothers and commanding people to build Epang Palace(阿房宫)again "and" Zhao Gao(赵高)deceiving Erh-shih huang-ti with a deer". Furthermore, the episode that First Emperor claimed himself as Zhenren (真人) instead Emperor(chapter 6) is very probably an exaggerated story; the episode that Erh-shih huang-ti Usurped the throne (chapter 6 and 87)is also doubtful.