QUESTIONS

1. Analyse Qin Shihuangdi’s role in this

- Managerial perspective
- What is he allowing other people to accomplish
- creating /promoting a sense of unity( unified state)
- One language
- standardisation to unification

2. After unification, why would it make sense in:

- Creating a new title
- No longer just a king, he is an emperor
- Entering into the imperial age of china
- Standardising cart axle width, roads, currency etc
- Unifying the different walls
- Starts process of unifying different walls
- Demolishing the city walls in conquered states

Warring States
- Starts with extinction of ruling house of Qi,via the house of Tian
- Different families fighting for supremacy
- Internal questioning of authority is something qin shi huang needs to avoid
- In the zhou state it is a feudalism type of system
- Chinese historians to question the term of feudalism
- Feudalism = nobles fighting for dominance’
- Dynastic feud in zhou family
- Qin manages to last long enough into the warring states period and remains a dominant state
- Bring those smaller states into Qin’s power
- State of Yen was one of the last to be conquered

- Why were the qin so successful

- Foundations laid a lot sooner driving qin towards a more militarized state
- Geography - natural defenses compared to other states
- Impact of spring, autumn and warring states on the other states
-

- To ground the cosmic claims of his title, Zheng toured his realm → inscribed his achievements on
the peaks of mountains
- his new vision of the ruler was also articulated a philosophical work sponsored by Lu Buwei
- This text, the Springs and Autumns of Master Lu, was structured according to the calendar and it
argued that the ruler followed the pattern of heaven → in a closely associated move, The First
 Emperor claimed that a cosmic cycle, the so-called Five Phase cycle, brought about his rise to
power and made it an inevitable part of the divine plan.
- A major building program was undertaken to transform the capital city → emperor’s new palace
was patterned on the North Star and the Big Dipper (fixed centre of the sky) → great statues cast
from the confiscated weapons of defeated states represent constellations
- These ceremonial and architectural assertions of the emperor’s god-head were accompanied by
institutional programs that aimed to centralise and unify all aspects of Chinese Life → most
important of these were in the intellectual sphere
- Whereas each of the Warring States had its own writing system, The Qin government created a
new simplified non-alphabetic script to be used throughout the Empire → reduced the complex
and variable Large Seal script with its curving line - the kind of writing used of Zhou ritual vessels
- into simpler, more rectilinear form
- The Qin writing system may have suppressed as much as 25% of the pre-Qin writing styles
- Benefits of Standardised Script → will last into the first half of the Han Dynasty (then be
simplified further)
- Allowed for swifter writing with brush and ink → good for record-keeping
- Allowed for written communication between people who would not have been able to
communicate orally
- Propagated across the Empire
- Public displays of graphs on stone inscriptions
- Objects manufactured in government workshops
- Official documents
- Result: a graphic koine ( a dialect or language of a region that had become the common of
standard language of a larger area) → a language shared by diverse peoples without being the
first language in any of them
- Result of pan imperial writing system → led to founding imperial academy intended to control
the dissemination of texts and the interpretations of their meanings
- In Han and later accounts this event was described as the “burning of the books”, but it
was actually a policy of unification rather than destruction
- When a scholar argues that the First Emperor should imitate the Zhou founders by
enfeoffing his relatives, the chief minister, Li Si, retorted that what the state should do
was put an end to such criticisms of current institutions through reference to an
idealised antiquity
- Acting on this principle, he removed all copies of the Canon of Odes, Canon of
Documents, and the text of the philosophical traditions from private hands, stored them
in the imperial library, and made them available for study only under
government-appointed scholars
- Books on utilitarian matters such as medicine, divination, agriculture and forestry were
not confiscated
- Persuaded that a unitary empire required a unitary doctrine, the Qin government tried
to control political thought by limiting access to written texts but there was no
systematic destruction of them → that damage was done in 206BCE when Xiang Yu
sacked the Qin capital and burned the imperial library to the ground
- Essential to state control of political discourse was the appointment of scholars who would study
the relevant texts and transmit their knowledge to students
- The First Emperor consulted classicist scholars regarding his performance of the feng and shan
sacrifices, and his stone inscriptions are replete with classical citations, compose entirely in verse
using the same rhyme groups as the Canon of Odes
- The Springs and Autumns of Master Lu comprised all of the intellectual traditions, including the
classicists → contrary to the han’s claims their own intellectual politics in the han period
followed the Qin precedent
- Standardisation was extended into administration and business by establishing a single scale of
weights and measures through the realm
- Even the width of the axles was equalised → carts and chariots run through the same ruts
- Cast bronze models for units of length, weight and volume were distributed to all local
government offices and were imposed on all merchants → improves trade → these bronze
models have been found as far as Manchuria
- farther
- These roads were not simply dirt paths
- China’s varied terrain required stone bridges, trestles, reinforcements over or through mountains
and roadways suspended from wooden posts to run along cliffs
- The transportation system included rest houses =, where travellers could eat and sleep, as well
as relay buildings and post stations where messengers exchanged exhausted horses for fresh
ones

- From the Shihuangdi legal documents, we know that the Qin set up checkpoints along the roads
where travellers had to pay a tax and show passports in order to continue
- This institution lasted into the Han Dynasty
- Records show that passports were sometimes being forged, and in times of famine passport
restrictions for those transporting grain were waived
- Several texts speak of passports for going into or out of the capital region, prohibitions against
travelling in winter, bans on households moving away from the frontiers and the detention of
strangers travelling on the roads
- Stations for inspecting passports also served as jails when necessary
- Roads allowed movement throughout China → highly controlled movement to serve the
purpose of the state
- The network of roads facilitated a major ritual of unification known as the imperial progress,
during which the emperor personally inspected the programs underway throughout his domain
- The First Emperor made no fewer than five tours of his easter provinces in ten years
- In additional to roadways, the Qin used rivers for transport in the north, and built several canals
in the Guanzhong region
- Travel by water was even more common in the South where topography
- While the Qin engaged in major building projects to link together the regions of their new
realm, they also worked to restrict movement between their own territory and the lands that lay
beyond
 - In the first half of the 1st millenium BCE, many people to the North f what became China
developed into a new mode of living → transhumant nomadism → transfer of livestock from
one grazing place to another based on the season
- During the Warring States period, the northern Chinese states had expanded into the grasslands
- This sense of contrast was marked by wall building → it culminates in the Qin’s attempt to
secure their realm by connecting the earlier walls at the northern frontier into a single defence
system
-
- The basic principle was that all adult males had to work without pay for a stipulated period of
time on construction projects and miscellaneous duties in the commanderies and counties
- They transported goods such as grain or hemp cloth, built palaces and official quarters, mined or
carried the salt and iron that was produced in state-sponsored monopolies and repaired bridges,
roads and waterways

BUILDING PROGRAMS
Public Works
- From his early years on the throne the Zheng invested heavily in public works projects of various
kinds
- Two large-scale water-resource projects were begun around 250 bce and were operational by
the time of the qin unification of the empire

Zhengguo Canal:
- A second hydrological engineering project was the zhengguo canal, completed in 246 bce, which
links two south-flowing tributaries of the wei river, namely the king river and the luo river
- The canal runs parallel to and north of the wei river; straight and deep, compared with
the shifting and shallow channels of the wei, it improved both irrigation and the
transportation of goods in the region
Lingqu Canal:
- A third great water project begun by the qin was the lingqu canal, in today’s guangxi province,
linking the xiang river, a northward-flowing tributary of the yangzi, with the li river (a tributary of
the gui, which in turn flows into the west river, which joins the pearl river near modern day
guangzhou)
- Completed in 214 BCE
- Created an integrated canal transport system that enabled barges to travel without
interruption from the Yangtze Delta to the Pearl River Delta
- While transport canals were especially suitable for the watery south of the heartland region,
much of the northern heartland depended on land transportation

Roads:
- The Qin greatly extended the existing road system, both by linking older regional roads and by
building new ones
 - The road system served several important purposes: it facilitated the rapid movement of troops;
it improved the transport of grain (collected as taxes in the counties and commanderies) to the
capital, and it enabled an expansion of private commerce by merchants
- While improving the highway system, Qin engineers also standardised the width of the roads
and the gauge of chariot and cart tracks → previously the lack of uniform standards impeded
efficient travel

Great Wall:
- Begun even before the conquest of the empire was completed, the great wall is the most
famous of qin’s monumental public works projects
- Said to have used 300,000 labourers (including convicts condemned to labour // peasants // and
some paid workers)
- Not all of it was new construction; it also linked together existing walls on the northern
boundaries of yan, wei, zhao and qin itself
- At the same time, existing internal walls were demolished as were the city walls of former
territorial state capitals
- The wall follows the approximate northern boundary of feasible grain agriculture. In effect it
says to China’s northern neighbours, “you stay on your side of the wall and be pastoralists, we
will stay on our side of the wall and be farmers, and we will be at peace.”
- The effectiveness of the wall as a defensive fortification is a matter of debate
- It no doubt had some effect on small scale border raiding → over the course of the centuries
was seldom able to stop a large scale invasion
- The remains of the great wall from the qin dynasty are located in the Yinshan mountain in Inner
Mongolia. Since most of this great wall is in the mountain, people know very little about this
cultural heritage
- Its main purpose was to keep an eye on people coming in and out of the state
- Walls work up to a point → depends on the other army + how determined they are

Capital City:
- Feeling secure in his new status as emperor of a united china once the conquest had been
completed, qin shihuangdi set about building a capital city to match his ambitions
- Xianyang was rebuilt and enlargened and was filled accordingly to contemporary descriptions
with nearly built mansions
- Some of these were built for members of the new aristocracy of successful genres who had been
rewarded with sumptuous rural territories → after 221BC they were bought off and moved to
the capital
- Likewise, surviving members of the ruling elite of the conquered states were moved to
comfortable palaces in xianyang, where they were supported financially but also kept under
surveillance and prevented from intervening in the affairs of the former states
- Capital cities are used as a showpiece, economic, socio political centre
- Political statement to the rest of the people → we are now an empire
- A reward for the aristocracy → look at what you can do under my ruling
Afang/Opang/Epang Palace
- The construction of the emperors own grandiose afang palace (sometimes called opang or
epang), opposite the capital, on the south bank of the wei river, was begun in 212 bce, but the
project was still underway when the first emperor died in 210
- A new palace would be built for each place he conquered, show he has power, he won over
them
- If contemporary reports are to be believed, it was designed to be the largest palace in the
Heartland Region
- Incomplete palace complex was destroyed in 206, when rebel troops occupied the qin capital,
and it was never finished
- According to the shiji, each time a kingdom was conquered, a replica of its palaces would be
built in xianyang, the capital of qin - hence its nickname, the ‘palaces of the 6 states’
- Due to assasination attempts he wanted to stabilise his security, so he moved between places to
prevent from people knowing where he was so assassins wont get to him, capital crime to share
whereabouts of him
- Built 300 palaces in the Wei River area and 400 outside of it
- These were filled with the beautiful women and instruments captured from the different states
- In addition, he built mansions for the dispossessed aristocrats he conquered to facilitate the
surveillance of the activities of former feudal lords
- Was partly finished from King Q’s son but the son only lived for a few more years → destroyed in
Han Dynasty
- To show off wealth families would accrue wealth
- At the urgings of the necromancer Lu Sheng, the First Emperor increased his building program to
include secret passageways connecting all his palaces and buildings so evil spirits could not find
him
- Disclosure of his whereabouts was punishable by death
- This was to facilitate his attainment of immortality, he was told
- The largest palace (above), called afang meaning beside the capital, built in 212 bc at the foot of
mount li
- It measured almost half a mile in length and occupied an area of 300 square li, streams actually
flowed through it
- According to the shiji: then he had palaces constructed in the shanglin gardens, south of the wei
river. The front palace, afang, was built first...The terraces above could seat 10,000 and below
there was room for banners (66 feet) in height. One causeway round the palace led to the south
hill at the top of which a gateway was erected. A second led across the wei river (to the capital)...
- Built in a way even spirits couldn't find him because he's superstitious, hiding from spirits
ensured he could become immortal

Shihuangdi’s Mausoleum
- The final great public works project of the qin dynasty was the tomb of the first emperor himself,
now world-famous as the site of the underground army of terracotta warriors
 - Work on the tomb and its associated structures was begun shortly after he ascended the throne
in 247 BCE and the pace of construction accelerated after 221 BCE
- An estimated 700, 000 workers, mostly criminals sentenced to terms of forced labour, worked
on the tomb complex during the years of its construction
Fairly significant complex
- The location of the tomb was never a mystery; its a huge mound in Lintong, east of Xi’an, always
known to indicate the site of subterranean tomb
- But archaeologists were stunned when in 1974 some farmers digging a well a mile or so east of
the tomb came upon an underground army of larger-than-life-size painted terracotta warriors
- Arrayed in a huge main pit and two auxiliary pits, the approximately 8000 figures (including not
only soldiers and officers but also chariots and horses) were apparently intended as symbolic
guardians, defending the tomb from invaders from the east (likely source of an invasion of the
wei river valley)
- They were all facing the wei river

QIN SHI HUANGDI AND IMMORTALITY (Notes by Edward Burman):

Doasist principles, doaist properties
- Elixirs or substances that apparently had magical properties included jade (brought immortality)
- Jade armour + jade in all his orifices for immortality
- He was meant to swallow mercury powders and stuff to live to an old age ha lolol the
irony
- Mercury poisoning was the main cause for his death
- The tomb also was meant to help him with ascending after death → protected him from
vengeful spirits of people he had murdered
- Chinese society believed that death was just a level to go to another place or was another place
- Evident in his tomb → had many artefacts for the afterlife
- What kind of immortality did Qin Shihuangdi expect?
- Key concept to understanding this is the concept of longevity
- Defeated all other states → feared revenge from victims whos spirits would chase him
down
- Constantly feared conspiracies
- He insisted on secrecy in his movements to the extent of building walls and corridors in
the palace to keep him hidden from spirits → effect of paranoia and effect of mercury
- Mercury may have affected his mind
- He could not bear to die bc his dynasty revolved around idea that he was eternal
- According to the Shiji he could not bear to hear the word ‘death’ to the point where
officials were afraid to mention it at all
- Corpses were also designed to prevent their deterioration in their tombs → preservation
- Holiness essentially meant the art of not dying
- General belief that immortality could be achieved → 320 BCE there were men prepared
to teach the art of getting material immortality → “physiological alchemy” → bodily
training (Taoism → go into the wilderness and you will get immortality from giving up
material possessions) + medicines
- Qin Shihuangdi did not leave any will → no contingency plans for worst case scenario
unlike Augustus
- QSHD thought he would be able to live and reign forever → constantly sought out elixirs
to guarantee eternal life
- There were legends about 3 spirit mountains in the Bohai sea where fairies who had the
elixir of immortality were said to live → 3 mountains were Penglai, Fangzhang and
Yingzhou
- When he arrived at the coast he was greeted by magicians who told him about the elixir

- Sima Qian → in his ‘Treatise of the Feng and Shan Sacrifices’ → although the 3
mountains were close to land, once a boat arrived, they would appear upside down in
the water + any mariners who came close would be pushed back out to sea
- The three mountains were known as Penglai, Fangzhang
- Jade
- Legendary Jade Emperor → considered immortal
- Jade is durable material that lasts, chinese alchemists thought there was a
magical property, so people eating it would gain immortality
- Visually, the words ‘king’ and ‘jade’ are closely related —> chinese characters
- An essential element on alchemy and in the quest for immortality: zhou
consumed jade
- Jade also had a physical function → plugged in every orifice and also used in Han
Dynasty suits
- Mercury (quicksilver)
- Metal liquid
- Early alchemists called mercury ‘immortal elixir’ —> in medicine it was often
used in the form of cinnabar, a sulphide of mercury, which could be found
naturally in shaanxi, although the best quality was said to come from hunan
- The widespread use of arsenic and mercury in procedures designed to enhance
the possibility of immortality → supports idea of QSHD dying from mercury
poisoning (Needham)
-