From June 5438 to October 2002 10, the archaeological team of China Academy of Social Sciences began to excavate the Epang Palace site and came to the conclusion that Epang Palace was not actually built. It can be inferred that Epang Palace was not burned by the rebel leaders at the end of Qin Dynasty. In 2006, archaeologists spent more than a year exploring Epang Palace, covering an area of over 200,000 square meters, and only found a few charred clods. According to historical records, there should be a large number of plant ash in Epang Palace. Archaeologists concluded that Xiang Yu burned Xianyang Palace in Qin Dynasty because a large number of burnt remains were found in the ruins of Xianyang Palace.
Historical Records of Xiang Yu's Biography records that Xiang Yu burned Xianyang Palace and "burned Qin Gong, but the fire did not go out in March", without mentioning Epang Palace. What makes later generations misunderstand that Xiang Yu set fire to Epang Palace is because the Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu's Fu on Epang Palace described the magnificence of Epang Palace extremely, which made later generations believe that Xiang Yu set fire to Epang Palace.
The Historical Value of Epang Palace
Epang Palace in Qin Dynasty is not only the most magnificent palace group in Qin Dynasty, but also a masterpiece of ancient palace architecture in China, which records the history of the Chinese nation from decentralization to unity and bears the glorious memory of Chinese civilization. During UNESCO 1992 field survey, it was confirmed that the construction scale and preservation integrity of Qin Afang Palace site ranked first among the ancient buildings in the world, and it was one of the wonders and places of interest in the world, and was known as "the first palace in the world".
At the same time, in a sense, Epang Palace, which wastes people and money, is also a symbol of the demise of Qin. Different from Confucianism's introversion, Qin's values are external expansion, and everything pursues the ultimate. The palace should be big, the capital should be big and the territory should be big. But also to mobilize all the manpower, material resources and financial resources of the whole country and concentrate on doing great things. The Qin empire did lay a lot of systems that were continued in the past dynasties in a short time, but at the same time it exceeded the social capacity at that time.
Reference to the above content: Baidu Encyclopedia-Epang Palace