Ziying of Qin

Ziying, also called Ying Ziying and King of Qin, was the third and last ruler of the Qin dynasty of China. He took the throne in the autumn of 207 BC after the eunuch Zhao Gao had forced the second emperor, Qin Er Shi, to his death, and he reigned for only 46 days. Because the empire had by then shrunk back to little more than the old Qin heartland of Guanzhong, Ziying took the lesser title of king instead of emperor. Ancient records disagree on how he was related to the royal house, and modern historians have argued over whether he was a nephew, a brother or a more distant kinsman of the earlier rulers. He is best remembered for luring the regent Zhao Gao into a trap and killing him, and then surrendering to the rebel leader Liu Bang at the capital Xianyang. He was later killed, together with his male family members, by the rebel leader Xiang Yu. Later writers judged him differently: Jia Yi thought him a mediocre sovereign, while Ban Gu praised how he ended the eunuch regency and spared lives by surrendering. In Chinese and Taoist temples he sometimes appears as a door god.