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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.