Royals › Monarch / Emperor
Hu Hai
Second emperor of Qin, put on the throne in 210 BC by Zhao Gao and Li Si's forged edict, whose three-year reign saw the Chen Sheng rising and ended in his forced suicide
In a side chamber of a palace, a yellow ceremonial robe embroidered with a dragon hangs on a wooden stand, its hem worked with waves and rocks, before a carved folding screen, while a black lacquer chest sits on a low table by a lattice window and no person is in view.
Also known as Qin Ershi · Ying Huhai
- Roles
- Monarch / Emperor
Huhai was the youngest son of the First Emperor; an early commentary on the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) quotes a letter saying he was preferred over seventeen elder brothers. When his father died on tour at Shaqiu in 210 BC, the eunuch Zhao Gao and Li Si forged an edict ordering the heir Fusu and the general Meng Tian to die and made Huhai Second Emperor. In 209 BC he toured the east and added his own inscriptions to his father's steles, had twelve princes and ten princesses killed, while Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rose in revolt. Li Si was cut in two at Xianyang in 208 BC, and Zhao Gao, now chancellor, called a deer a horse to test the court. In 207 BC Zhao Gao's son-in-law Yan Le stormed the Wangyi Palace and forced Huhai to kill himself; he was buried as a commoner. Jia Yi's "Faults of Qin" (Guo Qin lun) devotes a section to his failure to change course.
Life and times
Dates 230 BCE–207 BCE (birth by another account 221 BCE)