Zi Ying

Also known as Ying Ziying · Qin Wang

Accounts of Ziying's parentage differ: one chapter of the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) makes him a nephew of the Second Emperor, another a younger brother of the First Emperor. After Zhao Gao forced the Second Emperor to kill himself, he set Ziying up as King of Qin rather than emperor, since the six eastern states had revived. Pleading illness in the fasting palace, Ziying plotted with his sons and the eunuch Han Tan, had Zhao Gao stabbed when he came to fetch him, and wiped out his clan. Forty-six days later, with Liu Bang's army at Bashang, Ziying surrendered at Zhidao in a plain white carriage with a cord round his neck, handing over the imperial seals. About a month later Xiang Yu entered Xianyang, killed him and the Qin princes and burned the palaces. Jia Yi devoted the last part of his Faults of Qin (Guo Qin lun) to Ziying, arguing that a ruler of ordinary ability could have held the Qin heartland.