Ten years of campaigning by a Qin soldier. The rise and fall of an ordinary man swept up in the tide of unification. In the seventeenth year of King Zheng of Qin, Ying He, a farmer’s son from Anlu County in Nan Commandery, is conscripted into the army. He thinks he’ll go home when the fighting is over, never knowing that he’ll be gone for a full ten years.
From the first battle to conquer Han, to the grueling campaign against Zhao, from flooding Daliang to destroy Wei to the conquest of Chu, when an army of six hundred thousand marches out in full force, he witnesses every major battle in Qin’s unification of the Six Kingdoms. The farm boy whose hands once shook as he held a halberd grows into a fourth-rank noble, an “Bu Geng,” decorated with military honors. He trades enemy heads for fields, a house, and servants, but also gains a body full of scars and bloodstains that will never wash away.
In 221 BC, the realm is unified. After fighting for ten years to carve out a path home, he discovers that the home he knew is gone for good.
The Great Qin Soldier is set against the true history of Qin’s unification of the Six Kingdoms, retelling that grand saga, recorded in countless history books, through the eyes of an ordinary man. There are no emperors and generals displaying their extraordinary talents here, only the blood and fire seen by soldiers, the deaths of their comrades, and the lives of those who survive the war but have nowhere to belong.
This book was inspired by letters from Qin soldiers unearthed at Shuihudi in Yunmeng. Twenty-two hundred years ago, two Qin soldiers named Heifu and Jing wrote home: “Mother, I hope you are well,” and “We have been attacking the rebel city for a long time. I cannot tell how badly I am wounded.” Their letters have crossed two thousand years, and still make our hearts tighten.
This is not only Ying He’s story, but the story of all the ordinary people history passes over in a single brushstroke.
Mighty Qin, reclaim our land. We will fight until our blood runs dry, and never stop until death.
But what happens when the fighting is over?
It is so well written. "A Soldier of the Qin Dynasty" is about a Qin soldier's ten-year campaign, but it is a common story for all those who have been ignored by history. Ying He joined the army at the age of sixteen and experienced the destruction of Han, the defeat of Zhao, the fall of Wei, and the conquest of Chu. He exchanged the heads of his enemies for his land and title, but he could not exchange for his mother's waiting at the entrance of the village, the fact that Ah Heng was married, and a pair of hands that could hold a hoe. Black Butt died, Cripple stayed in the army, and Ying He returned to his hometown alive, only to find that he could no longer return to his real home. The novel uses the simplest white description to describe the trauma and silence of those tiny individuals behind a great unification. What you will remember after reading this is not Qin Shihuang, but an old soldier squatting on the field ridge, holding a wooden tablet, who will never farm again.