Skibbies

hehe i think they just didn't filmed it. there's more mhmmmm situations later in the drama.

I'm checking wiki and noting historical dates, even though the drama is fairly helpful and will note most of them, but sometimes the dates are fuzzy. I guess time move too slow for Gan Luo like it move too fast for Ying Zheng LOL.

lol China gets slapped with propoganda label (with a huge implied "fake" due to impression) even listing checkable facts. also the chinese pr department is UTTERLY terrible, i'm not sure i've ever seen them do *good* pr moves.

omg i didn't know it has a name, there's also a tiny small bit on the bottom, you know the ugly one ning yi had, yeah that one.

ahahha no worries ;D spring & autumn and warring states is where a looooooot of proverb originated, it's always interesting when it shows up in dramas.

The 12 year old i can at least buy as a teenager....lol. also technically he should be 10, since he's on record to be 12 on a diplomatic mission later in the drama, 2 years later. *shakes head*

I always thought uncle pulled 180 because he fell in love with Zhao Ji and they had an affair. It's totally implied, otherwise him being so easily convinced doesn't make sense, and it took the whole night!!

h e l p me!! my boy is only 19 (technically probably 18), and they stuck a moustache on him! As if he doesn't look old enough already! I can't take his fairly young looking mum telling a bearded Zhang Luyi, you are a child! (the actress is actually younger, now that I think about it) Sure, men from ancient china all have facial hair, but can't he grow them when he's like 30??????? The moustache is so ugly too, it looks skeevy sometimes, couldn't they give him a bigger one.........

lol, well western world have lot of misconception about the world in general. You never see mentions of China in astronomy despite the fact every emperor had people record movements of stars. I know language barrier is a thing but if someone just sit down for one second and think about it.....

毛遂自荐！But they didn't show it in the drama lol, he promoted himself to Zhao Sheng, 战国四公子之一, it's the guy that had a heart attack in court.

Yeah 秦孝公 (Qin Empire 1) laid the groundwork with legal 7 political reform, then it was strategies and fighting to gain grounds with his great great grandpa + great grandpa. They almost got conquered before but geography 函谷关 helped a little.

It's likely they'll be paired together. But second female lead likes male lead, while second male lead is male lead's friend, SFL is also FL's bff so they probably aren't going to fight over ML or something. I haven't seen the love rival for male lead yet, which is traditionally what second male lead would be.

He wasn't really super well regarded in ancient China, a lot of people's impression of him is his cruelty? Qin & him are both pro legalist I think? So he's fairly anti-Confucius (when post-Han are pro-Confucius, at least on the surface), so historians don't really like him. Modern China also consider him as amazing and deserve his ace spot, but isn't shy to criticise him for cruelty and more questionable decisions.

Anyways, the scholar thing seems debated? Some think it's daoist monks (?) that were order to look for elixir ran away so he got mad and killed a lot of them. Some think it's scholars, then there's some that think there were both.

He doesn't have a choice. Qin at the start of the drama was already at the point of easily overpower any kingdom. They have to band together to even fight against Qin, but they keep failing because everyone have their own agenda and they don't have an awesome strategist that could convince everyone to really push Qin back. Battle of Chang Ping cost Qin a lot of people, and they lost an incredible general Bai Qi because he refused to listen king Ying Ji's orders. Anyways. even with that, Qin was fighting just outside of Zhao's capital, thus Battle of Han Dan.

Qin specifically asked for crown prince, so mhm. Although the Zhao King is hilariously flip floppy in this drama, one minute it's all YEAH LET'S HIT THEM while they have a kid on the throne, then the next it's all, u know what, let's wait for all the other kingdoms too.

Idk what's up with Mao Sui LOL, I guess he was promised awesome power or something. i only know him from the proverb....LOL

I'm glad your mum loves it :D this whole series deserves more love.

i only remember two of his kids LOL. but yeah his mum messed him up, I think power struggle early in his life didn't help either, since it's not just his mum but grandma and father-figure Lv Buwei too.

I'm guessing they are, but just as super side thing, there's no other reason for her to be there, unless she's like a spy? The previous installments insert romance here and there, it's common in drama as well, but they are not going to be central to the plot. They might just need a little romance to spice it up a little, and his two kids does need mother lol.

I get the impression she's fictional. Ying Zheng never had an empress or favourite lady or something.

Watch Qin Empire; alliance on netflix sometime, I think that excelled in showing several POV. It's the second installment, about Ying Zheng's great great grandpa.

Yes that entire sequence. You are right there's number of questionable lines but I brushed them off, but that sequence just looked like someone lifted it from an idol drama. I have no idea what were they thinking. Could have rewrote it in so many ways to get the message across.

Oh yeah the local one make you pay for more for TV. I'm surprised airplay doesn't work smoothly though? I think the few times I used it, it was alright? They should optimise it more mhmm. I've fallen behind on the episodes, but I'm going to watch it with my mum and I think she's behind anyways lol.

do you have iqiyi vip? cos it's on there as well. otherwise it updates at 12am following the cctv 8 broadcast, which is little rough mhmm. I can think of gazillion child actors/young and upcoming that could handle the role reasonably well. They could have have ZLY play post time skip Ying Zheng, when he's 21 or 22? and actually have power to the throne.

Did you see the really questionable dialogue in ep 11!!! I want to throw lego at whoever wrote it!

Take it easy if work is too busy! 3 ep a day is hard to keep up all the time lol. My knowledge of chinese history is super spotty too, I only have general vague impressions of things most of the time. it's usually because of dramas that i read a bit of actual history LOL.

Dowager MI was the de facto ruler for early part of his son's reign (the old king at the start of this drama), so she put in a lot of her own people. The king later removed fair amount of them but they still have influence, especially since another lady of Mi is a favourite. Mi a huge family though, the Chu king at the time + Qu Yuan (the poet! the guy we remember on Duan Wu!) were both from the Mi family. But Dowager Mi was actually a lowly status noble's daughter, because no one wanted actually marry to Qin since they were poor, far away and sort of seen as barbaric back then. /stuff I learnt from the previous two Qin Empire dramas lol.

Anyways, Hua Yang is a proper noble, distantly related to Chu King, judging by her surname. 芈姓，熊氏。Her influence is not just Mi family, it's also anyone with ties to Chu I'm guessing. The drama is actually a little weird in that Hua Yang shouldn't be backing Lady Han & Cheng Jiao, that's historically Lady Xia's alliance (Zichu's birth mother). IDK where they are going with this. Historically, Ying Zheng formed an alliance with her during his early reign I heard? He has it rough, 3 Dowagers (Chu/Hua Yang vs Han/Xia vs Zhao) + a fake dad.

oh oh someone on c!net commented the Han army wears purple, I don't remember if they appear in ep 8 yet, but it's minor. That was 250 BC, why are they wearing purple!!!! Purple isn't a easily found dye, it's expensive!!!

Well the drama kind of made it that great grandpa wanted Ying Zheng, so Yiren/Zichu was partially lucky due to that. She's a favourite despite her being barren, so she definitely have her ways. She also comes from the Mi family, and they are fairly established in the Qin court I think? Because of Empress Dowager Mi (who's...her...grandma-in-law?) As for the open challenge, i think it's partially exaggerated, and partially zichu (?) isn't strong enough to fight back, both personality and influence-wise. I think her level of importance is overstated in dialogue in ep 11? (there's some really questionable dialogues here and there.....)