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Muchof what came to constitute China Proper was unified for the first timein 221 B.C. In that year the western frontier state of Qin, the most aggressiveof the Warring States, subjugated the last of its rival states. (Qin ispronounced Ch'in, from which the English China probably derived.) Oncethe king of Qin consolidated his power, he took the title Shi Huangdi orFirst Emperor, a formulation previously reserved for deities and the mythologicalsage-emperors, and imposed Qin's centralized, nonhereditary bureaucraticsystem on his new empire. In subjugating the six other major states ofEastern Zhou, the Qin kings had relied heavily on Legalist scholar-advisers.Centralization, achieved by ruthless methods, was focused on standardizinglegal codes and bureaucratic procedures, the forms of writing and coinage,and the pattern of thought and scholarship. To silence criticism of imperialrule, the kings banished or put to death many dissenting Confucian scholarsand confiscated and burned their books. Qin aggrandizement was aidedby frequent military expeditions pushing forward the frontiers in the northand south. Tofend off barbarian intrusion, the fortification walls built by the variouswarring states were connected to make a 5,000-kilometer-long great wall. What is commonly referred to as the Great Wall is actually fourgreat walls rebuilt or extended during the Western Han, Sui, Jin, and Mingperiods, rather than a single, continuous wall. At its extremities, theGreat Wall reaches from northeastern Heilongjiang Province to northwesternGansu . A number of public works projects were also undertaken to consolidateand strengthen imperial rule. These activities required enormous leviesof manpower and resources, not to mention repressive measures. Revoltsbroke out as soon as the first Qin emperor diedin 210 B.C. His dynasty was extinguished less than twenty years after itstriumph. The imperial system initiated during the Qin dynasty, however,set a pattern that was developed over the next two millennia. Theperiod from 221 B.C. to 207 B.C. is known as the Qin Dynasty. Thisdynasty was vigorous but short-lived. It was the first emperor of the dynasty,Qin Shihuangdi who united the Warring States into an empire. The outstandingachievement of the Qin was the centralization of Chinese government ina nonfeudal, nonhereditary, bureaucratic administration which establisheda pattern of freehold farmers throughout China. Weights and measures, coinage,andscript were standardized throughout the country. Efforts to control societyled to strict censorship and the persecution of philosophers and scholars.The power of the throne was visible in the building of grand palaces andlarge scale construction projects such as roads, waterways, and the beginningof the Great Wall. Such vast projects were made possible largely throughthe forced labor of hundreds of thousands of subjects who had been convictedand sentenced for not adhering to the strict rules set forth by the rulingpowers. Great armies were built to enforce the policies of centralization. 
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