Qin Dynasty ( 221-206 B.C.)
In 221 B.C., Ying Zheng, ruler of the State of Qin and a man of great talent and bold vision, ended the 250-odd years of rivalry among the independent principalities during the Warring States Period, and established the first centralized, unified, multi-ethnic feudal state in Chinese history — the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.). He called himself Qin Shi Huang or "First Emperor of Qin." He standardized the written script, weights and measures, and currencies, and established the system of prefectures and counties. The sovereigns of the next 2,000-odd years followed the feudal governmental structure established by him. He mobilized more than 300,000 people over a period of a dozen years to build the Great Wall, which stretches for 5,000 km in northern China. Qin Shi Huang had the work on his enormous mausoleum started early in his reign. When they were unearthed in 1974 in Xi'an, the terracotta warriors of the "underground army" of some 8,000 vivid, life-sized pottery figures, horses and chariots guarding the mausoleum at the Qin Shi Huang tomb site amazed the world.

Admired and cherished as a unifier, as a centralizer, as an architect of the Great Wall (Changcheng 長城) and of China herself, the First Emperor (Qin Shihuangdi) 秦始皇帝 was on the other side feared and hated as a tyrant, as a book-burner and a mass murderer. The Qin empire was founded at end of a war between a few powers that had lasted for more than two centuries. And it was the result of a development that created a highly centralized bureaucratic state out of a loose feudal system. While the rule of the two Qin emperors endured not even two decades, it marks nonetheless the beginning of a more than two thousand years long history of a centralized state with an emperor being the head of thousands of officers in a state with a likewise uniform culture.