Qin Dynasty (256-202 B.C.E.) By the third century B.C.E., seven major warlord states had emerged. Among these was the Qin Dynasty in the north, which built up a powerful state through sweeping internal reforms and the creation of a powerful army using horse archers modeled after those used by their nomadic enemies. By 221 B.C.E., the Qin ruler, Shih Huang Ti, had replaced the last Zhou emperor, and ruled all of China. In fact, his title, Shih Huang Ti, meant first universal emperor, while his dynasty's name (also spelled Ch'in) came to represent all of the people of the Middle Kingdom which we today still call China. Shih Huang Ti was a harsh, but efficient ruler who brought China under a single autocratic rule. He lowered taxes and restored canals and irrigation systems. He also redistributed land to the peasants in an attempt to break up the nobles' power. Along these lines he broke up China's old provinces and loyalties and created new ones ruled by non-hereditary governors who could not build their power up in one place over several generations. Shih Huang Ti also created a unified law code, tax system, coinage, and system of weights and measures so that government and commerce could proceed smoothly. The Qin emperor had numerous building programs, among which were roads and canals to promote trade as well as the swift movement of armies, a huge capital at Hsien Yang where all the most powerful families of the realm were required to move, and a fabulous tomb guarded by 6000 larger than life terra-cotta soldiers in full battle order armed with bronze weapons, chariots, and terra-cotta horses. However, the most famous and far-reaching of Shih Huang Ti's building projects was the Great Wall built to contain the nomadic horsemen from the north. In fact, previous generations of warlords had built several local walls to protect their realms from the nomads and each other. Shih Huang Ti, in a mere seven years, connected them into one continuous defensive system 25 feet high, 15 feet thick, and stretching some 1850 miles through mountains and deserts. The cost in human lives was staggering, as thousands died from exposure to the elements, hunger, and exhaustion, causing Chinese peasants to call the Great Wall "China's longest cemetery." Manning the entire wall was beyond the means of even the Chinese. However, it was built more against the nomads' horses than the nomads themselves. As long as the wall was kept in repair and the intermittent forts and towers were manned, the nomads would be held at bay by two factors. First, they lacked siege engines for attacking manned forts. Second, they would not scale the unmanned sections, since that would involve leaving their horses behind. Only when the wall was in disrepair and unmanned during times of weak government and turmoil, could the nomads could break (or bribe their way) into China. Otherwise the Great Wall served its purpose as succeeding Chinese dynasties would repair, modify, and expand it as the real and symbolic boundary between civilization and the nomads. Shih Huang Ti's reforms may have unified China into one empire and people, but of the heavy burden in taxes and labor needed to support his building projects made him very unpopular. Another source of resentment was the emperor’s refusal to tolerate any dissenting ideas, especially those of the Confucianists who preferred the traditional feudal structure of government to his more impersonal bureaucracy. Therefore, he ordered the burning of all works of philosophy that in any way contradicted his policies. He even had some 460 dissenting scholars executed, supposedly by burying them alive. Although some scholars tried to entrust these works to memory so they could be written down later, there were certainly mistakes in the recopying, and there is no telling how much was lost. This purge also deprived the emperor of good advisors and poisoned the atmosphere at court, making it difficult to create sound policies. Therefore, his death in 210 B.C.E. triggered a number of revolts and civil wars that led to the rapid fall of the Qin Dynasty and the rise of the Han Dynasty. SHIH HUANG-TI 259 - 210 BC Chinese Emperor Shih Huang-ti was the first ruler to unify all of China. He started out as king of Ch'in, the most militaristic of the 'Warring States'. In 221 BC his armies annexed the six states that rivalled Ch'in, and he assumed the title of First Emperor (Shih Huang-ti) of a new dynasty - the Ch'in. The emperor unified China with merciless brutality and vowed that all Confucian doctrine, which set limits to the power of the ruler, should be erased. He ordered his chancellor to burn all the literary classics of the past. Shih Huang-ti established a centralized administration and constructed a network of roads and canals. He fought against the steppe peoples from the northern desert, and he began that immense work, the Great Wall of China, to set limits to their incursions. SHIH HUANG-TI (C. 259 - 210/209 B.C.) Emperor of the Ch'in dynasty (221-210/209 BC) and creator of the first unified Chinese empire (which collapsed, however, about four years after his death). Early years. Cheng was born the son of Chuang Hsiang (who later became king of the state of Ch'in in northwestern China) while his father was held hostage in the state of Chao. His mother was a former concubine of a rich merchant, Lü Pu-wei, who, guided by financial interests, managed to install Chuang Hsiang on the throne, even though he had not originally been designated as successor. The tradition, once widely accepted, that Cheng was actually Lü Pu-wei's natural son is probably a slanderous invention. When Cheng, at age 13, formally ascended the throne in 246 BC, Ch'in already was the most powerful state and was likely to unite the rest of China under its rule. The central states saw Ch'in as a barbarous country, but its strong position on the mountainous western periphery (with its centre in the modern province of Shensi) enabled Ch'in to develop a strong bureaucratic government and military organization as the basis of the totalitarian state philosophy known as legalism. Until Cheng was officially declared of age in 238, his government was headed by Lü Pu-wei. Cheng's first act as king was to execute his mother's lover, who had joined the opposition, and to exile Lü, who had been involved in the affair. A decree ordering the expulsion of all aliens, which would have deprived the king of his most competent advisers, was annulled at the urging of Li Ssu, later grand councillor. By 221, with the help of espionage, extensive bribery, and the ruthlessly effective leadership of gifted generals, Cheng had eliminated one by one the remaining six rival states that constituted China at that time, and the annexation of the last enemy state, Ch'i, in 221 marked his final triumph: for the first time China was united, under the supreme rule of the Ch'in. Emperor of China. To herald his achievement, Cheng assumed the sacred titles of legendary rulers and proclaimed himself Ch'in Shih huang-ti ("First Sovereign Emperor of Ch'in"). With unbounded confidence, he claimed that his dynasty would last "10,000 generations." As emperor he initiated a series of reforms aimed at establishing a fully centralized administration, thus avoiding the rise of independent satrapies. Following the example of Ch'in and at the suggestion of Li Ssu, he abolished territorial feudal power in the empire, forced the wealthy aristocratic families to live in the capital, Hsien-yang, and divided the country into 36 military districts, each with its own military and civil administrator. He also issued orders for almost universal standardization — from weights, measures, and the axle lengths of carts to the written language and the laws. Construction of a network of roads and canals was begun, and fortresses erected for defense against barbarian invasions from the north were linked to form the Great Wall. In 220 Shih huang-ti undertook the first of a series of imperial inspection tours that marked the remaining 10 years of his reign. While supervising the consolidation and organization of the empire, he did not neglect to perform sacrifices in various sacred places, announcing to the gods that he had finally united the empire, and he erected stone tablets with ritual inscriptions to extol his achievements. Another motive for Shih huang-ti's travels was his interest in magic and alchemy and his search for masters in these arts who could provide him with the elixir of immortality. After the failure of such an expedition to the islands in the Eastern Sea — possibly Japan — in 219, the emperor repeatedly summoned magicians to his court. Confucian scholars strongly condemned the step as charlatanry, and it is said that 460 of them were executed for their opposition. The continuous controversy between the emperor and Confucian scholars who advocated a return to the old feudal order culminated in the famous burning of the books of 213, when, at Li Ssu's suggestion, all books not dealing with agriculture, medicine, or prognostication were burned, except historical records of Ch'in and books in the imperial library. The last years of Shih huang-ti's life were dominated by an ever-growing distrust of his entourage — at least three assassination attempts nearly succeeded — and his increasing isolation from the common people.