Skibbies

i'm always bad at casting actors, it's always going nope at actors, rather than coming up with people who *could* play certain actor. All the actors I can think of are too old, since you need certain charisma and aura to play as an emperor, especially one with that many achievements. I think casting teenage Ying Zheng would be lot easier, since I just need their age to be in the range + can act. e.g. Bad Kids' two boys could work,

There's no reason Lao Ai would get this much time, *complains loudly over and over again* He's not Lv Buwei, I'd complain about Lv Buwei too, let along him.

unrelated, i think cctv is trolling me. cctv 3 have a variety show called national treasure, and they have small bit of reenactment of some fictional story they made up for certain artefacts, to lead up to introducing certain national treasure. yesterday's ep is on terracotta armies' museum, they had Fu Dalong (Qin Empire 2's Ying Si's actor) and he played Ying Zheng!!! i'm so mad!!! I want him as Ying Zheng here!!

All the dramas you listed are webdramas, winter begonia was cut for tv broadcast (i still haven't watched it so i'm not sure why). the 40 ep rule isn't actually that strict, it's a suggested thing, serenade of peaceful joy is 69 ep and aired on primetime hunan tv. It could be more strictly enforced because this is cctv? The primetime restriction per year on historical dramas (i forgot how much, less than 100 ep probably, 80?) also only applies to other tv stations, cctv doesn't follow it, but it rarely air historical dramas anyways.

This drama also goes through more stringent review i think, due to it being reviewed under "important historical drama", there's grand total of TWO dramas in the last 5 years that was filmed under the category i think (The other is Young Marshal). All the other dramas, including the vaguely historical fact-y ones like serenade are under "historical legend" or something, so it leans towards fictional side and it's easier to pass. Apparently, the script has to be reviewed before even filming for this drama, I'm guessing they sent the old script, but this new script have so much questionable dialogues lol.

Oh I had a look, the drama could be lining up with the novel events? even though the first part would be like 45 ep or something, idk. anyways, the rules are always hilariously vague and change all the time, and sometimes they will go back on their rules.

You are correct, the drama finished filming early last year, and will be airing back to back. It's functionally the same drama, the tv broadcast doesn't even have the part 1 labeled. This is the last of the franchise they'll do, as the IP (a series of novels that love Qin to hell and back, only the first drama follow it closely, the rest is more history + original script) expired last year? It's supposed to be based on the fourth and fifth book of the series thus the length, but that's kinda moot now. There's a sixth one about downfall of Qin, but I don't think that was ever in the plans for adaptation,

Rumour has it we won't get to 235 BC till almost ep 60 :) (cctv previews for ep 57?) 37 ~ 40 should be 239 BC. I want to have a talk with whoever that paced the drama. I really don't think we need that many ep on the current arc. I'm glad we are seeing some groundwork for unifying writings and measurement system offhandedly mention (that one single line, i thought they'd skip over it), but ugh this pacing. I thought they simplified things because they completely kicked Dowager Xia out of the power struggle super early in the drama, but no, they just added it to somewhere else ahhhhhhh.

the drama was filmed in one go and they are airing back to back, so it's functionally the same drama. I was looking at previews to check on its pacing, and it's really not going the way i want (pacing to be faster so we can get over this arc of ascending to power) tv broadcast is on ep 32, airing 3 ep today (today's will start in 15mins), tencent and iqiyi vip is on 36, but will get update of 3 episodes in 15mins. The whole drama will be 40+38 ep, so 78 and will finish on I think 26th?

hahaha. I'm only good at doing travel plans, and not really explaining stuff. and yes! that's the same mountain :D

I feel you, I often start too many dramas lol, and I also watch anime and other stuff too oops.

hahaha. a lot of stuff I learn from wiki'ing XD

Yeah they should but the drama's focus have been more off than I thought tbh. Yeah they are brothers, same age as Ying Zheng. When i say have control over the court, I mean that he's not under influence of Lv Buwei + Zhao Ji due to being too young or them being too powerful.

Near terracotta army, you can also see the beacon tower mentioned in ep 24 + a resort palace built in Tang dynasty (some of it is remnant, a lot of it are recounstructions I think? I skipped it when I went cos there wasn't subways). In the city itself, there's a Tang-style recounstruction park that's apparently rather pretty, and a museum with all these stone tablets, awesome for calligraphy lovers. Xi'an is also half an hour bullet train from Hua shan, one of the more well known mountains in China, largely for how steep and dangerous it is, these days it's well known for the plank of wood on the side of cliffs that brave people like to challenge. /sounds like a tour guide LOL.

Sima Qian's record is also based on Qin's own historical record (that was subsequently lost in Han dynasty so lol), which is how he could straighten out some of the dates etc.

I think you are right on the elixir, he died at 49, which isn't that bad for an emperor, especially considering the amount of stuff he managed to do. On his love life, yeah he doesn't have an empress and there's no record of any of the consorts, not even his two more well known kids' mother, his other kids aren't named either.

I think terracotta army (they JUST opened the subway to it, so you don't have to take the tour bus anymore) + the museum (in the middle of the city) alone is worth it. I think it's cooler than the forbidden city lol. They are still digging up stuff because subways or people building apartments (or in uni's case, they were building dorms I think) and then they run into artefacts.

Jing Ke's assassination is as real as they come, but I've never saw the movie. No doubt Han might have smeared against Qin, but I don't think they would just make up events, make up motivation and exaggerate the tragedy/overplaying importance, sure. There's only 100 years gap between then and these records, so it's probably not THAT far off? well, even if it is, we'd never know lol.

Xi'an is hilarious, they spent 10 years building one of the lines of their metro/subway, because they kept running into archeological artefacts. There's a lot of jokes about the city, 'hey everyone, today we'll learn about this *shows ppt*' vs "ok kids, take your shovel, we are going to do some digging" xD I think one of their uni, the northwest uni of polsci and law? dug up the ancestors of lawyers? Oh yeah, Zhang Tang 张汤. Subsequently, all the kids would bring offerings to him before exam hahahaha.

As for the mausoleum, it's hard to know what's inside and how much would be oxidised or affected if they dug it up. These days, I think archeology are doing emergency digging to preserve the content, as is the case with terracotta (they had vibrant paint when they dug them up!). People's that's more superstitious also think we shouldn't disturb his grave, since he might curse us ahahhaha.

You can't call him Qin Shi Huang yet technically, he's just a Qin King. Like his ancestors weren't always King, so their title was different too (they were a duke at some point? It was only in Qin Empire 2 that Qin had a King) All the states specifically have kings 王 (wang), their first person pronouns is this lonely person 寡人 (gua ren) in the drama, the Zhou King is a king of heaven 天王 (tian wang), pronoun is alone 孤 (gu). you are correct that he specifically created the emperor title 皇帝 (huang di), first person pronoun 朕 (zhen). Huang & Di existed before, from mythical times (and in Shang dynasty, it's Di), Ying Zheng combined the two because he thinks he's as great as "three huang & five di" from the myths, and all the emperors followed him.

As for the mausoleum, it's mentioned in passing, they tried to send the Zhao Prince to it at some point, but it's just referred to as the mausoleum, so it could be his dad/ancestors. I guess there might be more details when he's close to his death? Great wall mhmm, Ying Zheng mentions a story about beacon tower from end of Spring & Autumn around ep 26?, that technically could be about Great Wall? It existed before his time, he just joined various states's pieces together. Like the mausoleum, they don't actually need that long to really cover it. The general that oversaw it is one of the two Meng generals that are bodyguards of Ying Zheng.

Judging by ep 42 preview and cctv's 46 preview, he still doesn't have control over the court lololol. I think this bit is too stretched out, not a fan tbh.

Zhao was the last state that was reasonably powerful, in the recent 100 years, Wei, Qi & Chu were all previously powerful at various times and they declined due to average kings + took heavy tolls during various battles, Zhao was already knocked down half a peck just before the start of the drama (Battle of Chang Ping, it's in Qin Empire 3). Come to think of it, it has two of the Four Generals of Warring States (Lian Po & Li Mu), Qin has the other two (Bai Qi, who died before start of the drama and Wang Jian)

I think they slowed down in pacing tbh, judging by the major events that follows, Ying Zheng probably only have full control over the court in ep 4x if not 50, and then he took 17 years to conquer all the kingdoms. I'm not sure where they'd end the drama, does it end at just conquer and unifying and will it show the effort that went into standarisation? I don't think it'd be 20 episodes of battle mhmm. I doubt they'll show how Qin got overthrown...but that'd be interesting.

absolutely! while I wouldn't call his tyranny *justified*, there's definitely reasons for the strict enforcement of laws and plans on his way to unification. I remember reading somewhere the burning book thing is partially documents being confiscated and restricted to quickly unify 'way of thinking", he's not the first nor the last person to do so.

the book is happy ending, it's huge change from the book but i'd still guess yes?

they've been doing it for the entire year, it's so annoying. but i guess they are making enough profit to put up with the yelling and pirated videos.

tencent has a vvip starting on the 16th (wed), where you can get 6 more extra ep on top of the vip episodes at the end of the week. so it's 30 + 6 + 6 = 42, so the schedule is correct.
https://i.mydramalist.com/X1opx_3f.jpg

I always find the period confusing too, warring states is ok-ish since there's mostly just 7 states, spring & autumn is even worse for me lol. I like dramas for this reason, it helps me familiarise myself with large amount of people, and it's far easier to read tidbits of history when I have an idea who's who.

History is more racy and outrageous than the drama is. It touches on some of it, but skipped on them of the rumours, I'll mention them when you get there XD

he'd get yelled at LOL, i don't want him get yelled at, i'd still only accept him as 20 something, not starting at 13.