Biography
Meng Yi was the younger brother of the general Meng Tian. During the later years of Qin Shi Huang's reign, he became the closest and most trusted of the emperor's advisors. He received the honour of riding with the emperor in the emperor's personal carriage and being allowed to stand in the emperor's presence.
In his early career, Meng Yi sentenced the eunuch Zhao Gao to death, but Zhao was pardoned by Qin Shi Huang later, and he harboured a grudge against the Mengs for that. After the death of Qin Shi Huang, Zhao Gao and the chancellor Li Si falsified the emperor's last edict, naming prince Huhai as the successor to the throne, instead of the crown prince Fusu.
Fusu and Meng Tian, who were away at the northern border at the time of Qin Shi Huang's death, committed suicide as ordered in the fake edict. Meng Yi was arrested and later executed on false charges.
Read more about this topic: Meng Yi
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“The death of Irving, which at any other time would have attracted universal attention, having occurred while these things were transpiring, went almost unobserved. I shall have to read of it in the biography of authors.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)