Qin Dynasty
Discover the Qin Dynasty — the short-lived but transformative Chinese dynasty that unified China, built the Great Wall, and created the terracotta army.
The Qin Dynasty lasted only fifteen years (221–206 BCE), making it one of the shortest major dynasties in Chinese history. Yet its impact was so profound that China itself takes its name from the Qin. Under the ruthless leadership of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor, China was unified into a single state for the first time — a political achievement that would define Chinese civilization for the next two millennia.
Qin Shi Huang's unification went far beyond military conquest. He standardized weights, measures, currency, axle widths, and — most importantly — the Chinese writing system, enabling communication across a linguistically diverse empire. He connected existing defensive walls into what would become the Great Wall, and built a vast network of roads and canals to bind the empire together. These were not just engineering projects; they were acts of political unification.
The cost was staggering. Qin governance was based on Legalism, a philosophy that relied on strict laws, severe punishments, and absolute state control. Books were burned, scholars were executed, and hundreds of thousands of laborers were conscripted for construction projects. The emperor's famous terracotta army — over 8,000 life-sized warriors buried to guard his tomb — speaks to both the era's extraordinary craftsmanship and its bottomless appetite for human labor. The dynasty collapsed shortly after Qin Shi Huang's death, but the unified state he created endured.