Skibbies

I think terracotta army (they JUST opened the subway to it, so you don't have to take the tour bus anymore) + the museum (in the middle of the city) alone is worth it. I think it's cooler than the forbidden city lol. They are still digging up stuff because subways or people building apartments (or in uni's case, they were building dorms I think) and then they run into artefacts.

Jing Ke's assassination is as real as they come, but I've never saw the movie. No doubt Han might have smeared against Qin, but I don't think they would just make up events, make up motivation and exaggerate the tragedy/overplaying importance, sure. There's only 100 years gap between then and these records, so it's probably not THAT far off? well, even if it is, we'd never know lol.

Xi'an is hilarious, they spent 10 years building one of the lines of their metro/subway, because they kept running into archeological artefacts. There's a lot of jokes about the city, 'hey everyone, today we'll learn about this *shows ppt*' vs "ok kids, take your shovel, we are going to do some digging" xD I think one of their uni, the northwest uni of polsci and law? dug up the ancestors of lawyers? Oh yeah, Zhang Tang 张汤. Subsequently, all the kids would bring offerings to him before exam hahahaha.

As for the mausoleum, it's hard to know what's inside and how much would be oxidised or affected if they dug it up. These days, I think archeology are doing emergency digging to preserve the content, as is the case with terracotta (they had vibrant paint when they dug them up!). People's that's more superstitious also think we shouldn't disturb his grave, since he might curse us ahahhaha.

You can't call him Qin Shi Huang yet technically, he's just a Qin King. Like his ancestors weren't always King, so their title was different too (they were a duke at some point? It was only in Qin Empire 2 that Qin had a King) All the states specifically have kings 王 (wang), their first person pronouns is this lonely person 寡人 (gua ren) in the drama, the Zhou King is a king of heaven 天王 (tian wang), pronoun is alone 孤 (gu). you are correct that he specifically created the emperor title 皇帝 (huang di), first person pronoun 朕 (zhen). Huang & Di existed before, from mythical times (and in Shang dynasty, it's Di), Ying Zheng combined the two because he thinks he's as great as "three huang & five di" from the myths, and all the emperors followed him.

As for the mausoleum, it's mentioned in passing, they tried to send the Zhao Prince to it at some point, but it's just referred to as the mausoleum, so it could be his dad/ancestors. I guess there might be more details when he's close to his death? Great wall mhmm, Ying Zheng mentions a story about beacon tower from end of Spring & Autumn around ep 26?, that technically could be about Great Wall? It existed before his time, he just joined various states's pieces together. Like the mausoleum, they don't actually need that long to really cover it. The general that oversaw it is one of the two Meng generals that are bodyguards of Ying Zheng.

Judging by ep 42 preview and cctv's 46 preview, he still doesn't have control over the court lololol. I think this bit is too stretched out, not a fan tbh.

Zhao was the last state that was reasonably powerful, in the recent 100 years, Wei, Qi & Chu were all previously powerful at various times and they declined due to average kings + took heavy tolls during various battles, Zhao was already knocked down half a peck just before the start of the drama (Battle of Chang Ping, it's in Qin Empire 3). Come to think of it, it has two of the Four Generals of Warring States (Lian Po & Li Mu), Qin has the other two (Bai Qi, who died before start of the drama and Wang Jian)

I think they slowed down in pacing tbh, judging by the major events that follows, Ying Zheng probably only have full control over the court in ep 4x if not 50, and then he took 17 years to conquer all the kingdoms. I'm not sure where they'd end the drama, does it end at just conquer and unifying and will it show the effort that went into standarisation? I don't think it'd be 20 episodes of battle mhmm. I doubt they'll show how Qin got overthrown...but that'd be interesting.

absolutely! while I wouldn't call his tyranny *justified*, there's definitely reasons for the strict enforcement of laws and plans on his way to unification. I remember reading somewhere the burning book thing is partially documents being confiscated and restricted to quickly unify 'way of thinking", he's not the first nor the last person to do so.

the book is happy ending, it's huge change from the book but i'd still guess yes?

they've been doing it for the entire year, it's so annoying. but i guess they are making enough profit to put up with the yelling and pirated videos.

tencent has a vvip starting on the 16th (wed), where you can get 6 more extra ep on top of the vip episodes at the end of the week. so it's 30 + 6 + 6 = 42, so the schedule is correct.
https://i.mydramalist.com/X1opx_3f.jpg

I always find the period confusing too, warring states is ok-ish since there's mostly just 7 states, spring & autumn is even worse for me lol. I like dramas for this reason, it helps me familiarise myself with large amount of people, and it's far easier to read tidbits of history when I have an idea who's who.

History is more racy and outrageous than the drama is. It touches on some of it, but skipped on them of the rumours, I'll mention them when you get there XD

he'd get yelled at LOL, i don't want him get yelled at, i'd still only accept him as 20 something, not starting at 13.

hehe i think they just didn't filmed it. there's more mhmmmm situations later in the drama.

I'm checking wiki and noting historical dates, even though the drama is fairly helpful and will note most of them, but sometimes the dates are fuzzy. I guess time move too slow for Gan Luo like it move too fast for Ying Zheng LOL.

lol China gets slapped with propoganda label (with a huge implied "fake" due to impression) even listing checkable facts. also the chinese pr department is UTTERLY terrible, i'm not sure i've ever seen them do *good* pr moves.

omg i didn't know it has a name, there's also a tiny small bit on the bottom, you know the ugly one ning yi had, yeah that one.

ahahha no worries ;D spring & autumn and warring states is where a looooooot of proverb originated, it's always interesting when it shows up in dramas.

The 12 year old i can at least buy as a teenager....lol. also technically he should be 10, since he's on record to be 12 on a diplomatic mission later in the drama, 2 years later. *shakes head*

I always thought uncle pulled 180 because he fell in love with Zhao Ji and they had an affair. It's totally implied, otherwise him being so easily convinced doesn't make sense, and it took the whole night!!

h e l p me!! my boy is only 19 (technically probably 18), and they stuck a moustache on him! As if he doesn't look old enough already! I can't take his fairly young looking mum telling a bearded Zhang Luyi, you are a child! (the actress is actually younger, now that I think about it) Sure, men from ancient china all have facial hair, but can't he grow them when he's like 30??????? The moustache is so ugly too, it looks skeevy sometimes, couldn't they give him a bigger one.........

lol, well western world have lot of misconception about the world in general. You never see mentions of China in astronomy despite the fact every emperor had people record movements of stars. I know language barrier is a thing but if someone just sit down for one second and think about it.....

毛遂自荐！But they didn't show it in the drama lol, he promoted himself to Zhao Sheng, 战国四公子之一, it's the guy that had a heart attack in court.

Yeah 秦孝公 (Qin Empire 1) laid the groundwork with legal 7 political reform, then it was strategies and fighting to gain grounds with his great great grandpa + great grandpa. They almost got conquered before but geography 函谷关 helped a little.

It's likely they'll be paired together. But second female lead likes male lead, while second male lead is male lead's friend, SFL is also FL's bff so they probably aren't going to fight over ML or something. I haven't seen the love rival for male lead yet, which is traditionally what second male lead would be.

He wasn't really super well regarded in ancient China, a lot of people's impression of him is his cruelty? Qin & him are both pro legalist I think? So he's fairly anti-Confucius (when post-Han are pro-Confucius, at least on the surface), so historians don't really like him. Modern China also consider him as amazing and deserve his ace spot, but isn't shy to criticise him for cruelty and more questionable decisions.

Anyways, the scholar thing seems debated? Some think it's daoist monks (?) that were order to look for elixir ran away so he got mad and killed a lot of them. Some think it's scholars, then there's some that think there were both.