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(thunder crashing)

LIN: East Asia, 230 B.C.

♪♪

After centuries of bloodshed,

a warrior king rises to unite seven warring kingdoms into one empire.

♪♪

(thunder crashing)

♪♪

♪♪

(shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

(shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

(all screaming)

♪♪

♪♪

(screaming)

♪♪

(swords clashing)

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

(dramatic music plays]

The king of Qin forges a civilization that endures 2,000 years...

♪♪

...and bears his name -- China.

(swords clashing, screaming)

♪♪

♪♪

Follow me!

Fight for victory!

(men shouting)

♪♪

LIN: It takes nine years of brutal combat for the warrior to achieve his goal...

♪♪

...and become China's first emperor.

♪♪

♪♪

The first emperor's story has passed into legend.

But the truth lies hidden inside the greatest tomb on Earth.

♪♪

♪♪

That is the first emperor's tomb.

And it's at the center of what is thought to be

the largest burial complex in the world.

♪♪

LIN: Covering 22 square miles,

this Chinese archaeological site is bigger than Egypt's Valley of the Kings

and packed with treasures richer than Tutankhamen's tomb.

♪♪

My name's Albert Lin.

I'm a National Geographic Explorer, and I specialize in using technology

to discover what lies below the earth's surface.

♪♪

The emperor's tomb is right beneath my feet.

♪♪

(drone whirring)

LIN: My surveying drone can reveal this place as never seen before.

♪♪

♪♪

Today, the tomb is surrounded by top-secret Chinese military bases,

and the army is nervous about what the drone might pick up.

♪♪

All right.

♪♪

Nobody's ever been allowed to fly here.

This is unprecedented access.

♪♪

LIN: The first emperor is under this mound,

but the entire site is the size of Manhattan.

♪♪

A mile east is a huge hangar protecting the world-famous terra-cotta army.

♪♪

It's just one of 600 pits at this extraordinary tomb site.

♪♪

Here, archaeologists are making explosive new discoveries.

Military technology, a skull that might belong to an executed prince,

and even mutilated concubines.

♪♪

Finds that could rewrite the history books.

LIN: That's how huge this site is.

Can you imagine building this for yourself?

♪♪

For your afterlife?

LIN: I'm going to investigate every inch of this site

and discover the truth about the man buried beneath it.

♪♪

♪♪

I'm starting my investigation into China's founding father

at the most famous part of his tomb site.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: Wow, wow.

This is huge!

It's so much bigger than I thought it would be.

♪♪

This is the terra-cotta army.

8,000 warriors buried over 2,000 years ago.

One of the greatest wonders of the world.

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: This is the first emperor's army.

♪♪

He ordered his real army to be re-created in clay

and buried with him, ready to fight his battles in the afterlife.

♪♪

Each face is individual and unique.

♪♪

(breathes deeply) Look at the scale of this place.

It tells you a lot about the guy.

♪♪

About his ego, his vision for his afterlife.

What an experience.

♪♪

LIN: These warriors are set for battle, exactly like the emperor's real army.

♪♪

A light infantry at the front.

Then heavy infantry,

and even cavalry at the rear.

♪♪

520 life-sized horses.

♪♪

It's a really incredible feeling to be here,

standing in a place where nobody really gets access.

I mean, we're at the center, at the heart of this unbelievable

World Heritage Site, which is, in a lot of ways,

the symbol of my own cultural heritage, my ancestry.

♪♪

LIN: I've been fascinated by the first emperor ever since I was a child.

And our knowledge mostly came from one place.

♪♪

For over 2,000 years, the Chinese have learned

about their founding father from a book.

The official history of his reign, called the Shiji,

was written 100 years after his death.

♪♪

This book tells of his epic battles.

How he built an empire, how he created this place,

but some of the achievements described here are so extraordinary

that they become hard to believe.

I'm gonna investigate this tomb site to prove if these legends are true.

♪♪

LIN: I'm starting with the legend of his army.

♪♪

A ruthless, organized killing machine.

♪♪

And in 221 B.C., the final bloody battle for unification is playing out.

♪♪

The Shiji says, "The king of Qin had the heart of a tiger and a wolf.

He killed men as though he thought he could never finish."

(marching footsteps)

♪♪

♪♪

The future emperor rules six kingdoms.

Only one remains defiant.

Are the chariots in position?

The chariots are ready.

We must win this battle.

All kingdoms must be unified!

♪♪

LIN: The enemy king has no idea what's about to strike.

(screams)

♪♪

The future emperor has spent years training his soldiers...

♪♪

(shouting in Chinese)

...equipping them with state-of-the-art weapons...

(shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

...to create China's first professional army.

♪♪

He is a courageous military leader,

and for nine years, his men have fought ferociously for him.

(all screaming)

The enemy force of conscripted peasants and farmers are completely outgunned.

♪♪

(shouting in Chinese)

(shouting in Chinese)

(men shouting)

Weakened defenses are no match for his most powerful weapon...

♪♪

...a cavalry force, 10,000 strong.

♪♪

(whip snapping)

(screaming)

(horses neighing)

(men shouting)

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

He treated his enemies with little mercy.

You animal.

♪♪

(thud)

♪♪

From now on

the world belongs to all of us!

Long live, long live, long live!

♪♪

LIN: To his men and to the people in his kingdom, he is a hero.

♪♪

Everything in China is now his --

its titles, its treasures, its people.

♪♪

What are you doing here?

♪♪

I'm here to serve you.

♪♪

(grunts)

♪♪

LIN: The legend describes the future emperor as a peerless warrior

with an unstoppable army.

♪♪

But is the legend really true?

♪♪

♪♪

Right now teams are unearthing new treasures across the tomb site

that reveal more about the man and his army.

♪♪

(camera shutter clicks)

♪♪

LIN: What a privilege.

Very few people have been down here.

All of this...it's stone armor

intricately woven together.

♪♪

Look at that. You've got all the little chains tied together,

almost like chain mail.

♪♪

And nobody really knows what they're for,

but they think that it's the armor that would have been worn

by the soldiers that would follow him into the afterlife.

It's really cool.

♪♪

LIN: So far, they've discovered 87 suits of armor,

painstakingly assembled from tiny pieces of stone.

♪♪

LIN: If they find things like this here, 30 feet below the surface...

♪♪

...you've got to wonder what else lies beyond.

♪♪

LIN: Other storerooms on-site hide further evidence of his high-tech army...

LIN: Look at that.

LIN: ...because few realize that originally the terra-cotta warriors

carried lethal weapons.

♪♪

LIN: A select number of the soldiers would have swords,

but they were real, functioning weapons.

♪♪

Even though it was buried over 2,000 years ago, it is still razor-sharp.

You could almost shave with it.

In the years that followed the burial of this terra-cotta army,

the site was looted, and a lot of the weapons were taken.

They were taken for actual use in battle,

and that's why they only found about...

so far, 20 or so of these -- these swords.

You know, the first emperor, he spent his whole life

conquering the six warring states to create one single empire...

using weapons just like this.

And he built this army to take into his afterlife

and you realize that he was still at war,

he was still preparing himself for battle.

♪♪

LIN: The technology buried here is so extensive, so state of the art.

Clear physical evidence supporting the legend of a supreme warrior king

who equipped and organized his army like no other.

♪♪

But the army is just the start...

because here he also buried his entire world.

-On this side you also dug? -Mm.

LIN: I'm working with the Chinese archaeologists.

-(speaking Chinese) -LIN: Mm-hmm.

LIN: Combining my drone data and their site maps,

we can reveal what lies within this megatomb complex.

♪♪

At the center is the emperor.

♪♪

In front of him, the living quarters...

next to which archaeologists are making truly gruesome discoveries.

♪♪

To the east, his army.

Southeast is a pit containing a body that could be his son and heir.

♪♪

Closer to the man himself is a pit containing

mysterious semi-naked statues.

♪♪

And further out, grisly evidence of mass graves.

♪♪

Now the brutal evidence emerging from this tomb site

will revolutionize what we know about the man who made China.

♪♪

In my quest to discover the truth

about the bloody legend of the first emperor,

I've discovered how he conquered the whole of China.

♪♪

But how did he control such a vast land?

♪♪

LIN: The Shiji says that in 220 B.C.,

after a tour of inspection, bumping along terrible roads,

the emperor ordered the construction of a set of speedways

radiating out from the capital.

♪♪

LIN: It describes a vast road network

built across his newly conquered territories.

♪♪

Superhighways to connect his empire.

♪♪

♪♪

If the legend is true, he could be a greater road builder than the Romans.

To prove it, we need hard evidence.

(conversing in Chinese)

Until recently, data was limited.

-(speaking Chinese) -LIN: Hello.

Wow.

LIN: But now archaeologist professor Jiang

has made an intriguing discovery 10 feet underground.

First impression is, it's quite narrow, and I'm wondering what it is.

But then Jiang shows me the surface.

This is the road.

Carts passed through this road.

These are tracks of carts that have pressed down in the earth

over 2,000 years ago.

(Jiang speaking Chinese)

LIN: What's surprising is, the tracks don't run lengthways, but across.

♪♪

Oh, yeah. Oh. Yeah, you really get a sense of it here.

When I first came in here,

I thought that they were excavating the length of the road.

I mean, you know, it looks about the size of a road,

but what we're seeing from the tracks is that actually the road is going this way

and they're just doing a cross section of the whole of this --

of this mega highway, which goes and spans a distance

in width of nearly 66 meters, or approximately 200 feet.

So the width of the road is 200 feet.

♪♪

LIN: It's the size of a modern 16-lane freeway.

♪♪

That's incredible that you found this.

♪♪

There's got to be more roads out there. A whole series of roads.

♪♪

LIN: I want to find more evidence that the road network

the official history mentions really existed.

♪♪

But on a site this big, that's not gonna be easy.

♪♪

I'm using my high-tech thermal imaging camera, mounted on a drone.

It collects and processes information from a specific part

of the electromagnetic spectrum,

which will allow us to detect roads beneath the ground.

♪♪

We'll do kind of slow passes.

♪♪

LIN: Professor Jiang and I are going to do a flyby of an area

on the edge of the tomb site.

♪♪

And we're looking for a change in the temperature.

The blue area is where it's a little bit colder.

The red area is where it's a little bit warmer.

And we're talking very subtle amounts here.

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: Back in the lab, I'm comparing the aerial data

with the latest satellite imagery.

It should pick up indications of roads buried in the earth.

♪♪

So what's really cool is that this is the most advanced

commercial earth imaging satellite out there right now,

and it has never been used at this site, so we're gonna see things in this imagery

that, hopefully, will stand out in a way that it hasn't before.

This is the future of exploration --

the most advanced technologies in the world

doing the forensic study of something that happened 2,000 years ago.

It's like CSI for archaeology.

♪♪

LIN: What I'm looking for is any indication of lines in the landscape.

♪♪

LIN: Wow, look at all these fields, right?

You see this long line that runs through all these fields.

It's really faint.

But it's nothing to do with the rest of this farm.

But the craziest part about it is, when you link it up,

it continues across many farms,

right to the northern extent of the mausoleum site.

And when you look and say, "Okay, let me draw a line

down the middle of this whole mausoleum site,"

and you mirror it, and you say, "What would be on the other side?"

and, sure enough, there's another line, pfft, right there.

♪♪

LIN: It looks like there's two perfectly symmetrical straight lines

leading right to the mausoleum site.

So on this side...

♪♪

LIN: I've asked Professor Jiang to see if I could be onto something.

(Jiang speaking Chinese)

♪♪

LIN: So you're saying that, basically,

if we can prove that it's Qin Dynasty, then it's a new find.

It's all about the ground truthing now.

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: I'm heading to the location of the line I found on the map.

♪♪

LIN: Where we're standing right now is right here.

And what it is, is this massive trench

over 6 feet below the surface of the rest of these farms

with no real explanation for its existence.

There's no reason to have this huge trench here.

There's no river here. There's nothing else.

What I'm standing on right here could be one of the roads of the network of roads

built by the first emperor.

LIN: The physical evidence from across the site

suggests that the legend was right about the sheer scale and size of those roads.

♪♪

According to historical records, these white lines

show the emperor's superhighways radiating out from his new capital.

♪♪

Like the Romans, the emperor of China is unifying his people with roads.

♪♪

And he also builds walls to protect his empire.

Thousands of miles of defensive fortifications to the northern border.

♪♪

This is what early sections of the wall would have looked like.

Just trampled earth.

Today, what we're left with is this.

♪♪

The Great Wall of China.

♪♪

LIN: And he doesn't just unite China with walls and roads.

He also integrates its people.

So here's what the official history says --

"The first emperor did all he could to stamp out

the memory of the warring states and to weld the people into one nation."

So the real challenge for the first emperor

was to truly unify his people.

A people who had, until his war of conquest,

been fighting each other for 250 years.

♪♪

LIN: He introduces a common language.

One that is still written today.

♪♪

He creates a single currency.

♪♪

And he will change the way China and its people are ruled forever.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Shortly after uniting China, he summons his court to his capital

to announce his new political vision.

♪♪

(horse snorts)

Riding with him, his eldest son and heir, and also his youngest son.

♪♪

They might expect to share power with their father.

♪♪

♪♪

But he's about to spark a chain of events that will destabilize his new nation...

♪♪

...and threaten to destroy it.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

I'm investigating one of the most enigmatic leaders in history --

China's first emperor.

♪♪

LIN: The legend tells us that he tears up the way this land

has been ruled for centuries, and he creates this dictatorship

in which everyone must bow down to his ultimate authority.

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: 221 B.C.

The warrior king prepares to announce his radical new plan.

♪♪

His prime minister and right-hand man

is the architect of this new system of government.

(speaking Chinese)

They are ready for you.

♪♪

LIN: They have planned for this moment for years.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

He believes he has the God-given right to rule all under heaven.

♪♪

♪♪

And to reflect this power,

he declares that he will be forever known by a new title.

♪♪

(speaks Chinese)

I am the first and most divine Emperor in the history of China.

♪♪

LIN: This declaration alarms the court and its high priests.

But what comes next shocks them to their core.

We will not give land, rank and power to you

to create your own little empires.

(crowd murmuring)

(indistinct conversations)

Silence.

(conversations continue)

Silence!

♪♪

There will be new laws to govern all life

and everyone will be bound to them.

♪♪

LIN: The ruling class expected rewards of wealth and lands.

♪♪

Instead he seizes everything for himself.

♪♪

They dare not challenge the emperor directly.

♪♪

Instead, they seek help from the oldest force in the land --

the high priests.

♪♪

This is a disaster.

Find a way to tell him it won't work.

♪♪

LIN: What happens next is the trigger

for one of the bloodiest periods in China's history.

♪♪

The first emperor is obsessed with spiritual power.

We know this from his tomb complex,

which is perfectly aligned with a pathway to heaven.

♪♪

The legend tells that he travels to the base of the mountains

to hear the prophecy for his rule from the spiritual leaders.

But he thinks that he's a divine son of heaven

so he expects that these omens for his rule

are gonna be extremely auspicious.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

(man chanting)

♪♪

Well?

Heaven sends us an omen.

The blackest rain.

Only darkness can come from your dangerous venture.

♪♪

There is no future in what you do.

♪♪

It is written.

♪♪

(speaking Chinese)

♪♪

LIN: If the people learn of this bleak warning, it could spark an uprising.

♪♪

What is this worth?

Nothing.

♪♪

♪♪

Ahh!

♪♪

In my nation

nothing is written

unless I write it.

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: The legend tells us that the emperor wipes out anyone who defies him.

All his subjects must now obey the laws that he writes.

♪♪

But is the tale of this ruthless power grab really true?

♪♪

One 2,000-year-old clue holds the answer.

♪♪

In the grave of an imperial official,

a vast cache of bamboo scrolls has been found.

♪♪

And at Peking University,

Professor Chen is cataloguing the legal cases they contain.

♪♪

Hidden inside, the brutal truth of what happened.

This is a window into the day-to-day life of what law

was like in the world of the first emperor.

LIN: The scrolls explain both laws and punishments that apply to everyone,

whether a lord or a peasant.

♪♪

LIN: These punishments are a bit extreme.

I mean, we're talking about things like tattoos on your face,

there's castration in here.

(speaking Chinese)

♪♪

They cut his head off?

-They cut his head off. -Yes, cutting his head off.

So, this is interesting.

If you said something nice about the enemy, it was considered treasonous,

and if you're praising them, then the punishment was something called "lu."

-Is that right? -CHEN: Yes.

And what that was, was you were dragged in front of the public

in a public space, shown to the people as a treasonous criminal,

and subsequently beheaded right there in front of everybody.

♪♪

Pretty gruesome.

♪♪

What's interesting about this for me

is that you get a clear sense that you know what to expect.

It's written down here on a set of bamboo strips.

There's a law. It's not like you're just at the whim of some random feudal king,

of whether or not he likes you or not.

There's rules here.

♪♪

But these are just individual cases, so how extensive was the crackdown?

♪♪

Tales tell of murdered families, mass graves,

and hundreds of thousands of slaves.

♪♪

And the proof lies in the emperor's tomb.

(people shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

♪♪

The legend says the first emperor used laws

to eradicate any opposition to his power.

♪♪

That he turned academics who challenged his authority into enemies of the state.

♪♪

♪♪

Come on children, help me prepare the food.

You search those houses, you over there!

(people shouting in Chinese)

LIN: The official history says that the emperor killed 400 scholars.

(shouting continues)

Arrest them all!

LIN: He burned the books of a hundred schools of philosophy

in order to make the people ignorant.

(woman shouting in Chinese)

(man speaks Chinese)

Scholars writing anything critical of his regime

are about to experience his wrath.

(people shouting in Chinese)

(woman screams, men shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

These are the banned scrolls.

LIN: The architect of this cultural cleansing

is the emperor's prime minister.

♪♪

Tie him up.

LIN: He sends a clear message to the people.

(screaming)

Entire families will be held accountable for the actions of one man.

♪♪

Kill that woman.

♪♪

(shouting in Chinese)

(screaming)

♪♪

Do it quickly.

(shouting in Chinese)

(arrow shoots, people shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: The legend tells us that hundreds of thousands of people are made criminals.

♪♪

(men shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

♪♪

(men shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

Like the scholar, many become forced laborers

on the emperor's vast construction projects...

♪♪

...the road networks, the Great Wall,

and now the largest tomb on earth.

♪♪

♪♪

The official history says, "When the emperor first came

to the throne, he had over 700,000 men

from all over the empire transported to the tomb site."

♪♪

(speaking Chinese)

(shouting in Chinese)

Oh!

(shouting in Chinese)

Conditions are harsh, punishments severe,

and lives short.

(speaking Chinese)

♪♪

(shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

The tomb will take another 10 years to build.

♪♪

And forced laborers will be lucky to survive.

♪♪

♪♪

If the first emperor really used brutal repression

and mass slavery to build his mausoleum,

then the tomb site must contain physical evidence.

♪♪

♪♪

I've come to the Shaanxi Institute,

where excavated remains of the workers are stored.

♪♪

Access is rarely given, and the site is heavily guarded

due to the sensitive nature of the materials it contains.

♪♪

One of the archaeologists, Dr. Sun, has invited me to see a recent discovery.

♪♪

♪♪

Wow. Oh, it's heavy.

♪♪

What we're looking at is the skull of one of the workers

that was found in this pit.

All of them were quite young.

So this is a young male who was forced into building

-the tomb of the first emperor? -Right.

Is there any idea of how these individuals died?

Someone might be killed for not performing well enough.

Oh, wow. Okay, so you're saying that if you didn't build properly,

if you did something incorrect, then you would be (clicks tongue) killed?

-Is that right? -Dui.

LIN: Look at all this stuff.

-This is from the site of the pit? -Dui, dui, dui.

Wow.

Wow. What is that?

These are some of the tools used during that time.

-Oh, these are tools. Okay. -Tools.

LIN: So they were buried with their tools.

(Sun speaking Chinese)

So you think this is a chisel?

-Yes. -Look how sharp this is.

-Dui. -Wow.

♪♪

LIN: And there are disturbing clues emerging

that reveal the conditions the workers endured here.

♪♪

LIN: What is this?

This is a shackle, it was found 2km east of the Emperor's tomb.

LIN: So these are the shackles

-of a worker, right? -Dui.

These were used to shackle arms and feet.

LIN: Wow, look at this.

These iron shackles that were used around the wrist

or probably around the ankles.

Right.

When I hold something like this,

and you start to realize that somebody wore this around their neck,

that somebody was forced to wear this

as they were conscripted to build this massive tomb complex,

and you put the person in mind

when looking at this, it becomes very real,

and the fact that their bodies were just thrown into this pit

with the shackles still around their neck,

it sends chills up my back.

♪♪

LIN: 120 skeletons were found in this one pit.

♪♪

♪♪

And they've discovered more graves across the site.

♪♪

Some containing numerous bodies.

♪♪

The archaeologists now think there could be many thousands buried here.

♪♪

♪♪

The Shiji tells us that there were nearly 3/4 of a million workers on the site.

♪♪

Conditions were horrific, and the skeletal evidence is physical proof.

♪♪

You really get a sense of the man's megalomania.

He'll stop at nothing to achieve his goal,

regardless of the human cost.

You know, and it makes you wonder what else about the legend is true.

And the Shiji also talks about what's buried inside the tomb --

treasure, rivers of mercury, you know, even concubines.

Could that be down there too?

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: I'm on the trail of new evidence

emerging from the biggest tomb on earth...

♪♪

...revealing the truth about the man who built it --

China's first emperor.

♪♪

♪♪

The legend tells us that his vision for the tomb grew to epic proportions.

♪♪

♪♪

It's too small.

♪♪

I must have my world with me.

♪♪

Everything exactly the same.

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: He built an entire city underground.

It sounds crazy.

But there is this belief in China

that you brought with you what you needed into the afterlife,

and he thought he needed his entire world.

I mean, how do you build a city the size of Manhattan underground

with nothing more than iron tools and hard labor?

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: One piece of evidence reveals

that the mausoleum was planned with absolute precision.

♪♪

So...

LIN: Recently, a huge stone was uncovered on the bed of a river.

(speaking Chinese)

Wow.

Look how big this thing is.

LIN: It's perfectly crafted by hand,

almost two meters long, and weighs over 3 tons.

♪♪

I don't know how you could lift something like this.

(speaking Chinese)

LIN: This stone was found by workers when they were digging through the river,

and what's really incredible about this is that

while nobody has been inside the first emperor's tomb,

the actual mausoleum, we're looking at --

we're actually touching a piece of the material

that was meant for the burial chamber potentially,

for some part of the interior of this tomb.

♪♪

LIN: Each stone has its own unique label, like a modern-day barcode,

giving its exact place within the tomb complex.

MAN: (speaking Chinese)

So this was built by a guy named Huan.

MAN: Huan.

And there's very precise measurements and location instructions

written over here in this section of this inscription.

Everybody was accountable.

The person who made this stone was accountable

for its dimensions and its quality, but it never made it there,

and I can only imagine what happened to the person that was responsible.

It wouldn't have been good.

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: The emperor was preparing for his afterlife

in the same way he ruled his nation -- with military precision.

♪♪

But there's a mystery.

His vast workforce could create mega structures

and build a huge mountain over his tomb.

But no one in China had ever made life-sized statues before.

So how did they suddenly create these 8,000 lifelike terra-cotta warriors?

♪♪

Most scholars believe that the Chinese developed them independently.

But art historian Lukas Nickel has studied the terra-cotta army

in great detail, and he has an astonishing new theory.

Yeah, thanks for meeting me here.

NICKEL: Well, we have a problem here.

The terra-cotta warriors, they are totally exceptional and unique

in Chinese history.

You're saying that there is nothing like this before,

it just showed up right with this one particular...

-Absolutely. -...moment in history here?

They have occasionally small figurines, but that's absolutely not comparable

with what we find in the first emperor's tomb.

But these kind of really highly complex human figures, life-size,

that's something we haven't seen before in China.

♪♪

LIN: These 10-inch figurines were made in China hundreds of years earlier,

but there is nothing like this from the time of the emperor.

Then, suddenly, the terra-cotta army mysteriously appears.

♪♪

They just do it overnight, and that is highly surprising.

Have you found an explanation?

Well, if we can't explain this as part of Chinese history,

we have, of course, to look for a foreign source.

-LIN: Right. -We also have this.

Have a look at that.

-LIN: Whoa. -These are sculptures...

LIN: Lukas believes that the source was the Greeks.

He has brought photographs of Greek statues that were found in Central Asia,

statues dated to the same era as the first emperor.

This is what the Greeks left in Central Asia, yeah.

That is just north of the Oxus River in southern Uzbekistan,

just across the border from Afghanistan.

Look at those features.

It's the same idea.

They tried to make a totally believable human face.

LIN: When you look at the different features here,

like the hair, and you compare it to the hair up there.

-NICKEL: Right. -And the emphasis on facial realism.

Geographically, the Chinese and Greek cultures

came very close to each other at this time,

so communication was actually possible.

They may have talked to each other.

LIN: We have to look towards our actual understanding

of the timeline of East-West communication and rethink that.

NICKEL: Absolutely, that's right.

These warriors force us to reconsider how East-West contact started.

♪♪

LIN: The historical texts shed more light on this mystery.

♪♪

We're told, in 221 B.C.,

12 foreign statues appear at China's western border.

♪♪

100 years earlier, Alexander the Great

had used statues to unify his newly conquered Greek empire.

♪♪

The statues were a propaganda tool.

And the suggestion is that the first emperor

also recognizes their power.

♪♪

He is magnificent.

According to the legend,

he orders 12 giant statues for his new capital city.

But he also finds another use for them.

This should be used in building my tomb.

Thousands, exactly the same.

I will lead them to rule in the next world.

Your Majesty, how many do we need?

I want thousands.

I want my army.

Yes, Majesty.

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: But who exactly was making these statues?

♪♪

In the third century B.C.,

the Greek and Chinese civilizations were much closer than you might think.

♪♪

So, were Greek statue makers traveling to the new Chinese empire

and working there?

If Lukas is right, then the first direct contact between East and West

would have happened up to 1,500 years earlier than we tend to believe.

It's an explosive theory

and, if correct, it would be rewriting the history books.

LIN: There's a controversial new theory that China's first emperor

was importing ideas and people from the West to build his tomb.

(man speaking Chinese)

Forensic evidence is coming out of the site

that I'm keen to investigate.

Archaeologists have found a mysterious skull in one mass grave.

It could be key to our investigation.

♪♪

Now, to the untrained eye, it looks like any of the other skulls

that we've seen here,

but I've been told that this one is different.

They're not typically Chinese features.

Could this be the smoking gun?

A Westerner buried at the first emperor's tomb site?

LIN: I've sent detailed measurements of the skull

to experts at Scotland's Dundee University.

They're going to reconstruct the head and trace its origins.

♪♪

♪♪

In the meantime, I've heard about another excavation

that I want to investigate.

♪♪

200 meters from the emperor's burial mound,

archaeologists are discovering millions of terra-cotta fragments.

♪♪

(scanner clicking)

♪♪

Using cutting-edge technology and 3D scanning,

they are painstakingly piecing them together

and rebuilding a group of statues.

♪♪

They are known as the acrobats,

circus performers built to entertain the emperor in the next world.

♪♪

(men conversing in Chinese)

They are seminaked, incredibly lifelike, and each one has been made by hand.

You can even see the fingerprints of the men who made them.

LIN: They're different than the terra-cotta warriors.

They have a different feel. They're not so rigid in their stance.

And what's really interesting about this

is that you could make out the tendons of your arm.

You've got a collarbone here. You've got an Adam's apple.

I mean, you can see the toenails here.

LIN: Only the Greeks were creating

realistic seminaked human statues at this time.

Then, overnight, these are made in China for the first emperor.

♪♪

Some think that this is evidence

that they could have been inspired by Greek sculpture.

But were Western craftsmen actually here, creating the acrobats themselves?

♪♪

♪♪

This skull, with its unusual features, could provide further evidence.

♪♪

Experts at Dundee University have spent weeks analyzing it.

♪♪

I'm about to find out what they've discovered.

♪♪

LIN: Okay.

(line chiming)

-Hey, Chris. -Hi. How's it going?

Chris, you sent us a model of what you've made,

and I haven't seen it yet, so let's take a look.

It's a little creepy, you know, I mean, staring at this person who --

It's so lifelike.

So where would you place him, in your expert analysis?

There's so many shape features of the skull that are East Asian,

and then there's this sort of bridge to the nose and this brow ridge.

It's not common in an East Asian population.

This is actually a Chinese skull from a medical specimen.

So you can see the difference between this...

nose and this.

Oh, yeah, so...

Yeah, we're talking this brow ridge and nose here.

So the analysis that you're describing

is basically the facial features around the brow ridge and the nose

are nontypical Asian features.

The skull overall is East Asian in appearance

but with a stronger-than-normal brow ridge

and more projecting kind of nose than you'd -- than you'd normally expect.

LIN: This isn't conclusive proof, but it is plausible evidence

that there may have been outsiders at the tomb site.

And it supports the controversial theory

that the first emperor imported foreigners and foreign ideas.

(speaking Chinese)

In conservative China, that would have been shocking.

♪♪

♪♪

This is the first time a Chinese ruler

has created lifelike statues for his tomb.

♪♪

♪♪

Mm.

♪♪

♪♪

This is powerful magic indeed.

♪♪

What's wrong, are you afraid?

(Qin laughs)

♪♪

♪♪

His eyes watch me.

I think he's going to come alive.

Mm.

He will, he will.

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: The first emperor's legacy seems secure.

But according to legend, his iron rule now pushes his people to breaking point,

triggering bloodshed and murder.

And I want to find out the truth.

(horse neighing)

♪♪

In 213 B.C., China's first emperor is at the peak of his powers.

♪♪

LIN: But the legend tells us that his brutal reign

would soon just spiral into chaos and madness and murder.

Within three years, he'd be dead.

So how did it all go so wrong?

♪♪

LIN: It's a tale so dark, so insane,

that it's hard to believe it could possibly be true.

♪♪

(horse neighing)

♪♪

According to legend, the emperor's downward spiral

begins with an assassination attempt.

(horse neighing)

(man shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

♪♪

There are at least three attempts on his life.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

The most daring is an attack on the royal carriage.

♪♪

♪♪

If these offenders are caught, they and their families will pay with their lives.

♪♪

But for many, the possibility of freeing the country

from the emperor's dangerous and oppressive regime

is a risk worth taking.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

-(horse neighing) -(men shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

(shouting in Chinese)

(men shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

♪♪

(horse neighing)

(shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

(man grunts)

(man grunts)

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

According to legend, the emperor grows increasingly paranoid.

♪♪

Fearing death, he orders his court to find the secret of immortality.

♪♪

And what they give him is mercury.

♪♪

His medics believe that it's the elixir of life.

♪♪

Mercury can make you eternal.

♪♪

♪♪

(sniffs)

♪♪

LIN: In fact, mercury is a poison

that will slowly destroy the very fabric of a person's brain

and drive them insane.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Sliding into madness, the emperor orders that no one

is to know where he is, including his ministers.

♪♪

♪♪

(speaking Chinese)

♪♪

♪♪

Prime Minister?

Majesty.

♪♪

Who are these people?

♪♪

Who told you I was here?

Who did it?

It is our duty to attend you at all times.

♪♪

Someone is spying on me.

Arrest them and kill them all!

♪♪

LIN: The first emperor's mental decline threatens the future of China.

♪♪

And the prime minister decides to act.

♪♪

He plots to put the emperor's youngest son, Huhai, in power.

♪♪

♪♪

He's insane.

He'll kill us all.

Has he chosen a successor?

Not yet.

♪♪

We must make sure it's you.

♪♪

LIN: According to legend,

what happens next will tear apart the emperor's family

and plunge his empire into bloody warfare.

♪♪

I want to find physical evidence and discover what really happened.

♪♪

♪♪

I'm on the trail of a recent discovery

that reveals how the reign of China's first emperor

ended in bloodshed and brutality.

(speaking Chinese)

♪♪

♪♪

I've heard about a set of 2,000-year-old scrolls

that were found by chance on the Hong Kong black market.

Written a hundred years after the emperor's death,

they describe his final moments.

(speaking Chinese)

To ensure their survival, they have to be kept in water.

♪♪

Can I see it?

(speaking Chinese)

Wow.

Okay, so the fate of China came down to this one moment,

the decision of who would take on the throne

and follow in the first emperor's footsteps.

And what these scrolls describe is that it was a coup.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: After 11 years on the throne, he is dying.

♪♪

♪♪

The prime minister and the emperor's youngest son, Huhai, act fast.

♪♪

Father?

You know I've always been your most loyal son

and Li Si your most loyal servant.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: The successor is named just in time.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Father.

Father?

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

You know what to do?

I do

but I need time.

No one must know about my father's death yet.

♪♪

LIN: In 210 B.C. the emperor dies.

♪♪

But the story is far from over.

♪♪

The prime minister and Huhai keep the emperor's death a secret

while they plot their next move.

♪♪

(man shouting in Chinese)

Fusu, the emperor's eldest son and rightful heir to the throne,

has been at the Great Wall, defending the empire.

(man speaking Chinese)

He's the greatest threat to Huhai's bid for power.

♪♪

(conversing in Chinese)

♪♪

(conversing in Chinese)

(speaking Chinese)

♪♪

♪♪

Tell me your name.

He is Prince Fusu, of the Qin Emperor.

Arrest him.

(shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: The legend tells us that Fusu committed suicide.

♪♪

But the recently discovered ancient scrolls reveal a shocking twist.

♪♪

-MAN: (speaking Chinese) -LIN: Huhai didn't listen...

MAN: (speaking Chinese)

...did as he wished.

MAN: (speaking Chinese)

...and killed his brother, Fusu,

the rightful heir to the throne.

Incredible.

This is amazing.

And it's also just wild to think that this actual written word

has been locked away in time for 2,000 years,

and I'm holding it in my hand now.

Incredible.

♪♪

LIN: The scrolls are a vital clue, but to prove exactly what happened,

we need hard physical evidence.

♪♪

♪♪

And now the archaeologists at the tomb have revealed an extraordinary find.

♪♪

We examined all eight graves, and this skull was found in one of them.

We're looking at the skull of what could be the murdered heir

to the throne of China.

♪♪

♪♪

Oh, man.

Look at that.

LIN: I'm uncovering gruesome evidence of what might have happened

to the eldest son of China's first emperor.

♪♪

This right here is the tip of an arrow.

Looking at the trajectory of this arrowhead,

which comes in at an angle like this, up to the jugular,

it really indicates that this was a short-range kill.

-What kind of weapon would do this? -(speaking Chinese)

-Oh, really? A crossbow. -Yes.

LIN: So we're talking about a crossbow at short range,

pulling in on this guy whose head is probably on the ground at this point,

right through the jugular here

and it's incredibly deeply embedded within that bone.

What we're talking about here is an execution-style kill.

Seeing this arrowhead embedded in this skull

just tells you something about how ruthless that moment was,

a moment which defined the course of history.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

(body thuds)

♪♪

LIN: The scrolls say that Huhai's bid for power

didn't end with killing his eldest brother.

♪♪

He murdered all of his siblings.

♪♪

Buried with this skull were the remains of six others.

All were murdered and deposited to the east of the emperor's tomb.

♪♪

♪♪

And according to legend, that was only the beginning of the bloodbath.

♪♪

(woman speaking Chinese)

The first emperor never married but had many concubines.

MAN: Are you ready?

Come with me quickly.

LIN: So far, Huhai has eliminated any sibling

who could challenge his rise to power.

♪♪

He now ensures that all remaining threats to his rule are neutralized,

and that even includes concubines

who might be carrying the first emperor's child.

♪♪

♪♪

(birds chirping)

♪♪

♪♪

Where are you taking us?

Why would the Emperor be here?

♪♪

(man shouting in Chinese)

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: Over 2,000 years later,

possibly the most disturbing and horrifying discovery of all

has been unearthed on the tomb site --

the bones of young women.

(conversing in Chinese)

Their remains tell the story of the brutal end of females

who may have been carrying the emperor's unborn heirs.

I'm meeting with Huan Yang,

one of the archaeologists working on this discovery,

to find out what really happened.

(woman speaking Chinese)

So tell me the story about this skull.

I believe they're concubines of the Emperor.

-One of the concubines? -Yeah.

I know they're girls, they're a young age and they have jewellery.

You found jewellery there?

Yes, do you want to see the jewellery?

-Yeah. -Okay.

This is the jewellery.

LIN: What is that? Is that pearls?

HUAN YANG: They're gold and pearls.

That is beautiful.

They're made very well, even today they're good quality pearls.

Yeah, they're still iridescent.

-They still radiate the light. -Yeah.

Jewellery that would be of the level

of a concubine of the first emperor, potentially.

HUAN YANG: Yes, it belongs to a very high-ranking woman.

I mean, what happened to these women?

I feel a little bit angry about this.

They died in a very brutal way.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Why are we here?

Where is the Emperor?

I am the Emperor.

Father is dead.

♪♪

♪♪

He was so fond of you.

♪♪

I thought you might like to join him.

Kill them all.

(women screaming)

♪♪

♪♪

HUAN YANG: It's very weird

I found this poor girl's leg bones just like this and this side another one.

Near the skull.

Near the skull, like a cross.

Must have been a horrible end.

It's never happened before, we never found it.

♪♪

LIN: These young women weren't just killed, they were mutilated.

♪♪

Someone asked me, "Do you think they were

broken up after they died or before they died?"

I can't imagine that a human would cut those girls up when they're alive.

♪♪

LIN: This young woman is just the latest victim to be unearthed.

Her only crime was being close to the dead emperor.

♪♪

♪♪

The archaeologists have discovered 98 more tombs.

♪♪

So far they've excavated 10,

and each one contains the mutilated remains of a young woman.

♪♪

What we've discovered indicates

that even some of the most extraordinary claims

written in the historical record are true.

♪♪

But what about the biggest legend of all --

the one that describes the treasures buried within the first emperor's tomb?

Could that be true too?

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: I want to discover if the greatest legend

about the first emperor is true.

♪♪

The legend about the inside of his tomb.

♪♪

♪♪

The official history, the Shiji, describes it in great detail.

♪♪

It offers these tantalizing clues like mercury

was used to fashion imitations of a hundred rivers,

constructed in such a way that they seem to flow.

There's jewels embedded in the ceiling

to make the constellations glitter at night,

that there's crossbows rigged throughout the ceiling of the tomb itself

to make sure that anybody trying to enter afterwards would be killed.

But how much of that is true?

♪♪

♪♪

LIN: We're told that the first emperor was laid to rest in 210 B.C.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

The emperor's youngest son, Huhai,

has eradicated any opposition to his rule and becomes the second emperor.

♪♪

Within two years of his reign, he will even execute

the man who put him in power, the prime minister.

♪♪

♪♪

(man speaking Chinese)

Under Huhai's rule, the empire his father created

will descend into vicious civil war.

♪♪

This sacred tomb site will be raided for the weapons

needed to fight the battle.

♪♪

But what about the man at the center of this story?

Does he remain untouched within his tomb chamber?

♪♪

♪♪

To find out, I've come to speak to the tomb site's chief archaeologist,

Professor Zhang.

-Over here? -(speaking Chinese)

LIN: For the last two years, he and his team

have been analyzing the tomb complex using core sampling,

ground-penetrating radar, and remote-sensing technologies.

You're trying to find more information with the probes, with the geophysics.

First we need to figure out the entire structure of the mountain.

There is supposed to be a big cavity, a large void.

The tomb is below our feet, we're standing right at the centre.

♪♪

LIN: With the data that they have collected so far,

the archaeologists believe that the tomb might still be intact.

Using this data, we can now reveal what lies below.

♪♪

This pyramid-shaped mountain is entirely man-made.

Each side is a quarter of a mile long.

♪♪

Within it, a stone structure 410 feet wide,

476 feet long, with walls 45 feet tall.

♪♪

At the base is an inverted pyramid descending further into the ground.

The burial chamber lies at the very bottom.

♪♪

And there is one piece of evidence to suggest

that the greatest legend about the tomb is true.

This whole pyramid is riddled with high concentrations of mercury,

consistent with there being rivers of liquid metal below.

♪♪

♪♪

(birds chirping)

Within this tomb lies a man of vision and ruthless determination.

♪♪

A military leader who achieves the seemingly impossible.

♪♪

Unifying seven warring states to form China.

♪♪

He has the vision for the Great Wall

and builds this extraordinary tomb complex,

the largest in the world.

He's a modernizer, an inspiring leader of men,

but also cruel, murderous, and eventually mad.

♪♪

Above all, he laid the foundations of his nation.

♪♪

He believed it would endure for 10,000 generations.

And in a sense, he might be right.

Even though his dynasty didn't last past the second emperor,

his vision did.

This nation, his nation, China, lives on.

Captioned by VITAC