Weights and measures were standardized. Shi Huangdi brutally suppressed dissent. Some accounts say that scholars were rounded up and executed, and the texts they had used to criticize the government were confiscated or burned.
Citizens of all ranks were encouraged to inform on one another; those convicted of crimes were executed, mutilated, or put to hard labor. Learn more about Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, politician, and teacher. Hundreds of thousands of men served in Qin armies, mobilized to defend against Xiongnu nomads in the north and other tribes in the south.
Hundreds of thousands more toiled to build palaces, canals, and roads. The whole line of defenses stretched over 10, li [more than 3, miles]. Did the Great Wall of China work? Not surprisingly, the autocratic emperor was the target of several assassination attempts. Perhaps in response, Shi Huangdi became obsessed with the idea of immortality. As Sima Qian records, his advisers counseled him that the herbs of immortality would not work until he could move about unobserved. Accordingly, he built walkways and passages connecting his palaces so that he could move about in seeming invisibility.
Doubtless the most megalomaniacal of his projects was his enormous tomb and buried terra-cotta horde , constructed at tremendous cost by , forced-labor conscripts. The thousands of life-size figures included infantrymen, archers, chariots with horses, officials, servants, and even entertainers, such as musicians and a strongman. Arrayed in military formation, the soldiers bore traces of the bright paint that must have once enlivened them. Although formed from standardized pieces—with solid legs and hollow torsos—they were evidently finished by hand so that no two figures looked exactly alike.
Figures of acrobats and musicians would entertain the emperor through eternity. Find out what happened when an American stole a warrior's thumb. All rights reserved. This distinction had to do with its slow pace in embracing Chinese culture, for instance, lagging behind the Zhou in doing away with human sacrifice.
The ruling class of Qin nonetheless believed themselves to be legitimate heirs to the Zhou states, and through the centuries they strengthened their diplomatic and political standing through a variety of means, including marriage.
It was during the rule of Duke Xiao from to B. Shang Yang was a vigorous reformer, systematically reworking the social order of Qin society, eventually creating a massive, complicated bureaucratic state and advocating for the unification of Chinese states. This helped create a massive infantry that was less expensive to maintain than the traditional chariot forces. He attempted to fight and create his own territory but was defeated and executed in B.
The state of Qin began to expand into the regions surrounding it. When the states of Shu and Ba went to war in B. Qin responded by conquering each of them and, over the next 40 years, relocating thousands of families there, and continuing their expansionist efforts into other regions.
Ying Zheng is considered the first emperor of China. In B. Advised by the sorcerer Lu Sheng, Qin Shi Huang traveled in secrecy through a system of tunnels and lived in secret locations to facilitate communing with immortals. Qin Shi Huang worked quickly to unify his conquered people across a vast territory that was home to several different cultures and languages. One of the most important outcomes of the Qin conquest was the standardization of non-alphabetic written script across all of China, replacing the previous regional scripts.
This script was simplified to allow faster writing, useful for record keeping. The new script enabled parts of the empire that did not speak the same language to communicate together, and led to the founding of an imperial academy to oversee all texts. As part of the university effort, older philosophical texts were confiscated and restricted though not destroyed, as accounts during the Han Dynasty would later claim.
The Qin also standardized weights and measures, casting bronze models for measurements and sending them to local governments, who would then impose them on merchants to simplify trade and commerce across the empire.
In conjunction with this, bronze coins were created to standardize money across the regions. With these Qin advances, for the first time in its history, the various warring states in China were unified.
The name China, in fact, is derived from the word Qin which was written as Ch'in in earlier Western texts. The Qin empire is known for its engineering marvels, including a complex system of over 4, miles of road and one superhighway, the Straight Road, which ran for about miles along the Ziwu Mountain range and is the pathway on which materials for the Great Wall of China were transported.
Overseen by the Qin road builder Meng Tian, , workers were brought to work on the construction of the Great Wall, and on the service roads required to transport supplies. Qin Shi Huang was noted for audacious marvels of art and architecture meant to celebrate the glory of his new dynasty. Weapons from Qin conquests were collected and melted down, to be used for the casting of giant statues in the capital city Xianyang.
For his most brash creation, Qin Shi Huang sent , workers to create an underground complex at the foot of the Lishan Mountains to serve as his tomb. It now stands as one of the seven wonders of the world. Designed as an underground city from which Qin Shi Huang would rule in the afterlife, the complex includes temples, huge chambers and halls, administrative buildings, bronze sculptures, animal burial grounds, a replica of the imperial armory, terracotta statues of acrobats and government officials, a fish pond and a river.
The Warring States Period was dangerous, but the lack of central authority allowed intellectuals to flourish. Confucianism and a number of other philosophies blossomed prior to China's unification. However, Qin Shi Huang viewed these schools of thought as threats to his authority, so he ordered all books not related to his reign burned in BCE. The Emperor also had approximately scholars buried alive in for daring to disagree with him, and more stoned to death.
As he entered middle age, the First Emperor grew more and more afraid of death. He became obsessed with finding the elixir of life, which would allow him to live forever. The court doctors and alchemists concocted a number of potions, many of them containing "quicksilver" mercury , which probably had the ironic effect of hastening the Emperor's death rather than preventing it. Just in case the elixirs did not work, in BCE the Emperor also ordered the construction of a gargantuan tomb for himself.
Plans for the tomb included flowing rivers of mercury, cross-bow booby traps to thwart would-be plunderers, and replicas of the Emperor's earthly palaces. To guard Qin Shi Huang in the afterworld, and perhaps allow him to conquer heaven as he had the earth, the Emperor had a terracotta army of at least 8, clay soldiers placed in the tomb. Each soldier was an individual, with unique facial features although the bodies and limbs were mass-produced from molds. To make matters worse, someone etched the words "The First Emperor will die and his land will be divided" onto the stone.
Some saw this as a sign that the Emperor had lost the Mandate of Heaven. Since nobody would confess to the crime, the Emperor had everyone in the vicinity executed.
The meteor itself was burned and then pounded into powder. The cause of death most likely was mercury poisoning, due to his immortality treatments. Qin Shi Huang's Empire did not outlast him long. His second son and Prime Minister tricked the heir, Fusu, into committing suicide. The second son, Huhai, seized power. However, widespread unrest led by the remnants of the warring states' nobility threw the empire into disarray. This defeat signaled the end of the Qin Dynasty.
Whether Qin Shi Huang should be remembered more for his monumental creations and cultural advances or his brutal tyranny is a matter of dispute. All scholars agree, however, that Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of the Qin Dynasty and a unified China, was one of the most important rulers in Chinese history. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content.
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