Week 14
Review and Asian Civilizations: The Qin Dynasty
Why were the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers important?
What is a dynasty?
What is divine right?
What is the Mandate of Heaven?
What is ancestor worship?
What is calligraphy?
Why did China remain isolated from other civilizations?
Why did the Zhou overthrow the Shang?
What caused civil wars during the Zhou Dynasty?
What is silk?
What is a feudal system?
How was Chinese writing different from our alphabet?
Why did the Zhou Dynasty begin to seem like it would fall into civil war?
The Eastern Zhao and its ceremonial ruler proved to be unable to maintain peace in China.
The feudal lords would fight for supremacy during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, before a strong emperor would emerge and unite them all.
That emperor would found the Qin dynasty.
Asian Civilizations: The Qin Dynasty
Memory Fact:
Tell me about Qin Shi Huangdi.
Qin Shi Huangdi of China
Built the Great Wall
And had 7,500 life-size soldiers
Buried with him, weapons and all.
Fig. 1 Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi
In the late eighth century BC, the authority of the Zhou kings began to falter, and signs of Heaven’s displeasure seemed to appear across the land.
In 780 BC, a great earthquake struck the royal palace, causing significant damage.
The royal soothsayer interpreted this calamity as a warning that the Mandate of Heaven was turning against the Zhou.
The following year, King You of Zhou took a concubine named Bao Si, whose beauty and wit captured his heart.
Enchanted by her, the king made her his new queen and appointed their son as crown prince.
In doing so, he deposed his former queen, Lady Shen, and her son, Prince Yijiu, who had been the rightful heir.
This act outraged Queen Shen’s father, who saw it as both a personal insult and a sign of royal corruption.
Determined to avenge his daughter and restore her son’s place, he allied with the Quanrong, a powerful nomadic tribe from the west.
Together, they launched an attack on the Zhou capital.
When the enemy approached, King You ordered the warning beacons on Mount Li to be lit, signals meant to summon his nobles for defense.
But in earlier years, the king had often lit the beacons merely to amuse Bao Si, delighting her with the sight of panicked lords rushing to court.
Now, when the threat was real, the nobles refused to answer, thinking it yet another jest.
The capital fell.
King You and his son were killed, and Queen Bao Si was captured. The tragedy marked the end of the Western Zhou.
In the aftermath, loyal nobles installed the deposed Prince Yijiu on the throne as King Ping of Zhou.
Because the royal capital lay in ruins and the western frontier was no longer secure, King Ping moved the Zhou court eastward to Luoyi in 771 BC.
The move to Luoyi preserved the Zhou royal line, but the dynasty’s power was forever diminished.
Fig. 2 Luoyi
The new capital lay far from the fertile plains and ancestral lands of the west, and the king’s influence over his nobles weakened with each passing generation.
No longer could the Zhou monarch command armies or enforce decrees across the vast realm.
Instead, the empire’s former vassals, the dukes and marquesses who had once served as loyal guardians of the royal house, began to rule their own territories as independent lords.
The Zhou king, once the undisputed “Son of Heaven,” retained little more than ceremonial authority.
With the Zhou kings reduced to figureheads in Luoyi, China entered a long era of fragmentation known as the Spring and Autumn Period.
The period is named after the Spring and Autumn Annals, a chronicle of the state of Lu written by Confucius.
Though more than one hundred small states existed in name, real power rested in the hands of a few great lords.
Amid constant warfare and shifting alliances, several powerful rulers rose above the rest and came to be remembered as the Five Hegemons.
Fig. 2 the five Hegemons
The dukes claimed to act in defense of the Zhou king, maintaining order and resisting barbarian invasions, though in truth they ruled as kings in all but name.
Through diplomacy and conquest, they shaped the political landscape of early China and preserved a fragile balance of power for generations.
Yet, the weakening of central authority also gave rise to new questions about morality, duty, and the nature of good government.
The philosopher Confucius, born in the state of Lu in 551 BC, sought to restore harmony by reviving the ancient virtues of loyalty, righteousness, and filial piety.
He taught that moral example, not force, was the foundation of legitimate rule.
Fig. 3 The teaching Confucius.
His ideas, recorded by his students in the Analects, would later form the cornerstone of Chinese civilization.
By the end of the Spring and Autumn era, however, the bonds that once held the feudal system together had unraveled.
Great houses fell, small states were absorbed, and the struggle for dominance intensified.
The world of the hegemons gave way to one of kings, a new and more brutal age known as the Warring States Period.
The Warring States era was a time of both destruction and remarkable transformation.
Seven great powers, Qin, Chu, Zhao, Wei, Han, Yan, and Qi competed to unite the realm.
Fig. 4 Warring states of China
Warfare became professionalized, and advances in ironworking, cavalry, and siege craft made armies larger and deadlier than ever before.
Fortified cities rose across the land, while alliances shifted as quickly as the seasons.
Amid the turmoil, intellectual life flourished. Scholars, reformers, and strategists known as the “Hundred Schools of Thought” debated the nature of power and virtue.
Taoism, attributed to Lao Tzu, urged rulers to follow the Way of Nature and avoid needless interference.
Mohism, founded by Mozi, emphasized universal love and opposition to war.
Legalism advocated for strict laws and harsh punishments, arguing that only fear and discipline could bring about order.
Among the contending states, the western kingdom of Qin proved the most disciplined and far-sighted.
Its rulers adopted Legalist reforms that strengthened the central government, rewarded military merit, and imposed clear, uniform laws.
While other states were weakened by intrigue and indecision, Qin grew ever stronger, its armies hardened, and its administration efficient.
By the late third century BC, under the leadership of King Zheng, Qin launched a final series of campaigns that crushed its rivals one by one.
Watch as the Qin grows in power throughout the Warring States Period.
Fig. 5 Warring states gif
In 221 BC, Zheng proclaimed himself Qin Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor of China.
Fig. 6 Qin Shi Huangdi
The long centuries of division had finally come to an end.
The Qin Dynasty established the foundation of imperial China.
Fig. 7 Sculpture of Qin Shi Huangdi during his imperial tour.
Abolishing the old feudal order, the First Emperor divided the empire into provinces governed by officials appointed by the throne.
He standardized currency, weights, measurements, and the written script, ensuring that communication and trade could flourish across the vast realm.
Qin Shi Huangdi was obsessed with finding the secret of immortality and used his wealth as emperor to pursue eternal life.
During his reign, he dispatched several missions to find the mythical elixir of eternal life.
The most famous was led by the alchemist Xu Fu, who sailed with a large fleet and hundreds of young men in search of the legendary Mount Penglai, where immortals were believed to reside.
The expedition never returned, with legend holding that they settled in what is now Japan, afraid to face the emperor empty-handed.
However, this did not stop his search.
The emperor funded court alchemists to create potions that would grant eternal life.
The alchemists used toxic materials like mercury, cinnabar, and arsenic, mistakenly believing they had life-extending properties.
Qin Shi Huangdi consumed these mercury-laced elixirs regularly.
Historians believe that this prolonged poisoning likely caused his death at age 49!
Realizing that immortality was not guaranteed, Qin Shi Huangdi planned for a grand afterlife, creating a mausoleum that replicated his empire.
His underground mausoleum covers 35 square miles.
Fig. 8 Mausoleum
His most famous creation is the life-sized Terracotta Army, which was built to guard his tomb.
The Terracotta Army holds more than 7,500 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses.
The thousands of unique soldiers, chariots, and horses were intended to protect the emperor and serve him in the next world.
Fig. 9 Terracotta Army
Fig. 10 and 11 Horses of the Terracotta Army
Fig. 12, 13 & 14 Soldiers of the Terracotta Army
Meanwhile, he also began several building projects to benefit all of China.
To secure his borders, he ordered the construction of massive fortifications, linking existing walls into what would become the early Great Wall of China.
Here we can see the Great Wall of China
Fig. 15 Great Wall of China
Qin Shi Huang also built an extensive network of roads and canals, enabling his armies and messengers to move swiftly throughout the empire.
His court, however, ruled with an iron fist. Guided by Legalist doctrine, the emperor demanded absolute obedience.
Dissent was crushed, books deemed subversive were burned, and scholars who defied imperial authority were executed.
Despite its power, the Qin state proved too rigid to endure.
Qin Shi Huangdi’s death in 210 BC unleashed rebellion and civil war.
Within a few years, the dynasty collapsed, undone by its own harshness.
Yet, its achievements could not be erased.
The Qin had united the realm, standardized its institutions, and established a model of centralized rule that would shape China for the next two thousand years.
The Sages of Ancient China
The Philosophy of Confucius and Lao Tzu.
During the turmoil of the late Zhou period, several great thinkers sought new ways to restore harmony to society.
Confucius taught that peace and stability could be achieved through virtue rather than power.
Fig. 16 Confucius
He believed that every person had a moral duty to cultivate virtue and practice benevolence and that rulers should lead by example so that their subjects would follow willingly.
His teachings emphasized the importance of family, education, and ritual propriety, binding society together through respect for authority and tradition.
For Confucius, society was bound together by a web of relationships, and if everyone fulfilled their roles, society would flourish.
The five fundamental relationships:
Each relationship carried clear expectations for proper conduct, balancing authority with responsibility and obedience with care.
1. Ruler and Subject:
The ruler must govern with benevolence, justice, and by moral example, acting as a father to the people. The subject, in turn, must serve with loyalty and sincerity. A virtuous ruler earns willing obedience; a corrupt one loses the Mandate of Heaven and the people’s support.
2. Parent and Child:
This was the model for all others. The parents’ duty was to guide and protect with kindness and wisdom, while the child was to show filial piety, respect, obedience, and gratitude. In honoring parents, one learned to honor authority and tradition.
3. Husband and Wife:
The husband was to lead with righteousness and care, while the wife was to respond with gentleness and devotion. Though unequal in status, the relationship was complementary, each fulfilling distinct roles in maintaining family order.
4. Elder and Younger Sibling:
The elder was to act with kindness and responsibility, setting an example for the younger. The younger showed respect and deference, maintaining family hierarchy and harmony.
5. Friend and Friend:
The only relationship of equality, this bond was grounded in mutual trust and sincerity. Friends were to encourage one another toward virtue and moral improvement.
Through these five bonds, Confucius envisioned society as an extension of the family. Each person knowing their place and duties, and each relationship is guided by reciprocal virtue.
When rulers acted as fathers, officials as sons, and all treated one another with humanity and respect, order would arise naturally, and the world would return to harmony under Heaven.
Lao Tzu, author of the Dao De Jing, turned attention from social conventions to the greater pattern of nature itself.
Fig. 17 Lao tzu riding an ox through a pass
This hidden pattern that governed nature was called the Dao, or “The way.”
The Dao is the spontaneous flow by which all things arise and return.
Lao Tzu taught that human beings are mistaken when they impose willful control on their lives instead of following life's natural rhythm.
Instead, Lao Tzu taught the principle of wu wei, “non-forcing” or effortless action, by which one achieves more through alignment than through struggle.
He praised softness, humility, and natural simplicity, arguing that the strongest rule is gentle and unobtrusive.
When rulers impose too many laws, they create rebellion; when people chase wealth or fame, they lose peace.
Let's look at this philosophy in action!
Let’s say someone is preparing for a job interview.
They study the company, practice answers, and dress well, but when the interview starts, instead of forcing perfect answers or trying to control every moment, they relax and respond naturally.
They listen carefully, speak honestly, and adapt to the conversation as it flows.
Because they’re not tense or overthinking, the conversation feels natural, genuine, and both people connect better.
This is Wu Wei in action:�They’re still doing something, but without struggle or force. They’re letting their preparation and natural ability flow freely.
Activity: Philosophical Debate
The Best Way to Rule
Phase 1: Group Preparation
Collaborate to prepare a position statement (2–3 minutes long).
Use philosophical language (virtue, harmony, law, nature, order, punishment, etc.) and specific examples from the philosophies or history.
Phase 2: Opening Statements
Present your case before the class:
Phase 3: Rebuttal Round
Respond directly to other groups
Be respectful; no personal attacks
Phase 4: Verdict and Reflection
VOTE: Which philosophy would most likely end the Warring States chaos?
Image Credits
Fig. 1 Qin Shi Huangdi - Unknown (18??–18??), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 2 5 Hegemons - SY, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 3 Confucius - Wu Daozi, 685-758, Tang Dynasty., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 4 Warring States - Philg88, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 5 Warring states gif - Bairuilong, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 6 Qin Shi Huangdi art - Unknown artistUnknown artist, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 7 Qin Shi Huangdi sculpture - Vitsuha, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 8 Mausoleum - User:Bairuilong, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 9 Terracotta Army - xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 10 Terracotta horse 1 - Yaohua2000, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 11 Terracotta horse 2 - Gary Todd, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 12 Terracotta archer - Windmemories, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 13 Terracotta soldiers - Bingar1234, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Image Credits
Fig. 14 Terracotta soldier 1 - Fernando, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 15 Great Wall of China - Severin.stalder, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 16 Confucius - 孔子, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 17 Lao tsu - Zhang Lu, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons