Once inside the Museum of Qin Dynasty Terracotta Warriors and
Battle Steeds, you'll find a huge army silent for well over 2,000 years. In No. 1 pit, there are 6,000 warriors standing in full attention, along with four wooden chariot models. These figurines are in neat formations, with 210 crossbow men in three columns serving as the vanguard. Behind the vanguard there are foot soldiers and chariots in 38 columns. Soldiers of the last column, facing the opposite direction, obviously serve as the rear guard. At either side of the columns there are soldiers protecting the flank. In the No. 2 pit we find 89 chariots driven by 356 horses, more than 900 foot soldiers and 116 battle steeds.
It is highly possible that these are real battle formations, and that armor suits "worn" by the warriors are imitations of real things. Foot soldiers "wear" short armor pieces, relative to those for their comrades on war chariots. Analysis of the designs leads to the conclusion that real soldiers must have armor pieces of animal hide. The horses all have their manes cut short and their tails tied, possibly to facilitate movement in real battles. Though not real these terracotta warriors and horses bring history back to life . It is with this huge army that Emperor Shi Huang defeated the six states to the east of his kingdom and unified China. and the same "army" have stood guard for the emperor in the nether world.
Life-sized terracotta figures such as those found in Emperor Shi Huang's tomb in huge numbers had never been produced before the Qin Dynasty and were not to be produced in the following dynasties. We may safely say that those terracotta figures supposedly guarding the emperor's tomb are unprecedented and unrepeatable. While serving as material evidence to the might of the dynasty the magnitude of labor, financial and material resources used for their production brings to light the ruthlessness of the emperor, a most notorious dictator in the Chinese history. |
