HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE EMPLOYED IN THE MAUSOLEUM CONSTRUCTION ARMY?

   With regard to the huge army of mausoleum builders,many academic works have generally put it at more than 700 thousand.But if we carefully analyze the historical background of the various stages of the mausoleum construction,it is not difficult to find that the number of people devoted to each of the three stages is not at all the same.The number of workers at its peak even exceeds 700 thousand.Take the preliminary stage of the mausoleum construction as an example. 

  Therefore it is difficult to verify how~ -many people exactly were devoted to the mausoleum construction at its preliminary stage, for the lack of records in history books. The second stage of the nausuleum construction just coincided with the time when the First Emperor of Qin fifitilled his historical accomplishment of uni- fying China. In terms of the First Emperor personally, it was very like- ly for him lo shift his attention from the war to the mausoleum construc- tion work. In terms of the country's real condition, it was only during this period of time that there was the pessibihty to transfer here a lot of human and material resources from different parts of China for the mau- soleum construction. Therefore, the number of people put in the mau- soleum construction during this stage is clearly recorded by Sirra Qiac in his "The Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin" in Records of the Historian: "As soon as the First Emperor became king of Qin, ex- cavations and building had been started at Mount Li, while after he won the empire, more titan 700,000 conseripts from all parts of the  country worked there." The record shows that the number of workers  increased at that time is over 700 thousand. If the original number of  people in the preliminary stage is added to this figure, one can esti-  male that the total number should not be less than 800 thousand. But  during the last stage of the consmretion, there was a slight decline in  the number of workers. At first, in the 35th year of the First Emperor's  reign, part of them was transferred to the Afang Palace tor its construc-  tion. In the 37th year of the First Emperor's reign (209 B. C. ), after  he was buried, that part of the people at the Mang Palace was sent  back here to join the construction work in covering up the mansoleum.  In April of the first year of the Second Emperor's reign (209 B. C. ),  alter the task to bury the mausoleum was fulfilled, part of the people  was transferred to the Mang Palace for its construction. The remaining  tens of thousand people were put under Minister Zhang Han's command  to fight against the peasant uprising forces led by Zhou Wen. After  eight or nine months of vigorous fighting, "approximately a hundred thousand of them were lost." When the entire army surrendered lo Xi-ang Yu, the Chu general, there only remained 200 odd thousand peo-pie. This army of 200 odd thousand mausoleum constructors was allburied alive over night by the Chu army. Alas, the lives of severalhundred thousand mausoleum constructors 'all came to such an end.