The Art of Governance

In Handan, seven-year-old Ying Zheng accepted a piece of dry bread.

He had no idea the person before him came from more than two thousand years in the future.

From that moment on, an ordinary man entered the life of the greatest emperor in history.

He saw the child fall silent beneath the contemptuous stares of the Zhao people. He saw blood spatter his royal robes when he came of age, and the map of the realm reflected in his eyes as he conquered the six states. He also saw him standing at the summit of the empire, with fewer and fewer people left by his side who could speak freely with him.

He stayed with him for fifty years. He did not teach him how to be an emperor. He was simply the one person who never knelt as he walked the path to becoming the First Emperor.

Later, deep in the Xianyang Palace, there was a side hall with a locust tree in its courtyard.

Beneath the tree stood three chairs.

The histories know nothing of this side hall.

But the locust tree remembers.