seventh world of chan buddhism - Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun

Preferring to be absolutely certain of a defendant's guilt before they punished him so
lavishly, Qin magistrates made confession a vital part of the testimony. Prongs, pincers and
other instruments of torture were displayed upon the judge's bench and when confessions
were not voluntarily given, the instruments were used. In keeping with the fairness of public
trial, the defendant was tortured in full view of his peers. To be certain that witnesses or even
the plaintiffs or victims were telling the truth, they, too, could be subject to such pointed
interrogations. (The practice of judicial torture was not outlawed in China until the 20th
Century.)(Anno Domini)
There was no arguing with the Emperor Qin Shihuangdi. He tolerated no difference
of opinion. All books, except Qin history, divination, agriculture and medicine, were
rounded up and burned. Anyone who quoted from a banned book was publicly executed. To
show his contempt for the allocutions of Confucian scholars, he rounded up hundreds of them
and buried them alive.
Even gods were subject to his wrath. Once, while crossing the Chang Jiang (Yangtze)
River a gale sprang up and defiantly rocked the Emperor's boat. Qin Shihuangdi held the
river goddess responsible. Seeing her sacred mountain nearby, he ordered 3,000 prisoners to
cut down every tree on the mountain.
Now that he had the attention of his people, the Emperor moved to realize two
consuming ambitions: the completion of his tomb and the connection of all the various
segments of northern wall into one Great Wall.
Millions of men were dragged from their farms and sent to work either at the northern
frontier wall or to his capital city, Xi'an, the location of his tomb.
Multitudes died building the Great Wall. Many men were executed for poor
performance. Many were worked into fatal exhaustion. Many were killed in construction
accidents. Many succumbed to disease and malnutrition.
At Xi'an, 700,000 men worked on the tomb. They excavated a vast subterranean
parade ground and filled it with thousands of full-sized, individually sculpted, clay soldiers
and horses that marched eternally to the glory and protection of Qin Shihuangdi. Rivers of
mercury flowed through the underground landscape. The gallery's vaulted ceiling was a map
of the stars.
The effect of all this conscription was predictable. The number of able-bodied
farmers, already critically diminished by years of warfare, was now further reduced by
impressed service at the wall and tomb. With insufficient manpower to operate the farms, the
crops failed and in the resultant famine, hundreds of thousands of families starved to death.
CHAPTER 2 CHINA
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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