...Few know what you are...

After a harrowing series of events that have happened in the recent weeks, I finally took a small break (by watching a movie that is related to my coursework, how sad). I was rewatching Zhang Yi Mou's Hero (starring Jet Li, Tony Leong, Maggie Cheung and Donnie Yen) to observe the lighting and colour concepts used in the movie.

That is not what I will talk about in this post.

The Qin Emperor, also known as the First Emperor of China, Shi Huang Ti, has always been demonized in the accounts of Chinese Literature and myths that I have been exposed to in school. Sure, he was a great general who managed to capture and unite all the warring states of China, and build architectural wonders such as the Great Wall, but all this came a a great price of untold human suffering and death. Therefore, it has always been concluded that he, like some of the other monarchs and rulers of history, is a cruel tyrant and oppressor.

In The Prince and The Discourses, Niccolo Machiavelli states that: "to reconstitute political life in a state presupposes a good man, whereas to have recourse to violence in order to make oneself prince in a republic supposes a bad man. Hence very rarely will there be found a good man ready to use bad methods in order to make himself prince, though with a good end in view.

"Nor will any reasonable man blame him for taking any action, however extraordinary, which may be of service in the organizing of a kingdom or the constitution of a republic. It is a sound maxim that reprehensible actions may be justified by their effects, and that when the effect is good, it always justifies the action. For it is the man who uses violence to spoil things, not the man who uses it to mend them, that is blameworthy."

A Prince should therefore disregard the reproach of being thought cruel where it enables him to keep his subjects united and loyal. For he who quells disorder by a very few signal examples will in the end be more merciful that he who from too great leniency permits things to take their course and so result in chaos and bloodshed; for these hurt the whole state, whereas the severities of the Prince injure individuals only.

It is essential therefore, for a Prince who desires to maintain his position, to have learned how to be other than good, and to use or not his goodness as necessity requires.

Everyone sees what you seem to be, but few know what you are."

Sometimes, it can be lonely at the top. It can be lonely being a leader. You may be criticised, you may be slandered, disliked, hated, or even rebelled against. But that is the price of being a leader. To take up individual suffering in order that the organisation or institution can prosper. In order to keep order and peace, a leader must instill discipline, and to make all united the leader must be the uniting factor.

Everyone sees what you seem to be, but few know what you are. This rings true and deep to me. It summarizes the whole ordeal I have been dealing with all my life. And gives me the strength to continue in what I have been doing, believing that one day, it will all be worthwhile.

The Qin Emperor might have really been a tyrant, or he was just trying to end a war that has been going on for centuries, and uniting a group of opposing states into a nation of true strength have brought peace to the land for many years to come. There were many individuals who suffered in the process, but it was for "the greater good".