Qin Shi Huang

Zhao Zheng, first emperor, was born in 259 BC as the eldest son of King Zhuangxiang of Qin. King Zhaoxiang of Qin saw a concubine belonging to Lü Buwei, and she bore the first emperor. Because Zheng was born in Handan, capital of the enemy state of Zhao , he had the name Zhao Zheng. Zhao Zheng's ancestors are said to have come from Gansu province. In 246 BC, when King Zhuangxiang At the time, Zhao Zheng was still young, so Lü Buwei acted as the regent prime minister of the State of Qin , which was still waging war against the other six states. At birth, he was given the personal name Zheng. died after a short reign of just three years, he was succeeded to the throne by his 13-year-old son.

In 230 BC, King Zheng unleashed the final campaigns of the Warring States Period, setting out to conquer the remaining independent kingdoms, one by one.The first state to fall was Hann, in 230 BC. Then Qin took advantage of a natural disaster, the 229 BC Zhao state earthquake, to invade and conquer Zhao where Qin Shi Huang had been born. He now avenged his poor treatment as a child hostage there, seeking out and killing his enemies.Qin armies conquered the state of Zhao in 228 BC, the northern country of Yan in 226 BC, the small state of Wei in 225 BC, and the largest state and greatest challenge, Chu, in 223 BC.

In 222 BC, the last remnants of Yan and the royal family were captured in Liaodong in the northeast. The only independent country left was now state of Qi, in the far east, what is now the Shandong peninsula. Terrified, the young king of Qi sent 300,000 people to defend his western borders. In 221 BC, the Qin armies invaded from the north, captured the king, and annexed Qi.

For the first time, all of China was unified under one powerful ruler. In that same year, King Zheng proclaimed himself the "First Emperor", no longer a king in the old sense and now far surpassing the achievements of the old Zhou Dynasty rulers.

In the South, military expansion continued during his reign, with various regions being annexed to what is now Guangdong province and part of today's Vietnam.In an attempt to avoid a recurrence of the political chaos of early imperial China, the conquered states were not allowed to be referred to as independent nations. The empire was then divided into 36 commanderies , later more than 40 commanderies. The whole of China was now divided into administrative units: first commanderies, then districts , counties  and hundred-family units. This system was different from the previous dynasties, which had loose alliances and federations. People could no longer be identified by their native region or former feudal state, as when a person from Chu was called "Chu person".Appointments were now based on merit instead of hereditary rights.Qin Shi Huang and Li Si unified China economically by standardizing the Chinese units of measurements such as weights and measures, the currency, the length of the axles of carts to facilitate transport on the road system.The emperor also developed an extensive network of roads and canals connecting the provinces to improve trade between them. The currency of the different states were also standardized to the Ban liang coin. Perhaps most importantly, the Chinese script was unified.Under Li Si, the seal script of the state of Qin was standardized through removal of variant forms within the Qin script itself. This newly standardized script was then made official throughout all the conquered regions, thus doing away with all the regional scripts to form one language, one communication system for all of China.

The Qin fought nomadic tribes to the north and northwest. The Xiongnu tribes were not defeated and subdued, thus the campaign was tiring and unsuccessful, and to prevent the Xiongnu from encroaching on the northern frontier any longer, the emperor ordered the construction of an immense defensive wall. This wall, for whose construction hundreds of thousands of men were mobilized, and an unknown number died, is a precursor to the current Great Wall of China.

Later in his life, Qin Shi Huang feared death and desperately sought the fabled elixir of life, which would supposedly allow him to live forever. He was obsessed with acquiring immortality and fell prey to many who offered him supposed elixirs.He visited Zhifu Island three times in order to achieve immortality.In one case he sent Xu Fu, a Zhifu islander, with ships carrying hundreds of young men and women in search of the mystical Penglai mountain. They were sent to find Anqi Sheng, a 1,000-year-old magician whom Qin Shi Huang had supposedly met in his travels and who had invited him to seek him there. These people never returned, because they knew that if they returned without the promised elixir, they would surely be executed. Legends claim that they reached Japan and colonized it.

A large meteor fell in Dongjun in 211 B.C. - an ominous sign for the Emperor. To make matters worse, someone etched the words "The First Emperor will die and his land will be divided" onto the stone.

Since nobody would fess up to this crime, the Emperor had everyone in the vicinity executed. The meteor itself was burned and then pounded into powder.

Nevertheless,the emperor died during one of his tours of Eastern China, on September 10, 210 BC (Julian Calendar) at the palace in Shaqiu prefecture , about two months away by road from the capital Xianyang.Reportedly, he died due to ingesting mercury pills, made by his court scientists and doctors. Ironically, these pills were meant to make Qin Shi Huang immortal.

To guard Qin Shi Huang in the afterworld, and perhaps allow him to conquer heaven as he had the earth, the emperor had a terracotta army of at least 8,000 clay soldiers placed in the tomb. The army also included terracotta horses, along with real chariots and weapons.

Each soldier was an individual, with unique facial features (although the bodies and limbs were mass-produced from molds).