The QinDynasty

The QinDynasty

Qin ShihuangdiQin Shihuangdi – means “the First Qin Emperor”; ruler who declared himself ruler in 221 B.C. and he based his ideas upon Legalism.

Emperor Qin Shihuangdi

• Qin was a ruler of a local state during the Zhou dynasty

• He gradually took over neighboring states and declared himself Qin Shihuangdi, or First Qin Emperor.

• Qin’s rule was based on Legalism

• Qin abolished the officials’ authority to pass their posts on to their sons.

Emperor Qin Shihuangdi• He became the only person authorized to fill empty

posts.

• Qin united China, created one type of currency, ordered the building of roads and buildings, and connected the Chang Jiang to central China by canal.

• Conquered 6 rival warring states to unify China in 221 B.C.E.

• Formed a centralized government, built a nationwide network of roads and canals, standardized weights, measures and currency and formalized the written language.

Qin * A believer in evil spirits, Qin employed master craftsmen to mass-produce a terra-cotta army as a protection in the afterlife. •His mausoleum was rigged with crossbows to ambush intruders. •Those who knew the tomb's secrets were buried alive with their Emperor. Qin's dynasty was overthrown, however, just a few years after his death. The site of the pottery army was burned and lost to history for more than 2,000 years.

•Construction of the Qin wall became the most hated imperial project in Chinese history

THE great wall of China

• The Great Wall of China was originally a project of the Qin dynasty designed to keep out the nomadic invaders from the north.

• The Great Wall of China was built to protect the Chinese from the Xiongnu, a nomadic people living north of China.

The Great Wall• Is the world's largest man-made structure, stretching over 3,948

miles

• Can be seen from the space!

• The emperor thought the wall would bring peace to the nation but the nation was weakened by the heavy cost of the construction.

• Ditches along the wall were filled with corpses of men who died building the wall

• Deaths of wall workers are estimated to exceed one million

Fall of the Qin

•In 209 BCE, only a year after the death of the Qin Emperor, millions of peasants rose up and ended the tyranny and bloodshed of wall building.

•The Qin Dynasty had fallen, brought down by the building of the great wall.

• Within ten years much of the wall was a neglected ruin. Once again the northern border was at the mercy of the northern invaders.