Xian, home of the 8th wonder of the world +...

Today I participated in a day tour of Xian, which allowed me to visit a few places. The two most memorable places, being the chinese winter palace and the tomb of the first emperor of china.

Winter palace of the 1st Chinese dynasty (Qing)
Interesting story: One of the Qin dynasty emperors had one of the most beautiful concubines (one of thousands of concubines that the emperor had all over China), and she was unique because she never smiled. The emperor wanted to make her smile and offered a prize of 1000 pieces of gold to the person that made her laugh. One of his generals had an idea and asked the emperor to bring him and his concubine to the winter palace. In the palace (as in most palaces) smoke was used to bring all soldiers to temple to protect it and against war. That night the general asked the smoke to be created and caused hundreds of the soldiers and generals to come to the winter palace. Upon arrival the soldiers were surprised to find nothing but the emperor and his concubine. The concubine found the situation funny and laughed, the general got his 1000 pieces of gold, and other generals and soldiers were quite angry at the joke. A few years later when there was actually a war coming and the emperor needed his army to protect him he caused the smoke to be created . Unfortunately this time the army did not believe the emperor and decided not to come (since they figured it was another joke being played by the emperor). As a result the emperor was killed.

The 8th wonder of the world the Terracota Warriors:
Upon ascending the throne at the age of 13 (in 246 BC), Qin Shi Huang, later the first Emperor of all China, had work begun on his mausoleum. It took 11 years to finish. It is speculated that many buried treasures and sacrificial objects had accompanied the emperor in his after life.
In 1974 a lucky farmer found the remains of some of the terracotta warriors when digging a well. Since then over 6 massive pits have been found surrounding the man made hill where the emperor is believed to be buried. To this day excavations still continue in the area, since nobody knows just how large Qin made his mausoleum. The manmade hill where the emperor is believed to be buried is left untouched, because to this day we have not figured out how to prevent his decay once we unbury him....