Terracotta Warriors

I just watched Nova's "Emperor's Ghost Army." Mainly because Noah is getting a chess set made of Terracotta warriors for Christmas. The program put Jonah to sleep as well, which was good.
One thing that was fascinating was the weapons were ll real high grade weapons that hadn't been used before. You get the sense during the whole thing that Qin Shi Huang had everyone do all this stuff not just for him, but for his tomb and kind of as a secret too. We only just found the terracotta warriors in the 70's. They were discovered by some farmers digging a well during a drought.
Kind of makes you think, "Wouldn't it have been nice if the guy decided to make something so big and grand for this life, and maybe for everyone? What a jerk."

I was even more intrigued by the crossbow. I had heard about it before but it was nice to see a guy fire a replica. Basically there was a trigger and then this wooden piece that would fit onto ANY bow. It's slower than shooting a bow and arrow regular if you are a real archer. But it's much faster than the European cross bow, plus since they loaded the thing with their legs, chances are the bows had a serious draw weight.
In Hero they show them shooting the bows from a lying position. But this guy showed that was how you drew it, but that you fired it like a rifle or a shotgun. In fact, it is as easy to fire as a shotgun, if not easier. You can learn how to use it on the battle field in two minutes.

Basically Qin's army was no joke. And he buries all these weapons just for him. And then of course his Empire collapses shortly after his death.

Then they talk about how they got people to do all this for him. Not just slave labor, but all of society was under Legalism. A lot like Communism under Mao, except when Mao tried to get steel made it messed it up real bad. Qin's China was all the horror and terror, only they got stuff done right, all the details were on point. The end makes a comparison to Modern China.
Not sure about that. But those warriors basically shows Chinese culture and even Japanese and Korean Culture right there, or at least the problems with it. That's how Kung Fu is taught anyway, Top down, punishment and rewards, have your neighbors responsible for each other. I mean in the states there is a lot of American influence and even in Southern China there is a lot of U.S. cultural influence. I definitely noticed how some of the ritual conversations my Sifu lead were very Democratic where everyone got a turn to talk. Even as an American Youth I found some of this tiresome and annoying. I only mention it to show that as a difference between how class was taught, which was very top down. It was like two systems of thought, and a lot of students mentioned that they learned the most after class. But without that top down class, would anyone have good basics?

How were the cultures of the other 7 countries that got conquered by Qin? Less Top down? You will notice a lot of older Chinese people want a top down style class, where as more Americanized ones want to talk more. Obviously Qin was able to get stuff down with the Top down approach, and even though it seems like everyone hated it, it seems like Chinese Culture kind of says, "well when it really needs to be done that approach has always worked the best." That's how he Shaolin monks nowadays are trained it seems like. There is nothing about Buddhism that would say learning like that is the only way to do it.


I wonder though,  who invented that cross bow. It wasn't Qin himself. Did he get stuff done or hold everyone back by making them all work on his stupid tomb for 37 years? What could they have achieved without him? Yeah Qin wouldn't have conquered the other 6 States. That would have meant more wars, but it also would have meant competition between countries. What of ideas were shared often and the push was toward bettering society instead of this guys tomb? What if he created something more like the EU instead of China?

I mean would it have been possible for that ancient culture to invent airplanes in 37 years instead and perhaps even rocket ships? The more I learned about their ancient technology and attention to detail over items to be used for death, some other guys death, and looking at how Google and other companies operate now, I think Qin  held us all back. These things were invented by people hundreds of years before him. Plus he stared with the book burning. It's cool that we can dig up these warriors and see how life was back then, but imagine how much more could have been done if the geniuses working on this tomb were allowed to work on stuff they wanted to work on too.

I guess what I am saying is after two years of Kung Fu I was an enforcer of an instructor. I demanded that the newer students (often older than I was) have a high standard. Not as high as the standard for myself, but I guess I bullied, when what were we doing? A Kung Fu Form? A dance? So I cared about it. But that doesn't mean I should force them and be a bully about it. I didn't beat or cut anyone, but I was harsher with my words than was necessary. At the same time,  I did produce some pretty good performances from people... before they quit.

As I eased up, people still quit anyway and people I taught in the past would still come back and start again or say they wish they had more time to practice or someone to force them etc.

I guess what I am saying is there needs to be a balance. All Qin all the way is no good. In fact maybe stay away from that method as much as possible except when it's like some sort of exercise in discipline. Like, "Let's try it this way for a week and then talk about where it got us."