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FIRST EMPEROR OF CHINA
Qin Shi Huang (260 BC - 210 BCE), was king of the Chinese State of Qin from 247 BCE to 221 BCE. His personal name was Zheng, and he was the first emperor of a unified China from 221 BCE to 210 BCE, ruling under the name First Emperor. For all the tyranny of his autocratic rule, Qin Shi Huang is still regarded by many today as the founding father in Chinese history whose unification of China has endured for more than two millennia. In Chinese antiquity, people never joined family names and given names together as is customary today, so it is anachronistic to refer to Qin Shi Huang as "Ying Zheng". The given name was never used except by close relatives, therefore it is also incorrect to refer to the young Qin Shi Huang as "Prince Zheng", or as "King Zheng of Qin". As a king, he was referred to as "King of Qin" only of Qin", but this never happened.After conquering the last independent Chinese state in 221 BCE, Qin Shi Huang was the king of a state of Qin ruling over the whole of China, a previously unprecedented accomplishment. Wishing to show that he was no longer a simple king like the kings of old during the Warring States Period, he created a new title, huangdi, combining the word huang from the legendary Three Huang (Three August Ones) who ruled at the dawn of Chinese history, and the word di from the legendary Five Di (Five Sovereigns) who ruled immediately after the Three Huang. The word huang also meant "big", "great". The word di also referred to the Supreme God in Heaven, creator of the world. Thus, by joining these two words for the first time, Qin Shi Huang created a title on a par with his feat of uniting the seemingly endless Chinese realm, in fact uniting the world.
This word huangdi was rendered in most Western languages as "emperor", a word which also has a long history dating back to ancient Rome, and which Europeans deemed superior to the word "king". Qin Shi Huang had now become the First Emperor of the State of Qin. The official name of the newly united China was still "State of Qin", Qin having absorbed all the other states. Contemporaries called the emperor "First Emperor", dropping the "of the State of Qin", which was obvious without saying. However, soon after the emperor's death, his regime collapsed, and China was beset by a civil war. Qin Shi Huang could no longer be called "First Emperor", as this would imply that he was the "First Emperor of the Empire of Han". The custom thus arose of preceding his name with Qin, which does not refer to the State of Qin anymore, but to the Qin Dynasty, a dynasty now replaced by the Han Dynasty. The word huangdi (emperor) in his name was also shortened to huang, so that he became known as Qin Shi Huang. It seems likely that huangdi was shortened to obtain a three-character name, which matches the three-character name of Chinese people.
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