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A New Dynasty Comes to Power
The Qin (Cheen) came to power after the Zhou Dynasty. The last 242 years of the Zhou Dynasty is called the “Warring States Period” because there were so many large and small wars between the hundreds of states that the Zhou ruled. Some states grew larger as they defeated and took over others. Some states got larger and more powerful by agreeing to join together. Eventually, the territory had united into seven main states that continued to compete for control. The Qin was one of those states.

The political ideas, geography, and resources during the Warring States Period played important parts in establishing the Qin Dynasty. Because the Qin believed in Legalism, a very strict way of running their territory, it helped them to concentrate on developing a highly disciplined and powerful military to use when the Zhou states began to fight. During the wars between the states, the Qin state operated from a protected and hard to reach position in the Qin Mountains (Guang-zhong) in today’s Shaanxi. This remote position in the mountains was an advantage as other states fought and weakened one another. The Qin were able not attacked as frequently and remained a strong state.

The Qin, however, were not content to remain isolated. They wanted to again land and power to rule all of China and establish a new dynasty. The strong Qin military then extended their territory to the south far beyond that of the earlier Zhou because that area had better land and weather for farming. By gaining control of resources that provided more food, they grew even stronger. From 230 to 211 BCE (just nineteen years!) the Qin conquered its rival states, one after the other. The Qin king, Zheng, brought the groups that had been fighting for power together under his rule- and China had a new ruling dynasty.

When he came to power, Zheng declared himself the “First Emperor” of the land that was later to be known as China. He took the name Emperor Qin Shihuangdi (Cheen She hwang dee). His title was a message about the political system that he planned to establish. An emperor rules an empire. The word empire describes a political system with one supreme ruler, the emperor, who has power over a group of territories, states, or countries. The important idea is that the one ruler is “supreme.” Qin was sending the message that he would have supreme power and because of that political change, the Qin Dynasty is considered to be the beginning of China’s “Imperial” or empire period.

Political System
Changes
Emperor Qin Shihaungdi reorganized the government. First, he changed the way people got land. Kings before him had given large sections of land to nobles or lords who controlled it. Once the land was given to a lord, control of it was passed on through his family. So when the lord died, the land passed on to his son. Emperor Qin changed that. He divided the land into 36 sections called provinces and each province was divided into smaller areas called districts. The new rulers or governors he appointed did not get power just because their father had passed it on to them. This made the governors serve him more loyally because there was a chance they could lose the job if they didn’t.

Qin set up a system where qualified people were appointed to the jobs and were trained to do them as he wanted them done. The appointed rulers got a salary from Qin and so depended entirely on him for their income. He appointed two people to each province, one to govern and one responsible for defense. These two were given other workers to supervise, and those workers had yet more people under them. By making each layer of people responsible for the things that went on under them and by having serious punishments for those that failed, the Emperor kept himself as the center of all power.

Legalism: Uniting China
Emperor Qin Shihuangdi’s idea of how to run the government was based on the Legalist school of thinking that had developed during the Zhou dynasty. Legalists believed that people would not naturally listen and that they needed to be ruled by strict laws with harsh punishments to make them be good. They believed in a political system with firm government control. The emperor ruled with strict laws, standards, and expectations and made sure that each person in this system knew they were under another person’s eye. Each level reported on the people below them and each was responsible if things went wrong. People were encouraged to report errors or misconduct of others, like a spy system, with harsh punishments for those who did not do their jobs.

The First Emperor also wanted all people to agree on what thoughts and ideas were correct. To do this, he burned all books except those that agreed with his Legalist thinking and those that were about medicine or agriculture. Those who disagreed with the emperor were executed , some were buried alive! Emperor Qin Shihuangdi must have known that with such strict policies, people might want to overturn him because he ordered all metal weapons within the empire to be under government control and ordinary people were no longer allowed to have metal weapons.

Money and Measurements
Emperor Qin’s policies were often harsh and resented by the people. However, he did help to unify China with some of his laws. He made a law that measurement systems, coins, and certain types of boats and roads must be the same in every province. Qin knew that having common systems for money and measurement would help business and trade between the provinces. The emperor knew that having different systems was confusing when people had to change from one type of money to another as they traveled across China. Emperor Qin also wanted to begin several big building projects. He knew that having a common set of measurements that everyone was familiar with would help during construction. One result of this can be seen today in an “army” that Qin had built from terra cotta, a brownish-red clay. Thousands of life-sized statues of horses with carriages and soldiers with weapons were all made to look like a different person or animal, but built to the same size even though they were built by hundreds of different workers. By having a standard idea of how to measure sizes, the workers were able to produce the entire “army” on the same scale or matching sizes. The importance of the ability to order things built and measured in a standard way is an idea that we use even today.

Written Langauge
Emperor Qin further unified China when he extended and improved communication. Provinces each had their own dialects, or ways of speaking, and could not always talk to each other, which limited interactions in trade, sharing of ideas, technology, and travel. Qin made the written form of the dialects the same. The ability to communicate and keep records helped increase economic and social interaction between the states. Many people in modern China still speak very different languages, but the system of writing that Emperor Qin developed help unite the culture.

The Great Wall of China
Another thing the Qin dynasty is famous for is the Great Wall of China. It is a well-known symbol of China. The wall was intended to help protect China from its enemies. At that time, neighboring tribes of fierce horsemen sometimes charged in to attack China. Emperor Qin committed huge amounts of human and natural resources to connecting smaller, existing city walls into a gigantic wall to protect the empire from invaders. The wall stretched over 1,500 miles (which in America would be over half way to California from Maryland) and was as tall as five men standing on top of each other in some places.

Working on the Great Wall was exhausting and difficult. It was often used as a punishment for people who spoke out against ideas or did not obey the Legalist government’s laws. Hundreds of thousands of people worked on the wall-about 6 times the amount of people that would fit into a baseball stadium. Many of them died fulfilling Qin’s goal of protecting China. The wall was an impressive accomplishment, but in the end, it did little to stop invaders from finding other ways into China.

The Qin Dynasty Ends The Qin dynasty ended shortly after the emperor’s death. Though its people and resources were strained by the experience, some of the things that began in that short time period laid a solid foundation that united China in centuries to come. Though this dynasty was short, it gave us several of the things that we might immediately name today when we think of China.

* About These Documents
This collection of documents was developed in collaboration with MCPS and ___. They provide additional information and explanation of the political, economic, and social systems of each dynasty. Students and teachers may find them helpful when completing the Dynasty Project in the sixth grade Unit 3 guide The Impact of Economics in Ancient and Modern China. The additional readings are provided to also supplement student understand of the achievements of ancient China and their influence on other civilizations.