This is not the story of "Hu Hai usurped the throne and Zhao Gao rebelled against Qin".
This is a young emperor who legitimately succeeded to the throne. After inheriting his father's empire, he gradually lost the powerful empire left by his father; and those who overthrew him, in order to make their choices appear legitimate, eventually wrote a legal succession as a usurpation and a palace coup as Zhao Gao's regicide.
The story always unfolds from Hu Hai's perspective.
He is not a puppet who is led around by others, nor is he a naturally murderous tyrant. He believed in counties, decrees, uniform standards, and the authority of the emperor. His problem is not that he does not understand the sufferings of the people, but that the more he understands, the more he believes that only a stronger center can solve these sufferings.
Fusu was not a rebel who wanted to seize the throne.
He is the eldest son and is the most suitable person to inherit the empire in many people's minds. He was close to Confucian scholars and valued education, and he was indeed too close to the old aristocracy and local powerful families. But he did not want to fight against Hu Hai. He just believed that if the Qin Dynasty only relied on criminal names, conscription and power to maintain its power, it would eventually push everyone to the opposite side.
The conflict between the two brothers was not over a crown, but over how the empire should continue to live.
Hu Hai is not innocent. He succeeded to the throne legally and did face betrayal; but in the process of preserving the Qin Dynasty, he gradually turned precautions into suspicion, turned necessary sacrifices into political habits, and finally destroyed the alliance left to him by his father with his own hands.
Why does a person who has reason to believe that he is protecting the country still end up destroying the country?
