So far three separate pits have been discovered which represent the three sections of the army according to their ranks.

The first and the largest pit have the infantry, the second holds the cavalry and the third holds the officers. A fourth pit seems like it was meant for the supplies. The huge army built of terracotta or modified clay, buried thousands of years ago near the tomb of Emperor Qin, holds many mysteries in it.

However strange, but the reason behind building this entire, long and painstaking marvel is not impossible to understand — the powerful rulers of the past in many civilisations didn’t want their lives or wealth, in this world or the next, to be threatened in any way. Just like the pharaohs of ancient Egypt who buried their treasures with themselves and had themselves mummified, Emperor Qin took the whole idea even further by having his entire army built and buried with him to protect him from enemy attacks even in his afterlife.

The army is built facing enemy territory, between them and the tomb, which lies 1.5 kilometres away, situated in the Lingtong District, Xi’an, in the Shaanxi province of China. The material or soil for the construction of the soldiers dug from the nearby Mount Lishan. This form of funerary art has been seen in other places around the world but never at such a large scale and in so painstaking detail. But what are these soldiers guarding? Just their emperor or is there some other secret?

According to ancient texts and legends, under the Emperor’s tomb, there lies an entire necropolis of cities, oceans, rivers of mercury and even the sky complete with the celestial constellations.

Historian Sima Qian states that the construction of the mausoleum began in 246BC and had 700,000 workers toiling to their Emperor’s orders. Then six centuries later, geographer Li Daoyuan said that the reason for choosing this site could also be that it once had a gold mine towards its north and a jade mine towards the south and that the tunnels might already have been there in the first place making it easier to dig. Understanding the mindset of the man who built on the entire idea helps a further insight into the entire episode. The Emperor was only 13 years old when he started the construction. He was obsessed with life and even it is said to have drank strange elixirs to prolong his life which apparently did not work.

He ordered that no two soldiers were to be made alike. The swords were coated with chromium oxide, making them resistant to rust, something that the westerners only discovered in the 18th century. The crossbows have a range of 800 metres. As a ruler he united the warring states for the first time and introduced many reforms but was still known as a tyrannical and ruthless man.

According to Sima Qian’s, most famous writing, Shiji, the First Emperor had himself buried with ‘wonderful objects’, including palaces, hundred rivers, tall towers, royal utensils and celestial wonders and ‘the features of the Earth’ below them. How does one build underground rivers that are flowing for thousands of years?

The answer is mercury and to add to the bafflement of researchers, scientific evidence has proved very high levels of mercury underground. But to witness this spectacular and wonderful world buried under the 76 metres tall and 350 square metres pyramid, we will have to wait until it is fully dug up. That is if archaeologists decide to do so as they think that digging up the buried kingdom might damage its wonderful contents. Till then, we can only gaze at the silent army guarding its emperor’s tomb, as even the designers and its builders were all buried alive to keep the secret.