Qin Dynasty

秦 Qin ←   ← 221 BC–207 BC →   → Capital Xianyang Language(s) Chinese Religion Chinese folk religion, Legalism Government Monarchy King  - 221 BC–210 BC Shi Huangdi  - 210 BC–207 BC Qin Er Shi Chancellor  - 221 BC–203 BC Li Si History  - Unification of China 221 BC  - Death of Qin Shi Huangdi 210 BC  - Surrender to Liu Bang 207 BC Population  - 210 BC est. 40,000,000  Currency Chinese coin, Chinese cash

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The Qin Dynasty (Chinese: 秦朝; pinyin: Qín Cháo; Wade-Giles: Ch'in Ch'ao) (221 BC - 206 BC^[1]) was preceded by the feudal Zhou Dynasty and followed by the Han Dynasty in China.

The unification of China in 221 BC under the First Emperor Qin Shi Huang (or Shi Huang Di) marked the beginning of Imperial China, a period which lasted until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in AD 1912.

The Qin Dynasty left a legacy of a centralized and bureaucratic state that would be carried onto successive dynasties.

At the height of its power, the Qin Dynasty had a population of about 40 million people.

Also, the massive Terracotta Army at Xi'an was built during the Qin as a royal retinue to guard the First Emperor in the afterlife.

Absorbing the Six Kingdoms

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During Qin Shi Huangdi's reign, the other six kingdoms of the Warring States Period, namely (Qi (齐), Yan (燕), Chu (楚), Han (韩), Zhao (赵), and Wei (魏) met their downfall in his hands. In 231 BC, Qin Shi Huang launched his first attack to uniting China - absorbing the Han kingdom. At that time, all of Han's land were captured by other kingdoms especially Qin except Nanyang (南阳) and Xinzheng (新郑). Qin Shi Huang's general, Han Teng, attacked Nanyang. Nanyang was captured. One year later, the armies at Nanyang attacked the Han's capitol Xinzheng, and captured the last King of Han, King An.

In 229 BC, Qin Shi Huangdi launched his attack against Zhao. At that time Zhao still had a very legendary general—Li Mu (李牧). Li Mu had been against the legendary general of Qin—Wang Jian. Wang Jian knew that he mustn't launch an attack on Li Mu hastily—because he is one of the Four Generals of the Warring States. So he used an Estrange Strategem to use the King of Zhao's hands to kill Li Mu. One year later, in 228 BC, Wang Jian attacked the capital of Zhao, Handan, and captured the last King of Zhao, King Qian. King Qian's older brother, Childe Jia, escaped to the land of Dai and made himself King of Dai.

In 227 BC, Qin Shi Huang attacked Yan. The Crown Prince of Yan—Prince Dan, who was staying in Qin as a hostage, escaped back to Yan. He planned to kill Qin Shi Huang. He found an assassinator named Jing Ke to assassinate Qin Shi Huang. He also commanded a partner of Jing Ke, Qin Wuyang, to go to Qin with him. But Jing Ke failed to assassinate Qin Shi Huang, and was killed himself by the cavilers of Qin. Qin Shi Huang was furious at Prince Dan, so he attacked Yan. King Xi of Yan, the last King, escaped to Liaodong (辽东). The general of Qin Li Xin attacked the army of Yan in the Waters of Yi. King Xi was forced to kill his own son Prince Dan and gave the head to the Qin armies. But Qin Shi Huang didn't really make up with Yan.

In 225 BC, Qin Shi Huang attacked the southern Wei. Wang Jian's son, Wang Ben, drowned the capital of Wei Daliang (大梁) with the water of the Yellow River. Three months later the walls of Daliang crashed. The armies of Qin raided the city and the last King of Wei, King Jia, was captured alive by the Qin armies.

Soon after Wei was absorbed, Qin Shi Huang attacked Chu. The general Wang Jian said that he needed six hundred thousand men to absorb Chu. But the general Li Xin said that he only needed two hundred thousand. Qin Shi Huang thought Wang Jian was too old, so he let Li Xin go instead. Li Xin attacked Chu, but was defeated by the general of Chu, and better known as the grandfather of the Hegemon of Western Chu Xiang Yu, Xiang Yan. Qin Shi Huang was ashamed of Li Xin. Then Wang Jian stood up and took sixty thousand men and went to Chu. When Wang Jian reached Chu, he didn't make the attack immediately. Instead he told all his men not to attack. This continued for a year. Finally, the army of Chu gave up and turned east. But just as it happens, Wang Jian lets out his armies and attacked the Chu army. The army was crushed, then Wang Jian went in the capitol of Chu, Shouchun (寿春) and captured alive the last King of Chu, King Fuchu. But Xiang Yan led up another King of Chu, The Monarch of Changwen (昌文君). Wang Jian then attacked Monarch Changwen's kingdom and killed him. Xiang Yan, looking at the defeat of his kingdom, committed suicide. Chu was utterly absorbed. This year it was 223 BC. One year later, in 222 BC, Qin Shi Huang attacked King Xi in Liaodong. Wang Ben, the general, crushed the army of Yan, even though it was allied with King Jia of Dai, and captured King Xi alive. Wang Ben turned back and attacked King Jia at Dai. King Jia was also captured.

In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang launched his final bullet of unification - absorbing Qi, the last foe. Qin Shi Huang's general, Wang Ben, now in the northern part, attacked from the north of Qi. The last King of Qi, King Jian, surrendered. King Jian was later banished into the Songbo Forest. The Qin army surrounded the forest and King Jian couldn't find any food because food transportation were all disengaged. King Jian later starved to death in that forest. After King Jian's death, the six kingdoms were all absorbed. Qin Shi Huang established his own dynasty-the Qin dynasty, and made himself the first emperor in history.

Shi Huangdi

Shi Huangdi imposed the Qin state's centralized, non-hereditary aristocratic system on his new empire in place of the Zhou's quasi-feudalistic one. The Qin Empire relied on the philosophy of legalism (with skillful advisers like Li Si). Centralization, achieved by ruthless methods, was focused on standardizing legal codes and bureaucratic procedures, the forms of writing and coinage, and the pattern of thought and scholarship. The seal script characters from the former state of Qin became the standard for the entire empire. The length of the wheel axle was also unified and expressways standardized to ease transportation throughout the country. To silence criticism of imperial rule, the emperor banished or put to death many dissenting Confucian scholars and confiscated and burned their books not having to do with legalism and farming.

To prevent future uprisings, Shi Huangdi ordered the confiscation of weapons and stored them in the capital. In order to prevent the resurgence of feudal lords, he also destroyed the walls and fortifications that had separated the previous six states. A national conscription was devised: every male between the ages of seventeen and sixty years was obliged to serve one year in the army. Qin aggrandizement was aided by frequent military expeditions pushing forward the frontiers in the north and south. To fend off a barbarian intrusion (mainly against the Xiongnu in the north), the fortification walls built by the various warring states were connected; this is usually recognized as the first Great Wall of China, although the present, 4,856- kilometer-long Great Wall of China was largely built or re-built during the Ming Dynasty. A number of public works projects, including canals and bridges, were also undertaken to consolidate and strengthen imperial rule. A lavish tomb for the emperor, complete with a Terracotta Army, was built near the capital Xianyang, a city half an hour from modern Xi'an. These activities required enormous levies of manpower and resources, not to mention repressive measures.

A small portion of the Terracotta Army, interred by 210 BC

A Chinese lacquerware box with the "Panyu" name on its surface, one piece of evidence that the Qin Dynasty governed the area of Guangzhou before the Nanyue Kingdom did.

Qin Shi Huangdi's behavior reportedly became increasingly erratic in the later years of his rule. This may have been the result of drinking solutions containing mercury as well as other deadly compounds. Ironically, Shi Huangdi ingested the mixtures in an increasingly desperate search for an elixir that would prolong his life. It has often been speculated that this was at least partially responsible for many of his later acts such as building the Terracotta Army.This was true about the Qin Dynasty.

Campaigns against Xiongnu

When Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi had succeeded in his conquest of all the seven warring states in China he began to concentrate its aggression against the nomadic ethnic Xiongnu which had grown into a powerful invading force in the north and started expanding both east and west. Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, sent a 300,000-strong army headed by General Meng Tian to drive the Xiongnu northward for 350 km and built the Great Wall to guard against its invasion.

Burning of intellectual books and burying of scholars

Qin Shi Huangdi had allowed the burning of intellectual books and burying Confucians alive when Li Si (Li Szu), his prime minister, who had won favor over Chunyu Yue on the matter of commandary-county system, proposed book burning. In 213 BC, on Li Si's urging, Qin Shi Huangdi outlawed all other schools of thought ("Hundred Schools") except for Legalism, and he ordered book burning. 346 to 460 Confucians local to Qin capital were buried alive at one time. When Qin Shi Huangdi's elder son, Prince Fusu, encountered the rows of Confucians who were on the way to the burial ground, he went straight to Qin Shi Huangdi pleading for amnesty on behalf of the Confucians. Qin Shi Huangdi rebutted Fusu and further sent his elder son to Shangjun (today's Suide and ancient Suizhou) Commandary on the northern border to be with General Meng Tian. Qin Shi Huangdi then played a trick to have various prefectures send about 700 more Confucians and scholars. All 700 Confucians were stoned to death in a valley, a place later named "valley of Confucian killing".

Second Emperor

Han dynasty historians relate that during the last trip with his youngest son Huhai in 210 BC, Qin Shi Huang died suddenly at Shaqiu prefecture. Huhai, under the advice of two high officials, the Imperial Secretariat Li Si and the chief eunuch Zhao Gao, forged and altered the Emperor's will. The faked decree ordered Qin Shi Huang's first son, the heir Fusu to commit suicide, instead naming Huhai as the next emperor. The decree also stripped the command of troops from Marshal Meng Tian — a faithful supporter of Fusu — and sentenced Meng's family to death. Zhao Gao step by step seized the power of Huhai, effectively making Huhai a puppet emperor. This marks the beginning of the decline of Qin dynasty.

There is a controversy regarding whether Qin Shi Huang himself wanted Huhai to be the next emperor or not. The fundamental mistake of Qin Shi Huang was that he had not arranged his successor properly because he actually wanted to live forever.

An edict in bronze from the reign of the Second Qin Emperor

A size comparison of large arcuballista bolts with smaller crossbow bolts from the Qin Dynasty.

Out of concern for the security of his throne, Huhai killed all his brothers and sisters. At the end, he was killed by Zhao Gao. Thus Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor, has no known descendants. The Second Emperor, Huhai, also has no known descendants.

Within three years of Qin Shi Huangdi's death, widespread revolts by peasants, prisoners, soldiers, and descendants of the nobles of the Six Warring States sprang up all over China. Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, two in a group of about 900 soldiers assigned to defend against the Xiongnu , became the leaders of the first revolution by commoners.

Huhai lived to see the Battle of Julu, the major defeat of the Qin army in the hands of the rebels, which marked the end of the Qin Dynasty.

Third Emperor

In the beginning of October 207 BC, Zhao Gao forced Huhai to commit suicide and replaced him with Fusu's son, Ziying (子嬰). Note that the title of Ziying was "king of Qin" to reflect the fact that Qin no longer controlled the whole of China. The Chu-Han contention ensued. Ziying soon killed Zhao Gao and surrendered to Liu Bang (劉邦) in the beginning of December 207 BC. But Liu Bang was forced to hand over Xianyang and Ziying to Xiang Yu. Xiang Yu then killed Ziying and burned down the palace in the end of January 206 BC. It is said the fire lasted two months before the inferno died down. A recent archeology survey of the palace ruin determined it to be roughly the size of Manhattan island of New York City. The palace is supported with thousands of pillars made from ancient trees growing to up to 115 meters (375 ft) high. Due to the weight and scale of each lumber, cutting the lumber can take weeks if not months, transporting from the prehistoric forest to the lumber mill requires certain weather so the river can be flooded to even move the massive lumber down river. The captain of each team is rewarded with imperial rank, their goal in life is to acquire one of these prehistoric lumber for the construction of the palace. It is said each pillar sacrificed the lives of a hundred men. Xiang Yu's controversial action sets the stage for the legendary battles between Xiang Yu, the warrior king and Liu Bang, the people's king. The Qin dynasty came to an end, three years after the death of Qin Shi Huang, and less than twenty years after it was founded.^{[citation needed]}

Although the Qin Dynasty was short-lived, its legalist rule had a deep impact on later dynasties in China. The imperial system initiated during the Qin dynasty set a pattern that was developed over the next two millennia.

Sovereigns of Qin Dynasty

Note: King Zhaoxiang of Qin (秦昭襄王) had already been ruling Qin for 51 years when Qin annihilated the Zhou Dynasty; however the other six warring states were still independent regimes. Historiographers thus used the next year (the 52nd year of King Zhaoxiang of Qin) as the official continuation from Zhou Dynasty.

Qin Shi Huang was the first Chinese sovereign to proclaim himself "Emperor", after reunifying China in 221 BC. That year is therefore usually taken as the start of the "Qin Dynasty".

See also

• Chinese sovereign
• Emperor of China
• Hata clan

Notes

Further reading

• Bodde, Derk. (1986). "The State and Empire of Ch'in," in The Cambridge History of China: Volume I: the Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C. – A.D. 220. Edited by Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521243270.
• Cotterell, Arthur. (2007). The Imperial Capitals of China - An Inside View of the Celestial Empire. London: Pimlico. pp. 304 pages.. ISBN 9781845950095. 
• Paludan, Ann. (1998). Chronicle of the China Emperors. London: Thames & Hudson. pp. 224 pages.. ISBN 0-500-05090-2. 

External links

• Qin Dynasty Map
• Qin dynasty History

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