History of the Qin Dynasty

The Qin Dynasty (221 BC - 206 BC) was the first imperial state in the history of our country.

At the end of the Warring States Period, Qiang Qin used force to eliminate the remaining six countries and unified the country. In the twenty-sixth year of Yingzheng's reign (221 BC), the King of Qin changed the feudal system of the previous dynasty into a centralized system, and took the title of Emperor of the "Three Emperors" and the Emperor of the "Five Emperors". He called himself the First Emperor and made Xianyang his capital. He was the First Emperor of Qin. The First Emperor divided the country into thirty-six counties, and officials were appointed by the court, and the hereditary system was no longer adopted. In the court, there are official positions such as left and right prime ministers, imperial envoys, princes, generals, court officers, etc., and talented people are appointed. He also ordered the unification of the writing and weights and measures of the six countries, and used Qin Zhuan (small seal script) revised by Qin Prime Minister Li Si as the unified font for the whole country. Through large-scale immigration, dialect barriers were eliminated. In 221 BC, the First Emperor issued an edict to unify weights and measures, which stipulated various customizations such as the currency system, the land-acre system, and the cart track system.

In order to reduce the threat from the ethnic minorities in the north of the Xiongnu, the First Emperor sent General Meng Tian to attack the Xiongnu with an army of 300,000 people in the north. He connected and repaired the original city walls of the Six Kingdoms, and gradually built the Great Wall. . At home, the First Emperor sent a large number of civilians to build huge palaces and mausoleums for him, among which the palace was the most important. It is said that after Xiang Yu destroyed the Qin Dynasty, he burned the Alpan Palace on fire. The fire burned for three months before gradually extinguishing.

During the twelve years of his reign, the First Emperor made many tours across the country. In 220 BC, he visited Longxi and Beidi counties; in 219 BC, he made his second eastward tour to Mount Zouyi; In 218 BC, the third eastward patrol went to Zhifu Mountain to carve stones; in 215 BC, the fourth eastward patrol went to Jieshi Mountain to carve stones; in 210 BC, the fifth southward patrol went to Jiuyi Mountain. By traveling around the world, the First Emperor, on the one hand, prayed for the blessings of heaven and earth, and on the other hand, showed the majesty of the emperor to the people of the world. In order to live forever, he sent Xu Fu to sea to seek immortality, but Xu Fu never returned.

On the way to the fifth tour, the First Emperor died of illness. Prime Minister Li Si and the eunuch Zhao Gao conspired to elect Hu Hai, the eighteenth son of the First Emperor, as emperor, the second generation of Qin. For personal gain, Zhao Gao and Li Si forged the First Emperor's edict to kill Prince Fusu and General Meng Tian. Soon Zhao Gao killed Li Si again, and the Qin Dynasty's power fell completely into the hands of Hu Hai and Zhao Gao. However, the second emperor of Qin was stupid and ignorant and listened to the treacherous minister Zhao Gao, which made the people dissatisfied and rebelled in various places. In 209 BC, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rebelled; in 207 BC, Xiang Yu, Liu Bang and others raised armies against the Qin Dynasty, causing the Qin Empire to quickly collapse. In 206 BC, Zhao Gao forced his second son, Hu Hai, to commit suicide and made Zi Ying emperor. At this time, Liu Bang had attacked Xianyang. After Ziying killed Zhao Gao, he went out of the city to ask for surrender, and the rule of the Qin Dynasty was destroyed.

In terms of political system, the Qin Dynasty broke the feudal system that was mainly hereditary in the past, released slaves as civilians, and officials were directly appointed and dismissed by the central government, which strengthened the emperor's centralized rule over the country. In 212 BC, in order to consolidate the new political system he had formulated, the First Emperor followed the advice of Prime Minister Li Si and ordered the burning of all private collections of books except Qin history books, medical books, agricultural books, and divination books, and later buried four hundred Confucian scholars alive. There were more than sixty people, and later generations called them "burning books and entrapping Confucians". By suppressing Confucianism, the First Emperor, to a certain extent, eliminated Confucian calls for the restoration of the ancient system and further stabilized the new system. However, after the First Emperor ascended the throne, there was a large-scale corvee effort. At that time, the Qin Dynasty had a population of about 20 million, of which 1.5 million built the imperial mausoleum, 500,000 guarded the Five Ridges, 300,000 followed Meng Tian to defend against the Huns, and 500,000 built the Great Wall. ; plus others, the total number is no less than 3 million, accounting for nearly 15% of the total population. The human resources are exhausted, resulting in insufficient manpower for agriculture and other economic activities and unable to develop normally, resulting in Qin's failure to make a big economic impact. develop.

The Qin State lasted only fifteen years from its founding by the First Emperor (221 BC) to Qin Ziying (206 BC).