Download Lesson 4 Qin and The Great Wall

Qin and The Great Wall
Ancient China
End of Zhou
• The Qin claimed the Mandate of Heaven in 221
BC and ruled until 207 BC
• During this short time The warring city-states
were united and China’s first great empire was
created.
• All this was accomplished by a 13 year old boy!
Emperor Qin
Even though the Qin Dynasty lasted for only 15 years, first
Emperor Qin accomplished an amazing amount of change.
Qin was the first man to control all of China. He did
not want to be called a king. He called himself First
Emperor Qin (Qin Shi Huangdi). He died of natural causes.
But in the short time that he ruled China, he readied China
to be pulled together as one country. But at what cost?
First Emperor Qin was a legalist. Legalists believe that
people are basically bad. They believe that it is necessary to
control and regulate every minute of people's lives so they
have the discipline needed to work hard in the fields and in
battle. It also teaches people obey out of fear, not out of
respect. Exact opposite of Confucius’ teachings.
Qin ruled with great CRUELTY. He ran his dynasty with
absolute control and swift harsh punishment. It was illegal
to whine about Qin's government. If you simply suggested
that things might be improved, you could be put to death
without a trial, along with your family.
Uniting China
• Qin knew he could only unite China by crushing the
authority of the Nobles.
▫ 1. Attacked the city-states and seized their weapons.
▫ 2. Divided China into military Districts and appointed
people he could trust to govern each.
▫ 3. Ordered nobles to move to capital city – breaking
the ties between nobles and peasants.
▫ 4. Peasants now had only the emperor to look to – Qin
used them to make an army of hundreds of thousands
of peasants to push borders of empire south and east.
Spy System: To make sure
everyone did their job correctly, First
Emperor Qin set up a spy system.
People had to spy on each other - it
was the law. People had to spy on
each at work and at home in their
neighborhood or village. If people
turned in lawbreakers, they were
rewarded. If they did not, they were
executed. It was a simple system,
and it worked very well.
This organization system gave Qin
great power. That power allowed
him to make huge changes. Qin
knew that to unify China there had
to be big changes. Most of his laws
had something to do with
protection.
Changes:
Land: First Emperor Qin took land
away from the nobles. He did not
want the nobles rising up against
him. Anyone who argued with Qin
was either buried alive or put to work
building the Great Wall.
Standardization: He introduced
one system of weights, measures,
money, written language, and laws.
This made trade and communication
across the empire much easier!
Law Code: He introduced a new
law code that applied to everybody.
He created a huge law enforcement
group, whose job was to enforce the
laws.
Peasants: Peasants were assigned a job. They
were either assigned the job of farmer or of silk
maker. It they tried to do anything else besides
their assigned job, they were sent to work on the
Great Wall. If people were lazy or slow at doing
their assigned job, they were sent to work on the
wall.
Censorship: Qin practiced total censorship. He
persecuted scholars and destroyed books. He
defined useless books as any book about anything
except books about medicine, agriculture, or
prophecy. Useless books were burned. Over 400
scholars who refused to turn in books were either
buried alive or sent to work on the wall. Qin did
not believe in any education for the common man.
According to Qin, the more time people spent
studying, the less time they had to grow food. He
especially disliked the teachings of Confucius. He
had all Confucius' books burned.
First Emperor Qin wanted a much better
barricade to protect his people from the
Mongol invaders to the north.
The Great Wall is one of the largest
building construction projects ever
completed. It stretches across the
mountains of northern China, winding
north and northwest of Beijing. It is
constructed of masonry, rocks and
packed-earth. Its thickness ranged
from 15 to 30 feet. It averaged 30 feet
tall with 40-foot tall towers.
It stretched for 1500 miles over
mountains, and through valleys,
marshes, and deserts.
Yet despite its size it was built in
just 7 years!
During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the
Great Wall was enlarged to 6,400 kilometers
(4,000 miles) and renovated over a 200 year
period, with watch-towers and cannons added.
Great Wall
Qin used peasants, captured enemies, criminals, scholars, and anyone else who
irritated him, and put them all to work building the Great Wall. Laborers were not
paid for their work. It was slave labor.
About 3,000,000 people worked on the wall during the Qin Dynasty. Rocks fell on
people. Walls caved in. Workers died of exhaustion and disease. Laborers were fed
only enough food to keep them alive. There is an old Chinese saying, "Each stone in
the wall represents a life lost in the wall's construction. In fact it is estimated that
more than 500,000 workers died building the great wall.
This project continued long after First Emperor Qin’s death. Building the wall was a
project that continued for many hundreds of years until the wall was over 3700 miles
long. Most emperors used the same system that Qin used, forced labor.
Qin’s Ambition
• Qin became determined to find
a way to live forever. For
example, he sent groups of
men and women out to sea to
look for a land where people
did not die. Realizing that he
might not live forever, Shi
Huangdi ordered the building
of an elaborate tomb. If he had
to die, he wanted his afterlife
to be comfortable.
Emperor’s Clay Army
• In March of 1974, Chinese peasants digging
a well found some unusual pottery
fragments. Then, deeper down at eleven
feet, they unearthed a head made of terra
cotta (baked earth or clay). They notified
the authorities and excavation of the site
began immediately. To date, workers have
dug up about eight thousand sculpted clay
soldiers, and the site has proved to be one of
the greatest archaeological discoveries of all
time.
• For over two thousand years, these clay
warriors have been guarding the tomb of
Shi Huangdi. Tradition says that the First
Emperor began building his tomb when he
ascended to the throne at age thirteen, and
that it was unfinished at his death. The
Chinese historian Sima Qian wrote that the
emperor forced 700,000 laborers to work
on his elaborate tomb.
• The warriors stand guard in three pits
(a fourth was found to be empty) that
cover five-and-a-half acres and are
sixteen to twenty- four feet deep. The
largest one contains six thousand terracotta soldiers marching in military
formation in eleven trenches, each as
long as a football field. At the western
end of the formation is a vanguard of
archers and bowmen. At the head of six
of the trenches stand the remnants of
chariots, each with four life-size horses
and eighteen soldiers. The wooden
chariots have largely disintegrated,
unlike the well-preserved terra-cotta
horses and men. Last come row upon
row of soldiers.
• Despite the enormous number of men,
no two faces are alike. Their
expressions display dignity,
steadfastness, and intelligence. Each is
tall, standing five-and-a-half to six feet
high. Some people think the terra-cotta
soldiers portray real-life men from the
vast army of the First Emperor.
• The warriors' hair styles and topknots,
and the tassels trimming their garments,
denote their military rank. Many do not
wear helmets or carry shields, a mark of
bravery in battle. Their armor was
probably of lacquered leather. The
soldiers' hands are positioned to hold
weapons, but most of the weapons have
disappeared. Very likely they were stolen
when the pits were looted after the fall of
the Qin dynasty. Even so, bronze spears,
halberds (a combination spear and
battle-ax), swords, daggers, and about
fourteen hundred arrowheads remain.
Some of the blades are still very sharp.
• A second pit, only partially excavated,
contains about fourteen hundred more
soldiers. While the first pit holds mostly
infantry, the second has a more mobile
attack force of horses and chariots. A
third pit is thought to hold the high
command of the army. The chariot of the
Commander-in-Chief survives, with men
surrounding it in protective formation.
Museum
• Approximately a mile away from the pits is a gently sloping,
rounded mountain covered with trees the burial mound of the
First Emperor. The four-sided, rammed-earth mound covers
three quarters of a square mile and is one hundred fifty-six feet
high. It once stood at four hundred feet. The perimeter of the
outer wall is almost four miles. Inside the walls were gardens,
pavilions, and a sacrificial palace, in addition to the burial
mound. The burial chamber itself is still untouched.
• Tradition based on the Shiji says that the emperor's body was
buried in a suit of small jade pieces sewed together with gold
thread and covered with a pearl and jade shroud.
• According to the ancient Chinese, the soul of the dead continued
living and therefore required all of life's necessities within the
tomb. Kings especially needed many luxuries and that is why
their tombs are treasure houses of jewels, gold, silver, and
bronze.
• The Shiji states that in order to prevent people from robbing the
tomb, "Craftsmen built internal devices that would set off arrows
should anyone pass through the tunnels."
Qin did not think his rule was cruel.
He said, "A thousand may die so that a
million may live." He built roads, canals,
and bridges. His public works projects
probably saved millions of lives that would
have been lost to floods and famine.
Although many people died building the
Great Wall, it did provide an advantage in
war.
No rebellion occurred during his rule.
(Although he survived 3 assassination
attempts). He died in 210 BC. Once he was
dead, his son took over. His son did not
rule for long. Peasants began to revolt
against the Qin government and the
cruelty.
The peasant who led that revolt became
the new emperor. His dynasty was called
the Han Dynasty.