Rise and fall of the Qin Dynasty Part 2 Quiz

Answer: Great grandfather

King Zhaoxiang (Ying Ji) was the younger son of King Huiwen (Ying Si) and younger brother of King Dan (Ying Dang). He ascended throne at the age of 18 when King Wu died after a three year reign without an heir.

Although he made some grave mistakes, his military achievements enabled the state of Qin to achieve strategic dominance over the other six states. This paved the way for his great-grandson Ying Zheng (Qin Shihuang) to unite the whole country.

Answer: Less than one week

King Zhaoxiang passed away at the age of 75. His eldest son died in 267 BC as a political hostage in the state of Wei.

The throne was passed on to his second son King Xiaowen (302-250 BC) who became the ruler of kingdom of Qin at the age of 51-52. His reign only lasted three days from 13 to 15 September 250 BC, the shortest of all the Qin's ruler.

King Xiaowen was succeeded by his second son, King Zhuangxiang (281-247 BC, family name Ying Yiren/Zichu) who ruled for about three years from 250 to 247 BC.

Answer: Lu Buwei

Lu Buwei (291-235 BC) was the richest merchant in that era who came from the small state of Wei. His aim was to become the most powerful and influential politician. He befriended Ying Zhichu during his visit to the state of Zhao. After consulting his father, Lu decided to invest his money in Ying Zhichu to realize his ambition.

Ying Zhichu and the young Ying Zheng were held as political hostages in the state of Zhao. Lu used his riches to bribe the high officials from the state of Zhao and successfully negotiated for their release to return to Qin. The Zhao officials were also afraid to offend the mighty Qin if they objected, having suffered a major defeat in the Battle of Changping in 260 BC.

In 250BC, Ying Zhichu became King Zhuangxiang, succeeding his father King Xiaowen. He only ruled for about three years and died in 247 BC. At the time of his death, Lu was appointed as the chief minister and regent as his son Ying Zheng was only 13 and too young to rule. In 235 BC, Zheng assumed full power nine years later when he was 22.

Answer: Nine

The first state annexed by Qin was Han in 230 BC, followed by Zhao in 228 BC, Wei in 225 BC, Chu in 223 BC, Yan, Dai, Wu-yue in 222 BC and Qi in 221 BC to unite the whole country. After the conquest of the six states, he named himself Qin Shi-huang, the First Emperor.

Answer: Three

In 227 BC, the first attempt was by Jing Ke who was send by Crown Prince Dan of Yan. Jing Ke hid a dagger hidden under a map to show to the Emperor. His assistant became too nervous alerting the Emperor who used his own sword to injure Jing Ke. Both men were surrounded and killed by the imperial guards.

The second attempt was by Gao Jianli, a close friend of Jing Ke, who wanted to avenge his friend. As a renowned musician, he was summoned to perform in the palace, but was recognized by someone in the palace. King Zheng was reluctant to kill but ordered his eyes to be put out, and allowed him to carry on the performance. His performance won the praise of the Emperor who allowed him to get near. Gao failed in his attempt to kill the Emperor with his lute to which was fastened a heavy lead weight.

The third attempt was in 230 BC, Zhang Liang, an aristocrat from the state of Han, dropped a massive metal cone from a high place onto the Emperor's carriage. His attempt failed when the metal cone landed on another carriage.

Answer: Standardizing Chinese script

Although Qin had achieved many firsts in the Chinese history, the greatest achievement was to standardize the Chinese script which has remained as the script until today. The introduction of a common script greatly improved communication.

Answer: To endorse Legalism as the way to rule

Legalism was endorsed as the system to rule the people by strict laws. People must strictly follow the laws, otherwise they would be punished. Qin laws were very harsh. If one person broke the law, the entire family would be punished. Families were formed into groups, and if one violated the law, all related family members would also be made to suffer the punishments.

Qin's Prime Minister Li Si urged the burning of histories of all former state, except Qin, and all books by scholars with different views. Many Confucian scholars were writing commentaries to oppose and criticize Qin's political measures, especially the system of prefectures and counties under the central authority. Li feared these activities would weaken the state and proposed all the histories and books from other states to be burned.

Answer: Hu Hai

On September 210 BC, Qin Shihuang died when he was making a tour to eastern China. The cause of his death was possibly due to poisoning from taking mercury pills, which he thought could make him immortal.

Prime Minister Li Si and chief eunuch Zhao Gao secretly forged the edict to appoint Hu Hai to the throne, instead of passing on to the Crown Prince Fu Su who was forced to commit suicide. They were afraid that Fu Su would kill them if he became the Emperor as Fu hated both of them. Fu was known to be more moderate than his father. He was not fully supportive of the harsh laws approved by his father. The history of Qin might have been different if Fu had become the second emperor.

Answer: First Peasant War

In July 209 BC, a group of 900 peasant conscripts were send to a place northeast of present day Beijing. As they were late in arrival, they knew by Qin's law they were be put to death for being late. The two leaders Cheng Sheng and Wu Guang led the peasants to kill the officials in charge and started to revolt, resulting in the First Peasant War.

Although the peasants grew to an army of tens of thousands, they were no match for the Qin's armies and the revolt was eventually put down. In 208 BC, both rebel leaders were killed. However the flames of rebellion did not stop, but instead continue to spark many more revolts.

Answer: Xiang Yu and Liu Bang

Xiang Yu (232-202 BC) came from a noble family in the former state of Chu. In 207 BC, his army defeated the main Qin force under chief commander Zhang Han and the whole Qin army surrendered to him not long after.

The next year, the rebel army led by Liu Bang seized capital city, Xianyang and the once mighty Qin's empire fell. In the same year, last Qin Emperor Ying Ziying and his remaining family members were executed by Xiang Yu, the chief of the rebel army.

From 206 to 202 BC, there were four years the conflict between both men known in history as the Chu-Han conflict to wrestle control for the whole of China. Western Chu was commanded by Xiang Yu and Han commanded by Liu Bang.

With capable men like Han Xin and Zhang Liang under his command, the eventual victor was Liu Bang (Emperor Han Gaozu) who became the first Emperor of the Han Dynasty which lasted four hundred years.