I Am The First Emperor And

Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian records that Qin Shi Huang proclaimed himself the First Emperor (Shi Huangdi) in 221 BCE, adopting a new title — huangdi — that combined the terms for the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. He declared that his successors would be numbered Second Emperor, Third Emperor, and so on for ten thousand generations. In practice, the Qin dynasty lasted only 15 years after his death in 210 BCE; his second son Qin Er Shi proved unable to hold the empire together, and the Han dynasty replaced Qin by 206 BCE.