Brief Introduction of Qin China2

        The Zhou confederation eventually collapsed into disastrous civil war. The warring states period was gruadually brought to an end by the Qin dynasty, who created by alliance, diplomacy, and conquest, the first unified Chinese empire. A series of ruthless campaigns by Shi Huangdi (the First Emperor) extended Qin domains far to the north and to the     south beyond the Yangtze valley to the borders of mordern Vietnam; in their wake, a process of centralization and standardization was introduced to minimize regional differences and tribal dissent. The area of the Qin state was effectively tripled in 16 years, while the constant threat to the northern borders by nomadic steppe people such as the Xiongnu led to the construction of the first Great Wall. 

The Qin Dynasty

221 BCE - 206 BCE

The first emperor not only unified China, but went about standardizing writing, weights, and measures throughout his kingdom. This was used to improve trade among the newly aquired states. The states each had their own standards of measuring and weighing, and the Qin emperor wanted his kingdom to be as one to strengthen it. This standardization was good for the weights and measurements but was not good for philisophical ideas.

During this time, many schools of thought were closed. In 213 BCE, all the books of the opposing schools of thought were burned except for the copies held in the Qin imperial library. The only way for emperor to keep his nation together was to have all his subjects think the same way. Any deviation would throw China back to the hundreds of years of warring.

The Qin empire was vast. The first emperor pushed China's borders South to current day Vietnam, and current day Korea. But the central kingdom was still in the Yellow River Valley. Regardless, of all the accomplishments of the Qin, the best known is the Great Wall of China.

The construction of the Great Wall of China did not come without a price. It came with massive cost of human life. This led to resentment of the Qin emperor by his people. Not only that, the officials were not happy with the emperor either; the books they liked were burned at his hands.

By this time, the emperor had grown old and he did not want to face death. He wanted to be immortal. He set all the court scientists and doctors to work to make some sort of medicine that would make him a god. The doctors came up with a deadly solution that they truely thought would work. The medicines the doctors prescribed were pills that contained traces of mercury which eventually lead to the emperors death.

When the emperor died, China went into a rage, and a rebellion against the Qin dynasty ensued, leading to the next dynasty, the Han.