There has always been a misunderstanding on the topic of the surname "Ying". Many people think that the ancient surname "Ying" can be used as a personal pronoun just like the current "Zhang Wang Liu". But this is a wrong perception! "Ying" is actually an ancient surname. It is just a clan name in the tribal era, which is also the code name of a tribe. It is not a "surname" in the modern sense. The surname of Qin Shihuang was Ying, which only meant that the Duke of Qin was a descendant of the "Ying" tribe. The Ying tribe was a large tribe in China during the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. It had a large population and many branches. The Duke of Qin was only a branch of one of the branches. The ancients did not use the family name in front of their names, and Qin Shihuang never called him "Ying Zheng". The name "Ying Zheng" only began to appear in historical materials in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty. It was a name invented by later generations who mistook the ancient family surname for the surname before their own names and "used the past for the present". As mentioned before, Qin Shihuang’s family is a branch of the ancient Ying clan. This branch of the ancient Ying clan is the Zhao family founded by the Zaofu family. The father of the founding king of Qin, “Feizi”, was Zaofu. He was an adopted son, so the monarchs of the Qin State were all surnamed Zhao according to the modern meaning of "surname". This is why the classic history books record that Qin Shihuang was named "Zhao Zheng".
Later, as society progressed, tribes disintegrated and dissipated, so ancient clan names such as "妫", "嬴", "姞", "Ji", and "江" were also lost. The meaning of existence has also entered a state of extinction. Most of the members of these ancient surname clans have changed to survive as clans - the Ying surname is because the clan leader became the Zhao clan, so in future generations there will basically be only the Zhao clan and no more. The surname Ying. However, due to some special reasons, some families use the previous ancient surnames as surnames, such as modern surnames such as "Jiang, Ji, Yao", etc. They have transformed from ancient tribal surnames into modern family surnames. The surname Ying was also reused by a small family in the Ming Dynasty, but the impact was very small. Until now, there are only about 10,000 people in the country. This modern Ying surname may have some blood relationship with the ancient Ying people, but no one knows how much they are related to Qin Shihuang Zhao Zheng.
So, don’t take the disappeared surname “Ying” as so mysterious. Although the surname Ying has disappeared on a large scale, its descendants still dominate modern China with a huge population. Everyone The familiar Zhao, Li, Ma, Jiang, Huang, Bai, Ge, Fei, Lian, Zhuge, Zhufu, Dongri, Yan, Chi, Liang, Gu, Pei, Wan, Lu, Ruan and Qin are actually from the past. Descendants of the Ying tribe. Any one of the more than 200 million people with these modern surnames can call themselves "Ying", and maybe you are one of them.