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The Unification of China

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The Unification of China

Tameka Davis
Dr. Aradas

Tameka Davis
World Civilization I
Dr. Aradas
11/19/14

The Unification of China The movie “Hero” opens up with a brief history saying that China was once divided into seven kingdoms that warred with each other constantly. It took only one man to conquer all the kingdoms and unite the land into what is now known as China. The opening captions introduce the theme of the movie: “People die for all sorts of reasons: for friendship, love, and an ideal…and people kill for these same reasons also.” (IMDB) Emperor Qin Shih Huang was the first Emperor of China. He unified China, and has left many legacies that have made China what it is today. Emperor Qin managed to create magnificent and enormous construction projects. He also caused cultural and intellectual growth, along with a lot of destruction within China. Although he had good intentions on unifying China, the way he went about it could have been better. Emperor Qin killed many scholars, because he thought they would “outsmart” him. At this time, many slaves were sacrificed during the construction on The Great Wall of China. During 475-221 BC, all of the states were at war with themselves. It was called “The Warring States Period.” (Hinsbergh) China was then divided into many small states and they each had their own ways of doing things. The states were fighting for power, and when a state won, they could take over another state. Within twenty-five years of his reign, Emperor Qin eliminated all the other states, and had ruling power over all of them. Emperor Qin chose the symbol of the state, according to the school of the five elements: earth, wood, metal, fire, and water. With this in place, the Qin dynasty was divided into thirty-six provinces, each having its own army commander, governor, and inspector. As the Qin Empire was now unified from the warring states, Emperor Qin ordered General Meng Tian and his soldiers to fortify the walls along the North of China which had been built earlier. There were multiple purposes of building the wall. First, it marked the boundary of where the state is, second, it was a defense where enemies would find it difficult to raid the state, and last, merchants and travelers who were coming into the state would have to be taxed when they were passing through the border. Because the Qin Empire was so large, the walls provided a means of communication within the provinces. Soldiers were situated along the walls, keeping watch of the movement of the enemies. If there was a warning, they would light the fire and the soldiers along the wall will also light the fire. Emperor Qin still had some work to do to unify all the different warring states. The Qin Empire created a new writing system to be used throughout the empire. It reduced the Large Seal script with its curving lines, allowed swifter writing with brush and ink (important for imperial record keeping), and it allowed communication between people who have never been able to communicate verbally. This development led to the founding of an imperial school that dealt with texts and the interpretation of meaning. Many historians during that time had to obey what he was asked to do or write. This means, the histories that we have today may or may not be accurate, but was written to the pleasing of the Emperor during that time. In 213 BC, there were texts insulting Emperor Qin despite of his great efforts in unifying China. His grand councilor, Li Si, was furious and suggested, “To ban all works of literature and poetry, historical documents and ‘the sayings of the hundred schools of philosophy.” (Hinsbergh) This event was viewed as a terrible act of censorship and vandalism. Many people believed that Emperor Qin was ruthless because they thought he was the one who suggested burning all the books. However, Emperor Qin was the one who agreed to this suggestion only because he thought he was unifying the empire and not destroying it. He only sought for unification. Emperor Qin wanted his empire to be unified and as one. He standardized many things, which led to the dissatisfaction of many philosophical ideas. Legalism was the only official belief and Confucianism was not allowed. Many scholars were dissatisfied with Emperor Qin. In order to keep his empire, Emperor Qin had to have his people think the same way so as to control what his people might do and result in splitting China back to the different states again. As the Qin Empire was huge, Emperor Qin was constantly on the road, visiting all the different provinces to make sure that his governors were doing what they were instructed to do. This led to Emperor’s Qin decision of building speed roads from the capital to the north, northeast, south, and southeast. This led to the improved communication system where people were able to travel and spend less time on the roads and helped Emperor Qin spend less time on the road. The speed roads that Emperor Qin built more than two thousand years ago are still being used now. Emperor Qin did many things to unify and make China what it is today.
Works Cited
Hinsbergh, Gavin. "The Warring States Period." China Highlights (n.d.).
IMDB. "Hero." 2002. IMDB. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299977/synopsis>.

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