5 Facts From Chinese History That Sound Crazy

1. Emperor Shi Huangdi killed scientists and searched for the elixir of immortality

Qin Dynasty Emperor Shi Huangdi was strange personality - however, such in the history of this country enough. On the one hand, he became the first ruler who united the Chinese kingdoms under one banner. On the other hand, he became famous for a fair amount of extravagant acts.

After numerous successful military campaigns, not the most stupid reforms and improvements in the field of law and right Shi looked around, thought about it and decided: “Why do I need such a huge empire, if in the end I will I die?

As a result, the emperor spat on all state affairs, taking up the search for eternal life.

He rode around the country, spoke with all the sorcerers, healers and fortune-tellers who were brought to him, collected ancient texts - in general, he approached the issue with the utmost seriousness.

Once upon a time, a couple of alchemists were brought to the emperor, who announced that they would prepare an elixir immortality. And the court scientists of Shi Huangdi allowed themselves to doubt their abilities. In addition, these wise men began to criticize Shi's methods of government and argue that the laws used to be reasonable, and those that the current emperor publishes are some kind of nonsense.

Shi Huangdi freaked out and ordered bury over 460 scientists alive. He also ordered to burn a huge number of a wide variety of books and documents, so that no one would dare to refer to the old laws. And finally, he forbade anyone to keep books at home.

Modern scientists, however, They saythat the scale of repression is a little overstated and Shi Huangdi did not destroy everything, leaving work on agriculture, horticulture, medicine, pharmacology and divinatory practices. But in any case, this event, called "The Burning of Books and the Burial of Scribes", became a landmark in Chinese history.

But the search for the elixir of eternal life came out Shi sideways. Somehow, traveling around the empire, he climbed with his retinue into a terrible wilderness and got some pills from regular charlatans there - and as a result got poisonedbecause they had mercury.

Shi's advisors, Zhao Gao and Li Si, feared that the sudden death of the Sun Sovereign would lead to a rebellion, and decided hide it for the time being. The servants were told that the emperor was simply not feeling well, they attached a cartload of rotten fish to the back of his carriage to mask any suspicious smells, and continued the tour. And only two months later the body of the ruler was returned to the palace and buried as it should be.

2. Emperor Liu Yu hunted people and used his general's belly as a target

In general, in China there were enough not quite sane emperors, and frankly insane ones, but Liu Yu, frankly, stands out among them all with special cruelty. He took the throne in 472, but the affairs of the state especially not engagedleaving it to their ministers.

The emperor's uncle, Liu Xiufan, decided that this was a good time for a small palace coup, and started a civil war - he was offended that he was not appointed prime minister. He was opposed by General Xiao Daoche. He sent his military leaders to Liu, who pretendedthat they want to surrender and go over to Xiufan's side, and then stabbed him to death, ending the rebellion.

In general, it was restless outside the walls of the imperial capital. And what happened inside?

Well, Liu Yu and his guards rode around the city and killed people for fun and animalswhom he met on the way, and he did it with particular cruelty.

At the same time, the courtiers believed that the emperor's cousin, Liu Jingsu, was a more suitable ruler. And last conceived overthrow Liu Yu by persuading some ministers. But the loyal general Xiao Daoche was right there and uncovered the upcoming rebellion.

But for some reason the emperor did not appreciate his loyalty. One night he went into the general's bedroom, where he was sleeping naked, and saw his huge round belly. Liu had Xiao tied to the wall, drew a target on his body, and prepared to shoot him with a bow. Xiao Daoche begged for mercy, but the emperor was adamant.

Then the servant of the emperor, by the name of Wang Tianen, remarked: “Your Majesty, but if you shoot at the ball, it will go bad!” Liu agreed and replaced the arrows with blunt ones.

All night emperor shot in Xiao and was delighted when he was able to finally hit him in the navel. The general realized that next time something more serious could stick in there, and when they untied him, he persuaded one of the servants to kill his majesty.

A traitor to the crown named Yang Yufu sneaked into the emperor's quarters at night and cut off his head. Liu Yu at the same time in hindsight demoted from the emperor to the Tsanyu prince, which made his murder not a sacrilege against heaven, but simply a minor offense. As a result, his younger brother Liu Zhong was elevated to the throne.

Why did Liu Yu commit such atrocities, you ask? Probably he was psychopath? A possessed maniac? Suffering from PTSD? This, of course, is true, but his age also played an important role: at the time of his death in 477, he was only nine years old.

3. A simple Chinese granny staged a revolution and overthrew Emperor Wang Mang

There lived two thousand years ago on the island of Hainan, a middle-aged lady of 60 years old - at that time a very old woman. She owned distillery, she had a son, Liu Yu. History did not record the name of this worthy woman, and the historians of the Celestial Empire remembered her simply as Mama Liu.

In 14 a.d. e. the local district judge executed her son for a petty offense. The East is a delicate matter: if you don’t bow to your master, you will be executed by a thousand cuts; if you drop a porcelain vase, you will go to bamboo stakes. In general, it was easier to lose your head than to go for groceries.

Mother Liu buried her son and decided to take revenge on the sentencing judge. And at the same time destroy the entire ruling class in the country - just in case.

Liquor dealers have traditionally had some connections to the underworld, and Mama Liu was no exception. Using alcohol and money from its sale to cling to all local authorities, over the next few years she seriously expanded her market for liquor.

Also, the old woman began to engage in the arms trade and the recruitment of various kinds of thugs. Pretty quickly—especially for such a godlike dandelion—Mama Liu became owner millionth fortune and put together a huge gang of scumbags.

At the head of this personal army, an elderly woman stormed the Haiqu administration, killed all the imperial troops stationed in the district, and betrayed the officials to the most cruel torture and executions. The head of the judge who sentenced her son, Mother Liu put her offspring on the grave, so that the deceased would understand that he had been avenged.

Our heroine did not stop at the capture of Haiqu, announced himself as a general of the rebel army - by that time there were several tens of thousands of fighters under her command - and went to storm the capital of the empire in order to overthrow the then ruler of the Celestial Empire, Emperor Wang Mana.

Unfortunately, Mother Liu did not have time to eliminate the entire power vertical of the empire, because she fell ill and died. But her army not only did not run away, but also joined forces with other troublemakers. Those called themselves "red-browed" because of the characteristic combat makeup.

Together, the revolutionary bandits captured and plundered the capital of the state, Chang'an. Emperor Wang Mang personally fought to defend the palace, but was defeated when he ran out of arrows. Instead of him on the throne planted fifteen-year-old shepherd Liu Pengzi - his "red-browed" was chosen by simply casting lots.

This is how an ordinary granny staged one of the bloodiest uprisings in the history of the Middle Kingdom.

4. Self-Proclaimed Brother of Jesus Started 15-Year Civil War in the Qing Dynasty

In the middle of the 19th century, life in the Middle Kingdom during the Qing Dynasty was not easy. China lost the First Opium War with Great Britain, and a very unpopular Manchu imperial dynasty sat on the throne. Economic crisis, famine, rampant crime and drug addiction, epidemics, natural disasters - all this did not contribute to a healthy psychological climate of the population.

In Guangxi at this time lived a simple young peasant Hong Xiuquan, who really wanted to break into the people. There were few social lifts in his environment - the only legitimate way to succeed in life was to pass the state exam necessary to become an official.

The idea itself is great. True, in those days, the exam became a formality. Good grades were simply bought by everyone who had money.

Hong Xiuquan was an extremely intelligent child and learned all the necessary texts by heart as early as 10 years old. But when I grew up exam failed - simply because all the quotas went to the richer guys.

A little later, at 22, Hong repeated attempt, but he again failed for exactly the same reason. However, in the neighboring city of Guangzhou, where the exam was held, the man did not visit in vain: there he accidentally met American missionary, Edwin Stevens, studied a bunch of religious pamphlets and became imbued with Christian creed.

A year later, Hong went to the exam for the third time, failed it again, and had a breakdown. The poor fellow lay with a fever for several days, and his family seriously feared for the life of their offspring. But the disease opened him from a new side - he realized that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ.

Delirious Hong - by his own revelations - visited heaven and saw a god whom he called "Heavenly Father". He was wearing a high-brimmed hat and had a long golden beard. The Lord declared that he was Hun's father, and in heaven he also had a mother, an older brother, a daughter-in-law, a wife, and a son.

In a dream, the Heavenly Father gave Hun a sword and a golden seal and declared that people on earth had turned aside from the path and worshiped all kinds of disgusting demons, and not him. And Confucius led the Chinese astray and was severely punished for this. He ended his speech by ordering Hong to deal with the invaders of the land demonsuntil they climbed to heaven, to establish the true Kingdom of Heaven on earth and remind people of the laws of Christianity.

Waking up, the man tried to pass the exams for an official again, but again flunked them, waved his hand and proceeded to fulfill the will of God. Studying Confucius and other worldly fuss he abandoned and became in the 1840s a simple village teacher - solely because this position allowed him to work directly with people. That is, to preach to them.

By 1850 Hong had a personal army of religious fanatics. numbering at 30,000 people. The poor, illiterate young peasants turned out to be extremely receptive to the missionary activity of a man who now presented himself only as the Heavenly Prince. They called themselves the "Society for the Worship of the Heavenly Master."

The younger son of God captured almost all of southern China, and made the city of Nanjing the capital of his country Taiping tian guo - "Heavenly state of great prosperity." Hence the name of Hong's supporters - Taiping.

The rules in the Heavenly State were matured in the spirit of Christian morality - as Hong Xiuquan understood it - with a slight oriental touch. So, all the inhabitants of cities and villages that were controlled by the Taipings handed over their property to a common piggy bank, and the Heavenly Prince redistributed it as he considered fair.

Alcohol, opium, and gambling were banned, as were private property and other excesses that were not needed by a devout Christian. Men and women lived in different communities and practically did not meet each other in order to prevent even the slightest possibility of fornication.

Sexual intercourse was forbidden on pain of death, even for spouses. There was no sex in the Heavenly State.

At the same time, despite preaching about the need to lead a righteous life without fornication and other excesses, Hong Xiuquan lived in a luxurious palace surrounded by many beauties. He is the Heavenly Prince, he can.

For some time, what was happening did not particularly touch anyone, and the government of the Qing dynasty was not up to them - and without theocratic enclaves, problems in the country were up to the neck.

But then the Taipings decided to expand their possessions and entered into open confrontation with the Qing Empire. With particular ferocity, they destroyed the Manchus, whom they considered demons and the culprits of all the troubles of the Celestial Empire.

Inherited from Taiping and ordinary Chinese peasantswho at first even welcomed the rioters. The Qing Empire sent troops to meet the rebels, and the commoners found themselves between a rock and a hard place.

The Taiping Rebellion turned into the bloodiest civil war in the history of both China and the whole world. According to various estimates, from 20 to 30 million people died during it.

Britain, America, and France eventually intervened and helped the Qing dynasty put down the rebellion. Together they formed of the soldiers, the so-called "Always winning army", armed according to the Western model.

Nanjing, where Hong Xiuquan's residence was located, was under siege, and the Taipings could not understand why the "Western brothers in the faith of Christ" were fighting against them on the side of the "heretic Taoists." Famine began in the surrounded city.

heavenly prince, mental health which had been in question before, from all these misfortunes he finally lost touch with reality. He saidthat his Father would provide food for them, and told his followers to eat dew and grass.

On June 1, 1864, Hong went to his heavenly family, taking poison, and after a couple of months of Taiping, he finally destroyed Qing troops. The "prince's" body, buried by his followers, was exhumed, cremated, loaded with ashes into a cannon, and fired to ensure he never returned to China.

5. Mao Zedong started the first Chinese sparrow war and lost

If you think that any mind-blowing game took place in the Celestial Empire only in ancient times, then you are mistaken. Extremely strange events happened there relatively recently - and also went down in history because of their absurdity.

So, in 1958, Mao Zedong at the VIII Congress of the Communist Party of China proclaimed the beginning of a large-scale campaign to destroy the four "pests" - rats, mosquitoes, flies and sparrows.

The latter were accused of eating grain crops and bringing enormous losses to the state.

According to the Chinese Research Institute of Zoology, each sparrow devours from 2 to 4 kilograms of socialist property per year. This grain would be enough to feed 35 million people.

The Party has declared merciless war on the sparrows, and the Chinese working people have responded to the call. Birds were massacred, their nests destroyed, eggs broken and chicks exterminated. Wherein got it and other birds - try to prove that you are not a sparrow.

But a much more effective tactic was to deprive the birds of rest. Sparrows cannot stay in the air for a long time and, if constantly frightened by loud noises, eventually fall to the ground and die simply from overwork.

Millions of peasants and townspeople had to scream around the clock, beat basins and drums, brandish poles and rags, standing on the roofs of houses, so as not to give the birds any sleep or rest.

Naturally, the sonic weapon also beat its own, but this did not stop the inspired builders of Chinese communism.

Some sparrows, fleeing in a panic from repression, sought refuge in the territory of diplomatic missions of other states. For example, the staff of the Polish embassy refused to let the beaters into their territory so that they could exterminate the flocked birds. As a result, the birds rushed there and literally filled the possessions of the diplomatic mission.

But the Chinese found a way out: chains of drummers surrounded the embassy and beat them for two days in a row. According to the recollections of Polish eyewitnesses, who themselves were sleep deprived, they had to rake who fell to the ground and died from exhaustion of sparrows with garden shovels.

A year after the start of the eradication of birds, crops really increased, and the Communist Party reported a dizzying success. But after some time, caterpillars and locusts bred, which the sparrows ate, because there was no one to hunt them. Add to this the sudden succession of natural disasters, droughts and floods.

The massive famine that followed all these misfortunes claimed the lives of between 15 and 55 million Chinese, according to various estimates. It is considered one of the largest man-made disasters of mankind.

In 1960, the campaign against sparrows was terminated. Mao Zedong admitted that he got excited, and offered to redirect popular anger from birds to bed bugs. The experiment was considered unsuccessful, and the environmental benefits of sparrows were recognized as superior to all costs.

About two billion birds became victims of extermination. But although they suffered serious losses, in the end China had to restore the bird population and pay them compensation in grain. The Communist Party massively imported new birds from Canada and the USSR, created all the conditions for them to adapt, fed and protected them by law.

So, oddly enough, it would be more logical to consider sparrows as the winners in the first Chinese sparrow war.