Upvote:0
This is not really an answer to my question.
A while ago I was thinking about a scene in Frank Herbert's novel Dune Messiah (1969) where a character enters the Grand Reception Hall of Emperor Paul's palace at Arrakeen on the planet Dune. They think that the Grand Reception Hall would be large enough to contain any citadel of any ruler in history.
That gives the impression that the floor of the Grand Reception Hall would be large enough to contain the entire largest citadel of any ruler in Earth's history.
And I had to wonder whether Frank Herbert actually knew how large the largest citadels of rulers of parts of the planet Earth in history up to the present time were. And whether Herbert ever thought about how much larger the ruler of an entire planet which was more technologically advanced than ancient or even present day Earth could build their citadel.
And that reminded me of what little I have read about the palaces of Ch'in Shih Huang Ti or Qin Shi Huang in various publications over the decades.
One) that he built copies of the royal palaces of every kingdom he conquered.
Two) that he built a giant palace, the Afang or Epang Palace.
Three) that he built a large number of palaces, often given as 270, surrounding his capital city, and that the total distance they covered was miles, sometimes given as 27 miles, and that he moved from palace to palace through underground passageways so nobody would know where he was sleeping, for fear of assassination.
So if the hundreds of palaces were connected, and used as a defense against assassination, they could be considered to be a citadel of Qin Shi Huang.
If the palaces were arranged in a circle with a circumference of 27 miles or 43.4523 kilometers, it would have a radius of 4.297 miles or 6.9 kilometers, and a diameter of 8.594 miles or 13.83 kilometers.
If the palaces were arranged in a square with a circumference of 27 miles or 43.4523 kilometers, each side would be 6.75 miles or 10.86 kilometers long.
If the palaces were arranged in a rectangle twice as long as wide, it would be 4.5 by 9 miles, or 7.24 by 14.48 kilometers.
I note that what is considered to be the largest fortress on Earth, the Ranikot Fortress or Great Wall of Sindh, has a circumference of about 32 kilometers or 20 miles, and so would require almost as large a room to fit inside. And it was built out of stone instead of wood and earth by a much less powerful ruler than Qin Shi Huang.
So I posted my question on Sept. 5, 2023, and so far nobody has provided any translations from the early historians about the palaces of Qin Shi Huang.
But I have been doing a lot of research online and made some interesting discoveries since then. And I guess that I will write answers with what I have found out.