The first emperor of China exercised his unprecedented administrative power by ordering an imperial quest for the “elixir of life,” a medicine that would make him immortal, according to a new analysis of ancient Chinese records.

The empire-wide medical project marshalled the power of doctors, farmers, tradesmen, couriers and soldiers, all centrally controlled by the court of Qin Shi Huang, who united the warring states of ancient China and made them function as one.

He ordered progress reports on his quest for eternal life, some of which are detailed in a massive set of wooden bamboo slips that are painted with imperial records, which have been closely studied since their discovery in 2002.

According to a report in the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, a new analysis shows how the emperor’s quest for immortality was carried out, and how a village called Duxiang, for example, sent word that no “miraculous potion” had yet been found, but the search “would continue.”

Another place, Langya, in what is now Shandong Province, south of the modern capital Beijing, sent a mountain herb to the emperor, with praise for its auspicious properties, the records show.

The quest illustrated the efficiency of an early mail service, the state of medical knowledge and practice, and the rapidly expanding authority of a warrior king with a reputation for cruelty and vanity. This was happening in the third century BCE, at about the same time as Roman influence was first expanding beyond Italy.

“It required a highly efficient administration and strong executive force to pass down a government decree in ancient times when transportation and communication facilities were undeveloped,” said Zhang Chunlong, a researcher at the Hunan province archaeology institute, according to the Xinhua report.

Zhang studied the slips that relate to medicine in the collection known as the Liye Qin Slips, which date from 222 to 208 BCE. These are rare original records of the Qin Dynasty, 36,000 pieces, discovered in an archeological dig in 2002. Most of what is known about the era was recorded later in the Han Dynasty, but these give a contemporary glimpse into the functioning of early Imperial China.

One thing that is well known is the first emperor’s desire for eternal life. That much has been world famous at least since the discovery in the 1970s of the Qin terracotta army, an array of thousands of statues of soldiers, now one of China’s biggest tourist attractions. These are laid out as protection for the emperor’s mausoleum near modern Xian. It is a great tomb mound built over his lifetime, surrounded by a vast city, once said to be fitted with booby-trapped bows set to fire arrows at intruders.

Much of the army is unearthed, but the tomb and most of the necropolis remain unexcavated and unknown, except by imaging technology.

Qin Shi Huang is also famous for press-ganging peasants into building the Great Wall of China, which first came together under his imperial rule. He died in 210 BCE, reportedly because he ingested mercury or some other poison on the advice of his court alchemists and doctors, hoping it would bring him eternal life.

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