丞相綰、御史大夫劫、廷尉斯等皆曰：「昔者五帝地方千里，其外侯服夷服諸侯或朝或否，天子不能制。今陛下興義兵，誅殘賊，平定天下，海內為郡縣，法令由一統，自上古以來未嘗有，五帝所不及。臣等謹與博士議曰：『古有天皇，有地皇，有泰皇，泰皇最貴。』臣等昧死上尊號，王為『泰皇』。命為『制』，令為『詔』，天子自稱曰『朕』。」

 

Prime Minister Wan[1], Censor Jie[2], Minister of Justice Si[3] and various others all said[4], "In the past, the Five Emperors[5] had lands of only a thousand li square. Outside of this were the marches and the lands of the barbarians. Of their vassals, some came to pay homage in their courts and others did not - the Son of Heaven could not compel them. Now Your Majesty has raised righteous armies, executed the unlawful, pacified All-Under-Heaven, made provinces of all within the four seas and established a unified legal system. From ancient times until today, this is something that has never yet been done - something that not even the Five Emperors achieved. Your servants have consulted carefully with the scholars, who said, 'In antiquity there were Heavenly Emperors, Earthly Emperors, and Emperors of Qin, with the Emperors of Qin being the greatest.' We therefore willingly risk a capital sanction to humbly offer up the title 'Emperor of Qin' for Your Majesty's consideration. When the Son of Heaven gives a command it will be called an order, when he issues an instruction it will be called an edict, and when he refers to himself, he will do so using the pronoun zhen[6]."[7]

 

[1] Wang Wan. Relatively little is known about him beyond the fact that he favoured a reestablishment of feudalism, with distant commanderies being granted to Qin Shihuang's relations, which Li Si opposed.

[2] Feng Jie would later join Li Si in protesting against Qin Ershi's extravagance, finally killing himself rather than meet the same end as Li Si.

[3] I.e. Li Si.

[4] This is in response to an announcement by King Zheng of Qin that, having unified the empire, he should take a new name.

[5] These were semi-legendary founding fathers. The precise individuals vary according to the source.

[6] It was normal for sovereigns to use a variety of royal pronouns at the time (though Yin Zheng had a marked tendency to drop into vernacular speech when making casual remarks), but zhen was an archaicism which had not been used for some time.

[7] The King responds to this with: "Drop the Qin. I'll keep the Emperor (Huang) part and add in the antique "di" suffix. The full title will be 'Huangdi'. Everything else will be done as you say."