In 245 BC , Ying Cheng became king of the Ch'in when he was only thirteen years old. As he grew in age, wisdom and power, he developed the dream of realizing the Confucian idea of the whole of China under one ruler. He declared himself Ch'in Shih Huang Ti, First Emperor, establishing the Rule of Emperors (called Huang Ti) that would last in China until 1911 with the abdication of the last emperor, Pu Yi. The name China comes from the time of his rule, when Ch'in brought China from a feudal state into a powerful kingdom with a centralized government.
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To solidify his power, Ch'in Shih Huang Ti build a mobile army of cavalry and chariots armed with iron swords and bows. He moved the old aristocrats and feudal lords to the capital and demanded the surrender of their weapons. To defend agianst the barbarian invaders from the north, he built the Great Wall of China (later expanded to become 1500 miles long and the only man-made object visible from space).
The creation of a central government was used to standardize weights and measures, coinage, roadways, legal codes and a standardized, written script that could be read not only by speakers of China's many regional dialects but later also by the Japanese, the Koreans, and the Vietnamese. To finance the building a operation of this central government, Ch'in Shih Huang Ti also begain national taxation.
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The adage the "Power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutly", however proved true and Ch'in became a totalitarian ruler. He created a system of spying through his military governnors and civil administrators in the provinces, and monopolized all basic goods. In an effort to produce intellectual conformity, in 213B.C. he ordered the burning of books, especially Confucian classics. But he saved works of medicine, legal philosophy, and magic, which relected his utlitarian attitude toward learning, ironically balanced with his interest in superstition. Soon he became a paranoid relcuse dodging assassination attempts on his life.
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The discovery in 1974 of his burial site in Shensi, China, has unearthed 7,000 life size terra-cotta soldiers.