Politics210 BCE

Death of the First Emperor and the Shaqiu Plot

Also called: Shaqiu conspiracy, Death of Qin Shi Huang

When the First Emperor died at Shaqiu on his fifth tour in 210 BCE, the eunuch Zhao Gao and Chancellor Li Si hid his death and forged his will, forcing his eldest son Fusu to kill himself and placing the youngest son Huhai on the throne as Second Emperor.

In 210 BCE the First Emperor set out on his fifth tour of the empire, fell ill on the way back and died at the detached palace of Shaqiu, aged forty-nine. He left a letter summoning his eldest son Fusu from the northern frontier to Xianyang for the funeral, but it was in the hands of the eunuch Zhao Gao, keeper of the imperial seal.

Zhao Gao drew in the youngest son Huhai, who was on the tour, and Chancellor Li Si, and they hid the emperor’s death. The Records say they loaded salted fish into the carriages to mask the smell of the corpse on the way back to Xianyang. Meanwhile a forged edict ordered Fusu and General Meng Tian to take their own lives; Fusu obeyed, and Meng Tian was later put to death.

With Huhai enthroned as Second Emperor, Zhao Gao held power. In 208 BCE he had Li Si executed on false charges, and he tested the court by insisting that a deer was a horse, marking those who disagreed. Misrule grew worse, and the next year the Chen Sheng–Wu Guang uprising broke out.

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States at the time: Qin

People

Qin Shi Huang259 BC – 210 BC
monarch · King of Qin (247–221 BCE) and first emperor (221–210 BCE) who conquered the six other states, unified China and created a centralised imperial system
Zhao Gao207 BC
key figure · Qin eunuch who placed Huhai on the throne as Second Emperor in the Shaqiu plot and seized power after bringing down Li Si; remembered for “calling a deer a horse”
Li Si280 BC – 208 BC
related figure · Chancellor of Qin; a Legalist who helped the First Emperor unify China, create the commanderies and standardise the script, and proposed the burning of the books. After the emperor’s death he joined Zhao Gao in forging the will, but was executed on Zhao Gao’s slander
Meng Tian210 BC
related figure · Qin general who drove the Xiongnu out of the Ordos with an army of 300,000 and joined up the frontier walls; after the Shaqiu plot he was forced to take his own life by a forged edict

Before and after

Earlier: 213 BC Burning of the Books and Burying of the Scholars
Later: 209 BC The Chen Sheng–Wu Guang Uprising and the Fall of Qin

Themes that include this event

Ancient China and India770 BC – AD 220
From the Hundred Schools of the Warring States to the unified empires of Qin and Han, and from the Buddha to the Maurya and Kushan empires — the millennium that shaped East and South Asian civilisation