Ancient Chinese History Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ying Zheng

Qin Shi Huang was born Ying Zheng. Ying was the family name of the State of Qin. He was made King of Qin at age thirteen upon his father's death. He simply changed his title to First Emperor of Qin upon uniting China.

Answer: Ying Ziying

Ying Ziying ruled for less than 50 days. He also avenged the death of original Qin Crown Prince Fusu and Fusu's brother Huhai, who had been installed as a puppet emperor.

Answer: Zhao Gao

Wang Cheng'en served the last Ming Dynasty Emperor, Zhu Youjian, or Emperor Chongzhen. Wang would be the only loyal subject of the doomed emperor to stay at his side to the end. He would serve as the Emperor's scaffold when he hanged himself and hid the dead emperor's body before killing himself. Gao Lishi was the only servant of Emperor Xuangzong to stay with him after his forced abdication. Upon the aging emperor's death, Gao began coughing blood and died, too. Cai Lun is credited with inventing paper, and Zhao Gao was famous for usurping the throne and killing the crown prince of the Qin Dynasty.

Answer: A zither and a dress

Zhuge Liang once played a zither in front of a empty fort to convince the enemy there was an ambush. He also sent a women's dress to an enemy officer to agitate him.

Answer: Zhui, his horse

Only Zhui and Lady Yu were real people:) Lady Yu was believed to have been in despair that Xiang Yu's love for her was why he was about to lose. After singing and drinking with her husband a final time, she had slit her throat at least one night before Unfortunately, along with her also went a large portion of Xiang Yu's will to live.

His warhorse Zhui had been his mount since the time he had rebelled against the late Qin Dynasty. There are accounts that he had jumped off the boat and drowned when Xiang Yu died, but records state the horse made it back to Chu State.

Answer: Force the moon to hide

Each of these describes one of the four ancient beauties; Xi Shi, Wang Zhaojun, Diaochan, and Yang Guifei (Yuhuan).

Answer: Grenade

The hand grenade was first employed by the Japanese in their desperate preparations for fighting off the Mongolian fleet that had been sent by Kublai Khan. However, a famous typhoon (it's the namesake of the method used for delivering bombs or their equivalent on target both on 9/11 and in World War II) destroyed the fleet before much action was seen.

Answer: Qi Ji Guan

Qi Ji Guan planned and supervised the construction of the current Great Wall. General Meng Tian was one of the first supervisors of the project a thousand years earlier during the Qin Dynasty. Yue Fei fought many battles against the nomads the wall had been built to protect, but the defense line had long been bypassed by the enemy by the time he was promoted to a general of the Song Dynasty. Wu San Gui also was greatly related to the wall, but he is better known for opening it to the Manchu, who then invaded and set up the Qing Dynasty in China.

Answer: Birth Mother

Wei Zifu was the second Empress of Emperor Wu of Han. She was also his sister in law, as the emperor older sister Princess Pingyang was married to Empress Wei's half-brother, Wei Qing. She was also the great grandmother of Emperor Xuan. However, while she gave birth to a son, Crown Prince Li, both were forced to commit suicide after being framed. Emperor Wu quickly realized his mistake and executed every one who had benefited from the Empress and Crown Prince's deaths.

Answer: Taking his life before surrendering his fleet

Ding Ruchang committed suicide by opium overdose at his headquarters after defeat became inevitable. While this earned him the respect of the Japanese, who considered his death to be in line with their own code of honor, Bushido, (which was adopted from the Chinese in the past) which placed death before dishonor, in this case defeat.

However, the Chinese government stripped him of all ranks and honors and refused to give him a proper burial, making him a scapegoat for the defeat at the Battle of the Yalu River

Answer: Merchant

Liu Bang was rumored to have at one time lived in poverty as a beggar. He also was a fugitive after he saved a group of slaves he had been tasked with bringing to the Great Wall from certain doom by exhaustion. He was made Duke of Pei, to replace the recently murdered Magistrate shortly before he actually rebelled.

Answer: He nearly drowned and died of sickness

Zhao Shi was only a child when made emperor. Shortly after, his boat flipped and he died of disease a month later. His younger brother Zhao Bing then replaced him. The Song court and army had fled onto the sea, and were obliterated at the Battle of Yamen. Seeing that all hope was lost, a loyal official took the emperor to the edge of the flagship and they jumped togehter to their deaths to avoid capture.

Many servants and officials followed suit.

Answer: Byzantine Empire

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire the Chinese would sometimes receive envoys and ambassadors from the Byzantine Empire. Due to their similar facial features (by Chinese standards) and apparent religion (also by Chinese standards), along with clothing and standards of etiquette, the Chinese would often confuse them with be Western Roman Empire.

The Ancient Chinese had little if any contact with the other 3.

Answer: The Jin Dynasty

As the Jurchen Jin Dynasty was posing a threat to both, they agreed to a truce, which lasted until the end of the Jin, which simply meant the Mongolians now turned their eyes on China.

Answer: He died of disease when the future emperor was a child

Along with most of the future Emperor's family, his father had died during a famine when the future Emperor was only a child. At that time, they were only commoners, and had no money. Along with his one surviving brother, the two had begged on the streets until they had enough money to buy coffins for their relatives.

Answer: Map showing the Qin ruling all of China

Jing Ke's attempt failed, even though the King's guards dared not to intervene, as it was punishable by death to come within throwing distance of the King. The King of Qin actually failed to draw his sword because it was too long, and only survived after a doctor threw a bag of medicine at the assassin, which knocked Jing Ke over, giving the king time to arm himself.

The doctor was later awarded by being allowed to fill his medicine bag from anything in the treasury.

Answer: Gunpowder and mercury

Mercury was once presented to the First Emperor, with a doctor claiming it could prolong life. However, it instead shortened the life span of the emperor, taking away what few years he actually had left. In the Song Dynasty, a Chinese scientist created a flammable substance he claimed could greatly prolong life.

Instead, it became part of one of the most commonly used weapons in the world.

Answer: Wife

Due to her beauty, the Emperor had actually forced 18th Prince Mao to divorce his wife in order for his father to marry her. However, in remembrance of his previous wife, whom he had also been madly in love with, Emperor Xuanzong never made Yang empress, but let her hold the second highest title, first consort, which was the highest position held by the Emperor's previous wife before she passed away. Prince Mao was then given a new wife, who while was said to still have had a face with above average beauty, was nothing close to a match against Yang. (His ex wife was now his stepmother.)

Answer: Zu Chongzhi

Zu also made the most accurate pre-modern prediction for the length of Jupiter's year (off by less than 0.5 days) and calculated the number of sun-moon overlaps, missing the actual accepted value by a hundredth or a thousandth.

Answer: Shu Han

Liu Bei's lands were referred to as Shu Han. While his kingdom was known as Shu, he himself was a direct descendent of the Imperial Family of the Han Dynasty, at that time nearly completely collapsed, with the current emperor nothing more than a puppet of Cao Cao.

Therefore, Liu Bei had in fact come to power promising to restore the Han Dynasty to its former glory. After the death of the puppet emperor, Liu Bei himself was made "emperor" of Shu Han, though he and his opponents, who all have claimed that they themselves were the rightful emperor, battled each other for supremacy, leading there to be multiple emperor's claiming sovereignty over China.