History Essay: The First Emperor of China

Ancient China’s first-ever Emperor and creator of China’s first unified empire also known as the “Dynasty” was Qin Shi Huangdi. He led Ancient China with such narcissistic, unrealistic, and thoughtless laws so that there was slim to none chances of his people overthrowing him and gaining his position.

Qin Shi Huangdi also known as Prince Zheng, created rules that were corrupt and unethical as he was so eager to be the highest on the Social Pyramid. In China, the Social Pyramid was a scale of how well people were respected. People who were well connected with the emperor sat proudly at the top whilst merchants and slaves were at the bottom. The way people were respected wasn’t because of their wealth, looks or age it was based on how you contributed to China. Merchants were some of the wealthiest people in China but had very low respect. What they did for China wasn’t well respected as all they did was trade artisan’s crafts. The artisan’s handmade everyday items. Some merchants became so rich that even Qin Shi Huangdi feared for his position and power so much that his only response was to make merchants taxes so high that they fell and struggled. Many merchants then struggled to keep their land and ended up being conscripted for the Chinese dynasties. To prove these unfair rules, bamboo strips were found in a well, the strips are approximately 2,200 years old. On the strips in Ancient Chinese calligraphy was written the rules, laws, and Qin Shi Huangdi’s plan on how to rule China with what we now call legalism. It ended up being successful in Qin Chi Huangdi’s favour and he remained in his power. Raising the taxes of certain people in China was ruthless and bias and only occurred because of Qin Shi Huangdi’s fear of being overtaken, this is a statement that he was a cruel, unethical, and harsh leader.

Something that shocks modern-day society was the way Qin Shi Huangdi silenced his scholars by burning all the books nonrelated to necessary life sources such as agriculture, prophesies or medicine as he thought they were “stupid”, Qin Shi Huangdi stated something around the words of “these scholars learn from old not new and should employ their learning to confuse the members of the Qin”. Clearly, this shows that he ruled China with selfishness and without a thought of the surrounding people. Not only this but China’s first emperor found it disrespectful for people of lower status to tell him how to rule or even give simple suggestions, only certain people of high status could talk to him, and he became close with very few of them. Qin Shi Huangdi also saw the nobles as a threat because they were rich, respected and had an influence on the people so he resorted to stripping the nobles land to weaken them, meaning they lost their money, status, and control. To be a part of the dynasty you had to be well educated meaning all nobles and scholars were smart and had good up bringing’s which is yet another reason why Qin Shi Huangdi was fearful Qin Shi Huangdi was so paranoid he built defences such as the great wall of china, which had watchtowers every 200 metres for 5000 kilometres.

My overall conclusion of why Qin Shi Huangdi ruled with harsh and cruel rules and punishments was because he was afraid of being dominated by his people, to “fix this problem” he raised taxes for merchants and weakened the Chinese population targeting scholars and nobles leaving people struggling and begging, towards the end of Qin Shi Huangdi’s life he was the only powerful one which is a clear image of his greediness.