HISTORY 250 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Reconstruction Era, Meritocracy
Document Summary
History 250 lecture 15 qin dynasty continued. Ying cheng (260 bce 230 bce: conquered other states, created first centralized bureaucratic system. After unification 2 layers of government (central and local) 3500 miles long: forced mass migration for people to stay on the frontier. 1 nation, 1 land, 1 written language. Ying cheng was extremely paranoid that he would be overthrown: 2 dangers: Can"t trust officials because meritocratic instead of hereditary. Disbanded advisors, prohibited 3 or more people from having meetings together. Prohibited recitation of history: collected classic books in the capital and burned them. Except book of change: disallow the study of history (except qin history) Didn"t trust anyone had to read every important document himself. Wanted to find some way to live forever: tried to find a drug of immortality, consulted with a man that told him to take 500 boys, 500 girls, and 10 sheep to japan. Went crazy thought robbers and former leaders wanted to kill him.
