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Qin Shi Huang was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first Emperor of China. Rather than maintain the title of "king" borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers,he assumed the invented title of "emperor",which would see continuous use by monarchs in China for the next two millennia.
The Warring States period was an era in ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare,bureaucratic and military reform,and political consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded with the wars of conquest that saw the state of Qin annex all the other contender states by 221 BC and found the Qin dynasty,the first imperial dynasty in Chinese history.
Han was an ancient Chinese state during the Warring States period of ancient China. Scholars frequently render the name as Hann to clearly distinguish it from China's later Han dynasty.
Qin was an ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty. It is traditionally dated to 897 BC. The Qin state originated from a reconquest of western lands that had previously been lost to the Xirong. Its location at the western edge of Chinese civilisation allowed for expansion and development that was not available to its rivals in the North China Plain.
LüBuwei was a Chinese merchant and politician of the Qin state during the Warring States period. Originally an influential merchant from the Wey (衛) state,LüBuwei met and befriended King Zhuangxiang of Qin,who was then a minor prince serving as a hostage in the Zhao state. Through bribes and machinations,LüBuwei succeeded in helping King Zhuangxiang become the heir apparent to the Qin throne. In 249 BCE,after King Zhuangxiang ascended the throne following the death of his father,King Xiaowen,he appointed LüBuwei as his chancellor (相國) and ennobled him as "Marquis Wenxin" (文信侯). After King Zhuangxiang's death in 247 BCE,LüBuwei became the chancellor and regent to King Zhuangxiang's young son,Ying Zheng,who later became Qin Shi Huang.
The Dujiangyan is an ancient irrigation system in Dujiangyan City,Sichuan,China. Originally constructed around 256 BC by the State of Qin as an irrigation and flood control project,it is still in use today. The system's infrastructure develops on the Min River (Minjiang),the longest tributary of the Yangtze. The area is in the west part of the Chengdu Plain,between the Sichuan Basin and the Tibetan Plateau. Originally,the Min would rush down from the Min Mountains and slow down abruptly after reaching the Chengdu Plain,filling the watercourse with silt,thus making the nearby areas extremely prone to floods. King Zhao of Qin commissioned the project,and the construction of the Dujiangyan harnessed the river using a new method of channeling and dividing the water rather than simply damming it. The water management scheme is still in use today to irrigate over 5,300 km2 (2,000 sq mi) of land in the region and has produced comprehensive benefits in flood control,irrigation,water transport and general water consumption. Begun over 2,250 years ago,it now irrigates 668,700 hectares of farmland. The Dujiangyan,the Zhengguo Canal in Shaanxi and the Lingqu Canal in Guangxi are collectively known as the "three great hydraulic engineering projects of the Qin."
The Zhengguo Canal,Zhengguoqu or Chengkuo Canal,named after its designer,Zheng Guo,is a large canal located in Shaanxi province,China. The canal irrigates the Guanzhong plain,north of Xi'an. Together with the Dujiangyan Irrigation System and Lingqu Canal,it is one of the three biggest water conservation projects built before the Qin dynasty in ancient China. The canal connects the Jing river and Luo river,northern tributaries of the Wei River.
The Seven Warring States or Seven Kingdoms were the seven leading hegemonic states during the Warring States period of Ancient China:
Shu (Chinese:蜀;Sichuanese Pinyin:Su2;former romanization:Shuh),also known as Ancient Shu (Chinese:古蜀) in historiography,was an ancient kingdom in what is now Sichuan Province. It was based on the Chengdu Plain,in the western Sichuan basin with some extension northeast to the upper Han River valley. To the east was the Ba tribal confederation. Further east down the Han and Yangtze rivers was the State of Chu. To the north over the Qinling Mountains was the State of Qin. To the west and south were tribal peoples of little military power.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a Chinese television series adapted from the classical 14th century novel of the same title by Luo Guanzhong. The series was produced by China Central Television (CCTV) and was first aired on the network in 1994. It spanned a total of 84 episodes,each approximately 45 minutes long. One of the most expensive television series produced at the time,the project cost 170 million yuan. It was completed over four years and involved over 400,000 cast and crew members,including divisions of the People's Liberation Army from the Beijing,Nanjing and Chengdu military regions. Some of the dialogue spoken by characters was adapted directly from the novel. Extensive battle scenes,such as the battles of Guandu,Red Cliffs and Xiaoting,were also live-acted.
The Protectorate of the Western Regions (simplified Chinese:西域都护府;traditional Chinese:西域都護府;pinyin:XīyùDūhùFǔ;Wade–Giles:Hsi1-yü4 Tu1-hu4 Fu3) was an imperial administration (a protectorate) situated in the Western Regions administered by Han dynasty China and its successors on and off from 59 or 60 BCE until the end of the Sixteen Kingdoms period in 439 AD. The "Western Regions" refers to areas west of Yumen Pass,especially the Tarim Basin in southern Xinjiang. These areas would later be termed Altishahr (southern Xinjiang,excluding Dzungaria) by Turkic-speaking peoples. The term "western regions" was also used by the Chinese more generally to refer to Central Asia.
Xin,King of Hán,also known as Hán Xin and as Hán Wang Xin,was a descendant of the royal family of the state of Hán during the Warring States period of China. After the establishment of the Han dynasty,Emperor Gaozu granted Hán Xin the title of "King of Hán" (韓王). In 201 BC,Hán Xin was suspected of conspiring with the Xiongnu to attack the Han Empire and decided to defect to the Xiongnu. He was killed in action during a battle against the Han army in 196 BC.
The economic history of China covers thousands of years and the region has undergone alternating cycles of prosperity and decline. China,for the last two millennia,was one of the world's largest and most advanced economies. Economic historians usually divide China's history into three periods:the pre-imperial era before the rise of the Qin;the early imperial era from the Qin to the rise of the Song;and the late imperial era,from the Song to the fall of the Qing.
Qin's wars of unification were a series of military campaigns launched in the late 3rd century BC by the state of Qin against the other six powers remaining in China —Han,Zhao,Yan,Wei,Chu and Qi. Between 247 and 221 BC,Qin had developed into one of the most powerful of China's Seven Warring States that coalesced in the wake of the Zhou dynasty's decline,by now retaining a weak and merely ceremonial position among the warring states. In 230 BC,King Ying Zheng of Qin began the sequence of campaigns that would bring the Warring States period to a close,setting out to conquer each remaining sovereign one by one. This was completed in 221 BC with the fall of Qi,leaving the former Zhou sphere unified under a more centralized Qin control. Ying Zheng declared himself the First Emperor,or Qin Shi Huang—becoming the first sovereign over a unified China under the imperial Qin dynasty.
Ancient Chinese states were dynastic polities of China within and without the Zhou cultural sphere prior to Qin's wars of unification. They ranged in size from large estates,to city-states to much vaster territories with multiple population centers. Many of these submitted to royal authority,but many did not—even those that shared the same culture and ancestral temple surname as the ruling house. Prior to the Zhou conquest of Shang,the first of these ancient states were already extant as units of the preceding Shang dynasty,Predynastic Zhou,or polities of other cultural groups. Once the Zhou had established themselves,they made grants of land and relative local autonomy to kinfolk in return for military support and tributes,under a system known as fengjian.
The history of Zhengzhou,a city that is today the provincial capital of Henan Province,China spans over 10,000 years from its beginnings as a Neolithic settlement to its emergence as a trading port during the final years of the Qing dynasty.
The Jianzhuke Shu was a petition to Ying Zheng,King of Qin,written by Li Si in 243 BC. Written in response to an order to expel all officers serving in the State of Qin who were not born in Qin,it successfully persuaded Ying Zheng to rescind the expulsion order,and also began Li Si's career as a leading politician in Qin.
The Shizi is an eclectic Chinese classic written by Shi Jiao 尸佼,and the earliest text from Chinese philosophical school of Zajia,which combined ideas from the Hundred Schools of Thought,including Confucianism,Daoism,Mohism,and Legalism. The Shizi text was written c. 330 BCE in twenty sections,and was well known from the Han dynasty until the Song dynasty (960–1279) when all copies were lost. Scholars during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties reconstructed the Shizi from quotations in numerous sources,yet only about 15 percent of the original text was recovered and now extant. Western sinology has largely ignored the Shizi and it was one of the last Chinese classics to be translated into English.
Li Xin (李信),courtesy name Youcheng (有成),was a Chinese military general of Qin during the Warring States era. Alongside Wang Jian,Wang Ben and other generals,Li Xin served under Qin Shi Huang in his conquest of the six Warring States. He is also the great-great-grandfather of Li Guang,a Han dynasty general.
The Qin Empire II:Alliance is a 2012 Chinese television series adapted from Sun Haohui's novel of the same Chinese title,which romanticises the events in China during the Warring States period primarily from the perspective of the Qin state during the reigns of King Huiwen and King Wu.
References
- ↑ Information about the canal Archived 8 April 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Shi Ji vol. 29.
- ↑ Han Shu vol. 29.
- ↑ Technological Change in Warring States China