section_path: Birth and parentage
section_name: Birth and parentage
paragraph_text: Birth and parentage
  
  According to the Shiji written by Sima Qian during the Han dynasty, the first emperor was the eldest son of the Qin prince Yiren, who later became King Zhuangxiang of Qin. Prince Yiren at that time was residing at the court of Zhao, serving as a hostage to guarantee the armistice between Qin and Zhao. Prince Yiren had fallen in love at first sight with a concubine of Lü Buwei, a rich merchant from the state of Wey. Lü consented for her to be Yiren's wife, who then became known as Lady Zhao after the state of Zhao. He was given the name Zhao Zheng, the name Zheng (正) came from his month of birth Zhengyue, the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar; the clan name of Zhao came from his father's lineage and was unrelated to either his mother's name or the location of his birth. (Song Zhong says that his birthday, significantly, was on the first day of Zhengyue.) Lü Buwei's machinations later helped Yiren become King Zhuangxiang of Qin in 250 BC.
  
  However, the Shiji also claimed that the first emperor was not the actual son of Prince Yiren but that of Lü Buwei. According to this account, when Lü Buwei introduced the dancing girl to the prince, she was Lü Buwei's concubine and had already become pregnant by him, and the baby was born after an unusually long period of pregnancy. According to translations of the Lüshi Chunqiu, Zhao Ji gave birth to the future emperor in the city of Handan in 259 BC, the first month of the 48th year of King Zhaoxiang of Qin.
  
  The idea that the emperor was an illegitimate child, widely believed throughout Chinese history, contributed to the generally negative view of the First Emperor. However, a number of modern scholars have doubted this account of his birth. Sinologist Derk Bodde wrote: "There is good reason for believing that the sentence describing this unusual pregnancy is an interpolation added to the Shiji by an unknown person in order to slander the First Emperor and indicate his political as well as natal illegitimacy". John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, in their translation of Lü Buwei's Lüshi Chunqiu, call the story "patently false, meant both to libel Lü and to cast aspersions on the First Emperor". Claiming Lü Buwei—a merchant—as the First Emperor's biological father was meant to be especially disparaging, since later Confucian society regarded merchants as the lowest social class.