Qin Shi Huang

210 BCE: death at Shaqiu

Qin Shi Huang fell gravely ill on the return leg of his fifth inspection tour and died in 210 BCE at the Pingtai palace at Shaqiu — well inland, in what is now Hebei, not at the empire's far-eastern edge.

The medical cause is unknown, and no reliable source establishes that an elixir or mercury poisoning killed him. Even the day is unsettled: Sima Qian gives a bingyin day in the seventh month, commonly converted as 11 August, while a later calendrical tradition gives an yichou day in the sixth month, converted as 11 July.

A death kept off the record

Chancellor Li Si concealed the death because the emperor had died far from the capital. Officials went on presenting reports to the closed imperial carriage as though he were alive.

Sima Qian says that besides Li Si, only Huhai, Zhao Gao and five or six favoured eunuchs initially knew. When summer heat made concealment difficult, the entourage put a dan-load of preserved fish on a cart near the imperial carriage to mask the odor.

The order that was never sent

By Sima Qian's account the dying emperor had prepared a sealed instruction telling his son Fusu to join the funeral procession at Xianyang. It had not been dispatched when he died, and it stayed in Zhao Gao's custody.

In that version, Zhao Gao, Huhai and Li Si destroyed the instruction and forged orders making Huhai heir and commanding Fusu and Meng Tian to die.

The received Shiji is not the only account. The excavated text Zhao Zheng shu gives a version in which ministers recommended Huhai and the emperor approved, so the succession mechanics remain disputed.