[Applause] there is a legend of a man who forged a nation there's only one way for chin to survive and that is to gr the legend says he was a great War and a ruthless Tyrant you've executed him no not yet but he was also driven by an obsession to build the greatest nation on [Music] Earth the vision drove him to insanity here I am oh heaven but the vision became China and he was its first emperor I am the first emperor of the Hall of China Emperor CH one [Music] when the first emperor was laid to rest the legend says that he was the most powerful man on Earth that for 30 years he'd subjected China to the most violent and bloody phase in its history yet he achieved The Impossible he unified a people 10 times as many subjects as the Pharaohs of Egypt across an Empire that would Outlast Rome by A Thousand Years China was his and he fortified it with the single largest structure on Earth the Great Wall when the doors of his tomb were closed for the final time the most fantastic part of that Legend was born the great ruler it said was sealed in a bronze model of his world in the largest melum on Earth surrounded by rivers and seas of flowing Mercury and so the legend remained for over 2,000 [Music] years China began it is said with its first emperor but who he was and how he founded this nation has long been shrouded in [Music] mystery for two Millennia the only detailed information came from a single written history compiled 100 years after his death the XI the records of the grand historian Su maen the foundation of the legend we see the first emperor from many different perspectives and we able to S recreate the first first emperor uh from the position of his high officials from those who tried to assassinate him from the the Kings who uh fought against him even the ordinary uh person in the street it's an entire world that Samaran has recreated for us but for 2,000 years all we had was this [Music] text then in 1974 archaeologists found the Terra Cotta Army it stunned the world and the greatest archaeological find of the 20th century provided the first real substance to the [Music] legend its scale is unprecedented terra cotta Figures were known about from other burial sites but never on this scale never life size or in such incredible detail and never an entire army with the discovery of the pottery Army we are finding the truth behind saran's story which for 2,000 years was just a legend it's kind of like uh finding the real Camelot except that it is of course a thousand 10,000 times more interesting and more detailed and more fascinating but the Army itself was just the beginning the researchers have so far uncovered over 180 separate pits and they're still digging and the more they unearth the greater the riches promised by the Ultimate Prize the emperor's tomb for 2,000 years all that could be seen was a v mound of Earth as big as the largest Egyptian [Music] pyramid now Professor Jeffrey Regal from the University of California is hoping that new experimental archaeology will unlock the secrets of the Tomb and finally reveal the truth behind the legend of the emperor for the first time archaeologists are probing the mound and Regal hopes to answer centuries old questions is the emperor's tomb actually there has it been plundered and could it as the legend says really contain rivers and seas of flowing Mercury and if this turns out to be true what does that say about the rest of the legend what we knew from the historical texts from these early stories from these Legends was the tale of a person who seemed from those sources to be Larger than Life almost almost impossibly large as a as a real figure as an historical figure but if someone could be responsible for a burial complex of of of that size of that enormity then yes all of this now suddenly Rings true the future Emperor becomes king of the western Chinese state of chin and the Omens aren't good the previous king of chin has lasted just 3 years Majesty the king is dead long leave the king king Ying Jen is barely 13 years old and the Sharks begin to Circle hungry for power my dear boy I'm so sorry but his mother the queen has a longtime lover the king's former adviser Lu Bu way [Music] we are here for [Music] you [Music] Majesty it would be my honor to serve you as prime minister Majesty let's not talk about this things tonight but you should confirm Uncle Liu as your prime minister as soon as you can where all thing is for the best sleep now good night I Shall Serve you and guide you as a [Music] father Fay this is the perfect opportunity to finally get his hands on the Reigns of State you will get him to do it tomorrow won't you my dear be patient why should we wait this is our time to rule all I need is his appointment trust me good night Nations like chin have always been run as a feudal family business by men like Lou buay but there is a revolution coming that will change all that first here in chin and ultimately the whole of [Music] China the revolution will be led by a young scholar named Lee s just months after Ying Jen becomes king Lee sir arrives at his court looking for a job but the man who hires and fires here is the Queen's lover Lu buay now prime minister impressed by Lee's obvious ambition he is quick to take him onto his staff it's an impulsive decision he will come to regret Sam maren describes him as a poor young man with extraordinary ambition as this Mackie valan figure who he sort of implies is the person who wants to run the entire country and he stops at nothing to get to that position I never expected rats in a Royal Palace but then why [Music] not drawn by the chance of an easy meal conditioned by fear control the food and the fear and you control the rat same [Music] everywhere prime minister luay allows Lisa an audience with the young king without bothering to be present we are the strongest state within the Seas by taking advantage of our own strengths and the weaknesses of our enemies surely with the p chin has at its disposal it would be possible to completely Wipe Out the feuder Lords uniting the whole world under one rule this kind of opportunity s only comes once in 10,000 Years yet Destiny rarely ever creates a man great enough to take advantage but I believe the great ruler is you m majesty and The Time Is Now Lisa awakens in Ying Jen a realization that real power is his he just needs the courage and the vision to use [Music] [Applause] it a decade after ascending the throne King Ying Jen fights for his life and for a dream to forge a new nation China many great Kings before him have tried and all have failed but this time will be [Applause] different because Ying Jen is different the youngest king to lead his nation into war he is its greatest Warrior a Visionary leader burning with ambition if anyone can unify China it is him ancient China is made up of seven Waring States six of the seven have been weakened by endless Warfare while one continues to grow at their expense the state of chin well you won in its campaign against the state of Zha the chin Army has taken over 10,000 Prisoners the rules of War are explicit prisoners must be cared for and the day is yours and this this it's yours but that would slow down his campaign you want to know what to do with [Music] it there's only one way to treat wigers and that is exploited there's only one way for 10 to survive and that [Music] Isa all 10,000 Xiao prisoners will be executed and Ying Jen defines his quest for Empire bloody utterly ruthless and totally dependent on the Army for 2,000 years no one had any idea what that Army was really like yet now it can be seen Frozen in [Music] time for Jeffrey Regal this is an opportunity to answer his first great question about the emperor's meteoric rise to power militarily how did he do it joining Regal is Dr Yuen who has devoted his entire career to understanding these enigmatic figures and the military power of the first emperor to date they have Unearthed over 7 and a half thousand individual figures and in all respects except living Flesh and Blood these were real soldiers the people who made these figures and arranged uh and arranged them were following real military procedures so this really represents what the chin Army looked like this gives us an idea of chin military formation and the way in which the chin Army was actually put into the field the big surprise was that the front three lines were highly mobile infantry it appears these were the emperor's shock troops behind them came the heavy infantry who in turn were supported by columns of Chariots and sweeping up behind a fast moving Cavalry but it it's not just the Precision of the Army's formation that has astonished the researchers it's the weapons They Carried only the metal Parts have survived but they are the finest quality bronze weapons found anywhere in the world one of the most incredible finds is a sword perfectly preserved after 2,000 years in the ground this uh this this Notch here in the sword shows us that this is a sword that was actually used this was a sword that was wielded by an actual Soldier Professor Yuan has explained to me that this remarkable weapon is longer than any sword that existed before the chin started the Chin Dynasty started to make these uh uh significantly longer chin armorers managed to Perfect The Art of bronze making to give their soldiers on the battlefield 30% extra reach and cutting power in close quarter combat and there is new evidence that shows quite how seriously the chin took their ability to wage war oh a chin halber uh part of the bronze assembly at the top of the halard this has an inscription what it says is that in the fifth year of uh the king of Chin's Reign the prime minister of State lubu way had this halber made that's a guarantee of its quality I suppose and that it had and that it was made to a standard so that uh so that he himself was being held accountable for the effectiveness of the weapons that the soldiers were carrying into battle the well-trained highly motivated chin Army equipped with Precision weapons and led from the front by a ruthlessly ambitious King creates the perfect Conquest machine within 7 years Ying Jen captures 13 cities from the state of Han a further 20 cities from other states and repels a combined Force intent on stopping him in his trap but while foreign enemies are easily brushed aside inside his own Court unseen enemies conspire to destroy [Music] him the official history records Ying Jen's coming of age as the defining moment with the entire court assembled in [Music] Celebration but not everyone's watching the show the queen has a new favorite Marquis Lao [Music] I in the eyes of the Court Lao I is a unic which is an odd choice of companion for a woman with a history of important lovers but laai is no unic he has fathered two sons by the queen who have been raised in secret and he intends to place one of them on the [Music] [Laughter] throne for now Lao I bides his time waiting for an opportunity to get rid of Ying Jen he can afford to be patient his boys are still young but young boys get sick the queen receives the message in secret and hurries back to her own Palace without thinking La ey follows [Music] her [Music] well they're fly nothing wrong with them indigestion good no not good in fact very very far from [Music] good false idiot awesome you are more stupid than them all the queen's palace is well outside the Royal Court but increasingly within range of its many ears I thought they' been poisoned or something I was concerned like you they're my boys well we'll just see that then show King Ying Jen's spies are expected to pass back every Crum of information from every Source even the royal family sorry they're everything to me you're everything to me I'll do anything to keep them safe to keep you all safe that's not enough though is it the LA not no not after this [Music] he'll put two two together very quickly they'll come they'll [Music] come the queen has kept her boys secret for years in the care of Unix she believes are loyal to [Music] her that loyalties change [Music] [Music] quickly hello hi you are so heavy come on Marquis laai makes his move realizing it's only a matter of time before he's discovered he has stolen Royal seals giving him the authority to mobilize [Applause] troops so you think you make a good King [Music] yes District forces under La I's command approach the palace he knows his only chance is to catch the king unprepared with the palace lightly guarded and sees the throne Palace security is the responsibility of prime minister Lu buay and he has just discovered Lao I's real intentions what is it the Royal seeds of Miss Majesty the ones used by military commanders I strongly recommend that we put all Palace and Regional forces on high alert really laigh has disappeared it seems he may have taken the seals if he is able to mobilize troops the state could be at risk why would he do that why would a marus threaten us what could he hope to achieve I don't know maester what would a unic do with a throne even if he had it who on Earth would he leave it to Unix don't have successes do they L way except of course this one does two Pretenders to the throng courtesy of my mother some unic I thought years ago he was castrated on your orders I believe I find the man responsible if I were you and have words with him now if you don't mind I think we have a rebellion to crush La eyes forces meet no resistance as they approach the palace until it's too late to withdraw and they Advance straight into a trap [Music] a lai's forces are annihilated and he is taken [Music] prisoner he said he did it for you you've executed him no not yet but I think you should come and say goodbye to armor Mr Lao before we take care of him I'm not going to let my boys say that of course not mama just you the boys they can stay come mama [Music] what didn't you tell me your boy I'm not the first queen to take a lover you've done more than that Mama LA's execution is designed to send a very clear and deliberate message soon to be reinforced by killing every single member of his family starting with the most [Music] dangerous and the boys Li knew you see them as a threat they are not not now St here here stay [Music] go [Music] look [Music] a [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh the first challenge to Ying Jen's Reign is over and the lesson has been learned ruthless control becomes the standard treatment for all including his own family his mother has conspired against him and her sons have paid the price now Ying Jen is about to add his prime minister to his long list of victims luu is under sentence of death for failing to protect his King a failure made more painful by the knowledge that the king is in fact his own son looking for forgiveness luu yes for your mother I don't see why because she is your mother hasn't she lost enough today perhaps she has but perhaps she should have thought a bit more carefully about who she slept with then you would not me help how dare you speak to me like that as any father would dare speak to his son to tell him the truth I was never a willing part of this neither was she we were both both foolish but I can forgive her can you forgive us I can and will do what is right for the king of chin if I choose to show Mercy then it is only the Judgment of a ruler nothing more the prime minister is exiled from the King his son and the King's [Music] mother both parents' lives are spared but within the year lubu will commit suicide a disgraced and broken man waiting in the wings his own prote Leu he will be the new Power behind the throne perfecting a totalitarian ideology ready to impose on a unified China by 227 BC the chin state has swallowed three of the independent states of China like a silkor worm devouring a leaf Panic spreads ahead of the advancing War Machine the state of yen is next in the firing line and they know they will be powerless to resist a diplomatic mission is sent to the chin Court its aim to Halt the advancing bandwagon in its tracks they bring peace offerings to King Ying Jen the first is a map of Chin's conquests guaranteed to flatter the king the other gift is the head of a renegade chin General returned as a sign that Yen will not Harbor Chin's enemies but the men carrying them are no diplomats they are professional assassins and neither expect to return from the mission the plan is for one assassin to distract Ying Jen by showing him the head while the second gets close enough to strike at his heart with a dagger bring it up [Music] it happens all the time stage fright bring me his gift and let him went outside come assassin assassin since La eyes attempted coup Ying Jen's greatest fear is betrayal and assassin a now no one in court is armed except him and no one except him can summon [Music] troops Ying Jen's new security system has failed the great conqueror the Invincible King was inches from death and he knows it where are you well bun of head as chickens bomas from now on paranoia grows in Ying Jen's mind for the rest of his Reign images of death haunt his [Music] dreams It Isn't So Much the act of dying he fears but the realization that he is filling the spirit world with the souls of those he sacrificed Souls who will all as soon as he is dead seek terrible [Music] Revenge there is only one thing that can protect him in the next World a spirit army since the moment he became king Ying Jen has planned for his own death a tomb is being constructed which by tradition will contain replicas of his most precious possessions including his army H good that tradition will continue very good but on a scale no one has ever seen before how big is this supposed to be well it's a simple question how big is this going to be one of the most incredible aspects of the Terra Cotta Army is size not just the Army itself but every member of it each figure measures nearly 2 m tall an army of giants by the standards of the time Chinese kings were known to bury miniature Terracotta soldiers as Spirit guards for the afterlife never a full-sized army with state-of-the-art weapons he felt that in death that the spirits of his enemies might actually attempt to attack him and so he needed a spirit army these clay soldiers who would whose whose very substance would last forever he would need them in order to protect him from these from these spiritual enemies that he'd had before but it seems even the Terra Cotta Army was not enough closer to the emperor's tomb Mound a new pit has been discovered a research team under Dr dwan Chingo were expecting to find an Imperial Palace guard but all they have Unearthed are empty suits of armor Made of Stone and no sign of any terracotta warriors to wear [Music] them Regal believes the evidence points to an emperor more and more obsessed with death and betrayal when we look at Chinese historical text it's unprecedented that we would find or know about Stone armor and in fact uh the belief of Mr dwan and his team and and and their colleagues is that the burial of this Stone armor may have had something to do with the rituals surrounding worship of the spirits of dead soldiers who suffered violent deaths whose whose bodies then could not uh were torn apart could not undergo the the proper kinds of burial ritual they didn't have in the Chinese definition of things a happy death so something had to be done for them because otherwise they might become vengeful Spirits they might turn against the first emperor himself so here in this pit something is being provided for them dwan's team has so far found over 200 sets of stone armor in this one small pit but this excavation is just the corner of a pit as big as the Terra Cotta Army tens of thousands of stone armor suits were made ready for the spirits of dismembered chin Soldiers by 223 BC Ying Jen stands at the brink of achieving his Ultimate Dream the unification of all China he's taken all but two of the seven Waring states with the largest state of Chu the last great prize to be claimed but the conquest machine has stalled the true Army has destroyed his first Invasion force and they're more than ready to do it again now half a million Chu soldiers threaten to end Ying Jen's dream of [Music] empire in a desperate bid to overcome them he commits everything he has new Provisions better weapons and half a million more men now two vast forces of equal size face each other and the fate of China hangs in the balance 223 BC the Army has dug in for a long Siege of the state of Chu it prompts the CH generals to reconsider their Advanced [Music] position and they decide to withdraw to more defendable [Music] lines but the chin encampment is an illusion the entire force is primed and ready to move come the last great obstacle to Ying Jen's Imperial dream is finally crushed [Music] the sole remaining independent state of Chi succumbs without a fight by 221 BC the Ultimate Prize is one chin is now China his China at the age of 34 Ying Jen is crowned with a veil of stars symbolizing the Divinity of China's first emperor now his ministers are ready to suggest a title suitable for the greatest ruler in China's history your we your ministers have deliberated for many weeks there are presidents upon which we can draw for the title for such a great ruler as yourself of old there were the celestial Sovereign the terrestrial Sovereign and the great am I not the first great Sovereign Emperor or guest ruler of the whole of China or am I missing something Majesty your vision humbles and inspires us it shall be so and my son will be the second Divine Emperor and his son the third and so on onto 10,000 Generations your majesty he called himself chiner hangi literally translated this means he was the first August god of the chin he regarded himself not only as as a deified figure but as an initiator some a Creator someone who was beginning a long lineage and so with the help of his chief minister Leu the first emperor chiner hang put in place a system of governance that would long Outlast him lisu who arrived as a young scholar the year the emperor came to the throne has now become the power behind it for 20 years he's perfected a system which will totally sweep away China's feudalist past but not everyone is ready for the revolution now most illustrious Divine Aus Emperor the feudal Lords are destroyed may we recommend that the sons of the Imperial household be established as the new feudal Lords to rule everyone expects that with unification the feudal order will continue with power and privilege taken from the emperor's enemies and given to his family and friends further Your Divine Purpose may it please his majesty to give his consent but they are in for a shock lisu only Le Su has correctly read the new political climate because he created it this is insane we have spent centuries enduring endless Warfare at the hands of the feudal Lords and now that we finally put them down we want to create more of the same but these will be members of the Imperial household exactly the only force in a thousand years that has been able to create peace is the divine power of the emperor to maintain peace this Force must remain undiluted by Family Ties there must be no loyalty but to the emperor and his divine power must be executed in the most efficient way possible through officers who have no other interest except to fulfill his divine order without this the chaos and warfare will return which of course we do not want excellent he's right the minister for justice is right I shall personally appoint six Governors for the six commanderies of the Empire 36 in all which of course is six times the number of the States I have conquered ah did I mention six is my favorite [Music] number lisu's totalitarian philosophy is called legalism and there is evidence that shows how total the power of that new regime became Professor rule sturs has been deciphering a series of legal texts from the tomb of a minor official in the distant reaches of the new Empire the text set down rules that governed every part of every Citizen's daily life and the punishments for transgression if you look at the punishing system in the chin legal system then physical punishments that include mutilation tattooing for example tattooing the body tattooing the face cutting off parts of the limbs these were traditionally one uh among the most severest punishments for example there's there's one provision here that says if you have two people Texas you know fornicate then they ought to be send off to the market which is a polite way of saying that they will be beheaded on the market square so even private life here is part of uh sort of the tentacles of chin of chin law now to be universally applied to everybody who was a subject you know of this new world order called the chin [Music] Empire in 220 BC Emperor chinu hangi sets off to survey his new Empire for the first time ever a secure and peaceful land and he intends to keep it that way millions of DEC conscripted soldiers are now freed from fighting ready to be reused the Empire is one but it must be secure with a great warm for centuries the northern edges of civilized China have been ravaged by nomadic tribes and though the frontier towns have had defensive walls there were always plenty of gaps now that will change with the major Wars over labor is plentiful and building begins on the greatest engineering project of the ancient world a single impregnable barrier to seal the Empire The Great Wall of China made of compacted Earth it is 10 m high and 5,000 km long at its peak of production the records say over a million people are enslaved to build the Great Wall perhaps a quarter will die in the process and the emperor's demands on labor keep on Growing With The Empire secure he turns his eyes to the Fulfillment of his next great vision a tomb befitting the first Divine ruler of all of China today all that can be seen is a vast Earth and Mound as big as the great Egyptian pyramid at Giza the first clue to its possible contents was the Terracotta Army but that was over a kilometer from the tomb Mound when archaeologists dug into the space in between an Incredible World opened up to date they have found over 180 separate pits containing so much more than solders soers hundreds of Terra Cotta dancers musicians and acrobats were built to the same exacting standards as the emperor's precious Army and the Imperial Craftsman freed from making weapons created perfect Birds to stand in the artificial Lakes of buried Gardens and perhaps the most Exquisite bronze artifact ever found a half-scale model of the Imperial Chariot to convey the emperor in his underground world the burial mound it turns out is in fact at the center of an enormous necropolis an above ground and underground city for the for the first emperor it it it would provide him it would continue to provide him with all of the trappings of Power with all of the protection that someone of of of of his status required but there was no way to see the ultimate symbol of power the tomb itself again it was the official history that provided the only clue but this time the account seemed too incredible to take it Face Value the emperor sent more than 7,000 convicts to dig down uh through Three Rivers and fill it with Bron on the floor of the Vault there was created a map of his entire Empire Empire all of China he had Artisans uh stick Jewels into the ceiling to represent the sky the cosmos above the streams the ocean the text said were filled with Quicksilver with liquid mercury he had some kind of machine which circulated that mercury to imitate the actual flowing of the Waters that it would be a kind of water clock a machine and that as long as it kept running the emperor would continue to exist in his enclosed World a bronze tomb filled with liquid mercury the idea seems beyond fantasy the weight of the Mercury alone would be thousands of tons even though though China had Mercury ore in abundance how could one man command such resources and could it be [Music] proved the tomb had been sealed for over 2,000 years but there was a way in using a new combination of techniques including ground penetrating radar electrical resistance measurements and core samples the research team under dwan Chingo have been able to build up a three-dimensional model of the entire underground complex beginning with the outer walls of the necropolis and revealing for the first time the melum structure hidden beneath the mound the first surprise was that the mosum appears as a vast divided pyramid with passages leading to the tomb from the East and West and when they took the all important readings from beneath the pyramid they discovered the tomb itself seen here as a clearly defined area in blue a space hermetically sealed for 2,000 years it measures as big as a football pitch and though at first the pyramid appeared to be a closed structure covering the tomb the roof of the tomb was in fact exposed to the sky or at least it had been originally before it was buried beneath thousands of tons of Earth danan and his team have been probing the tomb Mound for almost a decade tracing the shape of the pyramid beneath their feet with a series of over 4,000 core samples and each one Regal realized could potentially hold an incredible piece of evidence direct from the tomb itself because if there was ever Mercury there over the centuries mercury vapor might seep through the roof of the Tomb and into the surrounding soil where Regal hopes they may be able to detect it samples of this sort enable us to see the uh the the supporting structure the rammed Earth structure that's supporting the entire Mound but of course what really interests us is what is the burial like so if the legend about the emperor having placed in the base of his tomb a map of all of China of all of his Empire with rivers of flowing Mercury if that legend is true then we can expect that a test of this soil will tell us whether or not it's true will either provide us with corroboration or won't the Chinese archaeologists have no immediate plans to excavate the tomb they have no way yet to preserve its content sense and no desire to disturb the emperor's spirit so for the foreseeable future the Mercury test may be their only way to understand what's inside each of the 4,000 soil samples from the tomb Mound has to be individually analyzed for mercury content that process has been ongoing and is almost complete by 219 BC the tomb itself is well on the way to completion but the man it is intended to House suddenly has a change of heart no no the idea of an eternal afterlife however Grand is no longer enough I will live on I will [Music] live the emperor is once again on the road he no longer trusts the security of his own court and has started taking practical steps to extend his life his doctors prescribe repeat doses of something long believed to increase longevity sex with multiple [Music] partners meanwhile his new court physician Zu Fu has suggested something more chemical a substance whose Eternal prop properties are thought ideal for the emperor's tomb properties zuu hopes will keep him out of that tomb indefinitely if consumed the mystical substance Mercury have you got it yes Majesty will it work Majesty all the world's Alchemists agree that mercury is highly indicative of increased longevity how increased S as with sex given the right application it can help a lot how much longer one can expect to live is not guaranteed what is where does it come from [Music] zuu [Music] immortality where can it be found why do I the first Divine Sovereign emperor of the whole of China not having [Music] it and if I do not have it who does s there is a legend of a place where the Immortals live a series of islands called pangl Where We Believe The Immortals reside forever there are two types of Elixir one to to arren the Flight of the hungo upon death find them Majesty you will go there find them and bring them back to me and then you will personally administer them to me Majesty but the uh whereabouts of the islands are unknown and I have no means to get there even if I knew where to go give him whatever he needs yes Majesty this is an imperial Mission and my missions do not fail no Majesty do you believe me yes [Music] Majesty go zuu is given a small army of his own with which to conquer death thousands of young men and women are conscripted to help him search for the islands of Pang [Music] Li meanwhile the emperor takes his first course of mercury pills if zuu is right it might help hold back the years until the Elixir can be [Music] found but rulers rarely die of natural causes accident or attempted assassination history doesn't recall but the real cause of the fire in the Caravan makes little difference for the emperor there are always enemies unseen enemies enemies within he starts to withdraw further into his own world and there some who are more than happy to keep him there lisu now promoted to prime minister has been left free to expand his totalitarian state beyond the mundane rules of life he decides it is now necessary to control thought and the most obvious step to cutting off free thought is to cut off its supply of ideas entire libraries of bamboo scrolls are burned what is the purpose of writing to hold information some information is useful for the greater purpose agriculture medicine and we will keep that safe in our hands and our history Real History is what we are making meanwhile the emperor's contact with reality is being loosened still further aided by his Mercury consumption the dose has got higher over the last 5 years as his desire for immortality has become more obsessive and The Elixir have failed to materialize but far from prolonging his life it's actually having the opposite effect take it away liquid mercury was known to Chinese Alchemists as the only substance that could dissolve the Eternal Incorruptible metal gold to the ancient mind it must have seemed like a supernatural substance there was nothing like it I me the natural inclination is to think it has some power that maybe if you took it into your body then then it would pass this magical property onto you and even perhaps help you prolong your life but not in its liquid form pure Mercury cannot be absorbed by the human body so the Chinese Alchemists made soluble compounds they knew were easily digestable and this it is believed is what the emperor took for years the more he took it in whatever form he was taking it the more dangerous it was going to become as more and more Mercury is absorbed into the body then it begins to attack the nervous system so slowly you'll get a slight Tremor and that will get worse and worse but the damage that's really being done to your body is in the brain begin with you become talkative uh later on you become slightly aggressive people became very confrontational they were obsessed with being watched but eventually of course it becomes total paranoia this is from gju directly from gangu well how do they know where I am well anyone revealing the emperor's whereabouts is under instant sentence of death along with their entire family find out who's responsible and have them killed 7 years after chin sha hangi began his quest for immortality the Mercury is starting to poison his body as well as his mind among other things his kidneys are beginning to fail he knows his time is running out and there is only one place left to turn to save himself here I am Oh Heaven Your Divine son speaks you see the world is United and last I raised out establish law I punish this order and bring calm to the four corners of the earth and now all under the sun and the stars are of one mind my all Guided by one single will [Music] mine and one day I shall be gone I shall be [Music] gone I shall be [Music] gone give me that divine [Music] power 212 BC and Chin sha hang D embarks on yet another Imperial tour but this one is different where once there was a prosperous and Powerful Nation today the Nation Rocks the land is starved of labor for the emperor's great projects famine looms and there's nothing anyone can do the legalist system takes orders only from the top and while the emperor was rational lisu was ready to implement his vision with ruthless [Music] efficiency now the vision is turning to Madness lisu has no option but to treat it just the same Le I have a fallen star the emperor's latest diversion is a meteorite which fell to Earth in a distant Province to chiner hangi it is a sign that his call to the heavens has been answered do you know what it me no Majesty this is a Divine message there will be no after chin Majesty you don't suppose that I'm just going to die of course not we're searching for The Elixir of P suul fa didn't you know that never came back I sent the spies to find them and do you know what they said to me they couldn't find the island because their way was blocked by a race of giant fish Majesty we will move Heaven and Earth all right Lis I had a dream about a sea god in human form me I am the sea god I've ordered the armor to build me a giant crossbow so I can hunt the fish how big do you suppose they are in the sea yes that's where they live forward Soldiers the historical records say the emperor reached the island of zeu on the coast of China in the 10th month of 210 [Music] BC where he hunted giant fish with a crossbow that's right the great realist is now immune to reality all right let me down here the Divine ruler warrior king of the chin has gone in his place a Madman whose every whim however bizarre must be accommodated I'm here coming for you [Music] ah I am the first Sovereign Emperor oh of the Hall of China Emperor CH W and now I command you to let my people pass over there L over there east east steady I got it listen you see that I got one while the emperor plays in a world of his own his advisers plan what to do with his Empire once his poisoned body has gone the way of his poisoned mind woo yo two two he the emperor's eldest son is his natural successor and he's known to be as strong willed as his father with lisu is a senior unic named cha and one of the emperor's younger Sons H High an altogether different proposition if we let things proceed by natural order we'll get another pig-headed maniac and the system will collapse and what is so wonderfully natural about that but there'll be a moment when things can be allowed to change there always [Music] is returning from the coast Chino hangi becomes ill and hurries back to his Capital he writes to his eldest son fusu telling him he is to succeed as second Emperor but the Imperial Convoy never makes it home the search for immortality is [Music] over Majesty Majesty the great Empire has lost its maker at the age of 50 chin sha hangi is dead the state is [Music] rudderless and this is exactly the moment lisu has been waiting for he decides to keep the death secret to give himself time to put his plan into action they know the letter to his son was written but they don't know if it was ever [Music] sent their luck is in the letter is still [Music] there Char and lisu are about to change the Imperial [Music] succession and it will bring the Empire to its knees the most powerful man on Earth has been laid to rest the last few precious objects are ready to place beside him in the depths of his vast tomb but while the formal rights proceed according to the emperor's wishes outside in the Imperial City a power struggle is underway from a recently open pit close to the emperor's tomb comes evidence to suggest that the imperial family was tearing itself apart Professor Yan thinks that the death of this individual is very much linked with the struggle for succession after the death of the first emperor what is remarkable is that there's an arrowead embedded in the base of the skull here behind the ear it looks as if this is a person who was shot at close range that means of course that this was no accident this was a an assassination by tradition the successor should have been the first Emperor's oldest son but several members at the court conspired to have a more Junior member of the family succeed to the throne after the junior member became the second Emperor he then saw to it that those who had opposed him his brothers his sisters more distant relatives who were all MERS members of the chin Imperial house all of them were then killed the emperor is ready for his final journey and he will not go alone while his chosen successors are being assassinated hundreds of his favorite concubines prepare to make their final Act of devotion they will stay with their master to start a new Imperial family in the next [Music] world but while the Terracotta soldiers stand guard over their Emperor outside real soldiers are fighting real battles Rebellion stirs and there is evidence that graphically shows how far that Rebellion spread right into the compound surrounding the emperor's tomb the stone armor reserved for the emperor's dead soldiers shows clear signs of an intense fire that swept through the burial pits the Terracotta Army itself was in pieces when it was found smashed by rioter the one area the rebels would never reach is inside the tomb this is the emperor's final resting place and he must never be disturbed come on it has long been decided that not only will the emperor take his concubines and his Terracotta Army but the designers The Architects the engineers and the Builders of the Tomb all those who know the way in and out will be forced to stay hundreds are sealed inside the tomb and all its Secrets will stay secret all except one the legend of the rivers and seas of [Music] Mercury 4,000 soil samples taken from the tomb mound of the first emperor have been tested at Beijing University for traces of [Music] mercury now Jeffrey Regal is about to see what could be the greatest Revelation since the discovery of the Terracotta Army he's come to meet Dr to Leu who's been processing the samples and the results are ready the first piece of news is that there is mercury there in huge concentrations and it's not just found anywhere each Red Dot is a core sample each blue one where Mercury is found the dark blue show the highest concentrations and all of it within the actual tomb oh this is this is an extremely interesting map this concentration here corresponds to bigh the sea that we know the first emperor visited in his search for immortality this concentration in the South and Southwest would correspond to the great marshlands the great Wetlands of the Southwest and and the yanga river it's just startling in fact that one would find uh confirmed so neatly one would find such a striking and exact correspondence between scientific evidence and ancient legend so yes indeed just as described 2,000 years ago when the first emperor had his underground Palace created he did indeed have a map of his Empire he did indeed have all of the rivers and seas represented and those rivers and seas flowed Quicksilver liquid mercury [Music] forever chin sha hangi left a legacy the like of which has never been seen before or since a nation unified for the first time with a single written language that is still being [Music] used a system of administration that survives to this day and a great wall that still stands at the edge of his realm but more than anything chincha hangi created the idea of China a people and a land as [Music] one perhaps his desire for immortality was realized after all here I [Music] am [Music]