Tag Archives: Great Wall
Was Qin an Effective Ruler?
I don’t think Qin was an effective Ruler. He followed Legalism and is very, very harsh. He united Ancient China, built the Great Wall of China, and built a really big tomb with the terra-cotta army. Not like that will change my mind. All the terra-cotta army did was create an amazing tourist attraction. Building the Great Wall and uniting China? Other people could do that. Like the Han dynasty.
He banned Confucianism just because one Confucian soldier threatened him. He buried about 460 scholars for plotting against him. Also burying them up to their necks then beheading them. What can a Confucian scholar DO? It’s not like they’re going to kill him. Confucianism is good behavior. Killing isn’t proper behavior. He even burned all the books. Poor scholars.
Making yourself immortal is useless. Yes, you’ll probably be VERY powerful. But since you are SO HARSH, no one wants you to be able to live forever. They’ll eventually get angry and kill themselves. Then other people can easily conquer your huge country. HAHA. Then you’ll keep sulking and then you can’t die to end you’re disappointment. The terra-cotta army didn’t do anything to help Qin.
Following Legalism is no bad. But the way Qin ruled is just WAY TOO HARSH. It made his empire fall much earlier. It fell shortly after Qin died. There were rebellions. Then a peasant ruler managed to defeat his rivals and created the Han dynasty.
This is, in my opinion, why Qin was a horrible, and ineffective ruler.
My Life in the Qin Dynasty
Since I’m a woman, when we battle in wars I’m not at the front, so I won’t get killed easily. But my grandfather, husband and brother died because of the wars of conquest. Millions died… I was forced to leave my family to fight. I hate it.
The emperor Qin ordered that measuring cups are the same size so they held the same amount. And to standardize weights, metalworkers made bell-shaped out of bronze or iron in different sizes. For money, people used, pearls, silver, tin objects, and coins. He also deleted not needed Chinese characters. A later dictionary listed 9,000 approved characters. Under Emperor Qin, only gold or bronze coins are accepted.
The life here is VERY unhappy. There are harsh punishments. Even if the emperor THOUGHT, just THOUGHT, you were a threat he would exile or kill your whole family. He even exiled his own mother because he feared she was plotting against him.
And he is so scared of being threatened that he divided China into 36 districts, with 3 officials guarding them. We can only learn Daoism, and Legalism. All the Confucian books where burned, JUST because one Confucius soldier threatened him. People who still followed Confucianism were buried alive or beheaded. We were also forced to 700,000 workers to build the terra-cotta army to protect his tomb. If this was supposed to be done in 2013 it would be much easier. Except all soldiers would probably look the same.
When I was forced to leave my family to build the Great Wall, I was horrified. Only my children at the house! The oldest only 12. Will they survive??? I had to work ALL DAY. Hundreds of people died while building it. But I refused to be one of them. I had to survive this. I wish that my family will be okay. People who died were buried right into the wall. When we were done 10 years later, the Wall proved to be quite affective. No invasions, no nomads. 🙂