China's First Emperor, Qin Shi-Huang

China’s history is long and rich, filled with figures, many real but some mythical, who made and broke history. After all with four thousand years of history, you get your fair share of stories to tell. This time, we will go over one of the most influential figures in Chinese history: Qin Shi-Huang, the first emperor.

Starting from his earlier days, Qin Shin-Huang was, like a lot of figures at the time, not born under this name. Before becoming emperor, he was Ying Zheng, the son of the king of Qin Zhuangxiang during the Waring States Period. What, you thought the Three Kingdoms was the only time of warring states? There were many, MANY instances where the region was fragmented into smaller quarreling kingdoms before being gobbled back up into a single entity. In fact, every time one of the great dynasties of China collapsed was followed by a warring state period before the next one began. The only exception to this is the Yuan Dynasty, as they directly deposed the Song before they could collapse. Now back to Zheng, although he ascended to the throne of Qin at thirteen, his father having died, he wouldn’t directly take control until he was 22. During that time, he lived under the tutelage of his mother Queen Zhao Ji and chancellor Lü Buwei. Now that name sounds familiar. Anyway, records indicate they did a fairly decent job at ruling, as when Zheng took control, the Qin state was at its peak.  

On a side note, there were some claims that Zheng was actually the son of Lü, not Zhuangxiang. However this was mostly started by Sima Qian, the father of Chinese history, who was notorious for his hatred of Qin Shi –Huang. So, take this as you want.

Back to our story, king Zheng quickly get to work and launched a series of campaigns against the other nations of the Warring States, Yan, Zhao, Qi, Wei, Han and Chu. Despite facing a 6v1 conflict, the state of Qin had many advantages over its adversaries. Outside of Zheng proving himself to be a formidable leader, the Qin state was an extremely large kingdom, meaning more people and resources at their disposal. In fact, only Chu in the south was comparable in size, while the other 5 could barely match the state of Qin. The other issue was that although the Zheng was threatening all six of them, the rival kingdoms were far from united, and so ended up fighting the Qin on their own and fell one by one. The final nail in the coffin was that the armies of Qin had implemented the use of crossbows far more than their neighbours and used them with deadly effectiveness. These conflicts were called the wars of unifications, although calling them wars of conquest was more fitting. You see, the Zhou, the dynasty that ruled the region prior to the Warring States, was not a unified nation but rather a group of semi-independent vassal states operating under the main ruling family. The Qin on the other hand, was the one to introduce centralized government, directly ruling their entire domain, which is why they are seen as the first imperial family. One Zheng conquered the last remaining kingdom, he claim the mantle of Mandate of Heavy, the Chinese equivalent of Divine Right. He would also change his name to cement his position as the supreme authority of the new Qin Dynasty and its domain, Qin Shi-Huang. This title respectively refers to his homeland, Shi meaning the first of his kind and most important Hunag being a direct reference to the mythical three mythical kings of primordial times who founded Chinese culture alongside the five divine sages.  

Now Qin Shi-Huang, unlike most other great conquerors (*cough cough* Alexander), new when it was time to slow down and do the boring administration. In fact, it is quite likelly that Qin Shi-Huang wasn’t much of a military commander actually and instead appointed the leaderships of his campaign to extremely competent generals who got the job done. Unfortunately, his military work never ended despite his total control of the Chinese heartland, as northern nomads remained a constant thorn in his side. In fact, the raids got so bad, using the stone from destroyed fortifications from his conquests, he built a series of fort and walls that over time would become the Great Wall of China. How effective it was remains a matter of debate.

The first emperor of China instead focused more on bureaucracy and was also big on philosophy. Philosophical believes and thinking had evolved quite a bit during the Spring and Autumn and Warring states periods, with ideologies like Daoism, Confucianism and even the concept of Ying and Yang took root in these times. In other words, the land was full of diverse way of thinkings, living and governing, and now they were all under the control of one guy who can impose his own line of thinking. Qin Shi-Huang was a hardline Legalism, a rather cinical way of thinking where it is believed people are natural evil and must be held on a tight leash. On the plus side, it promoted standardised code of laws and an indiscriminate application of them. It doesn’t matter if you are the son of a magistrate or a beggar in the street, break the law, and you will be punished. It also promotes a meritocratic mindset when it comes to governing, as positions are given to people with the right skills instead of being the son of the previous guy. Of course, just like everything, this isn’t a perfect system. First of all, loyalty to the central authority was also a big factor which some time could trump actual skills. But the biggest issue with Legalism was that harsh and cold-hearted, not caring that you stole an apple to feed your starving children, your hand will be cut.

Armed with Legalism, Qin Shi-Huang standardized everything, from the governing system to law passing by commerce and even language. The guy was so obsessed with his standardization that he had carts of the same size built across his lands just to facilitate transportation. And while his work helped construct a more stable society which future dynasties would greatly benefit from, his work was also marked in blood. Over time, probably due to his consumption of deadly toxins, believing they would make him immortal, Qin Shin-Huang became more erratic and paranoid. Starting with the systematic purge of any knowledge, whether philosophical, historical, or more, he didn’t approve of. Books were burned, scholars and practitioners persecuted and killed, or just being associated with banned ideologies could end in the gallows.  

He died at the age of 45 from illness caused by his quest for immortality, in one of history’s greatest ironies. His corpse was buried in a magnificent tomb, of which the actual layout we still don’t know, as the excessive amount of mercury that has been put in it still prevents excavation. However, his second great building work, the Terracotta Army, is well documented and is one of the main tourist attractions in China.

Sadly, for the first emperor of China, his family would rule the shortest amount of time among the great Dynasties of the country. Qin Shin-Huang only ruled for 11 years, and his son only for three more before being overthrown. However, his administrative work would remain the central point of dynastic rule for the next 2 millennia. 

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