Jacob Klionsky History 7 March 21, 2013 Is Qin Shi Huang Di a Brutal Tyrant of a Brilliant Leader?

Qin Shi Huang Di, the first emperor of China, is one of the most interesting men ever to live. At the age of 3 he became the prince of the state of Qin in ancient China, and only ten years later at age thirteen he became Qins King. At that China was split into many different states, and in order to take total control of these you would have to conquer them all. So he went out and did just that and became the Chinas first emperor. Qin Shi Huang Di probably seems like a great heroic man, but once you find out about what he did during his reign you will probably stop thinking that. During his reign he had created many brilliant laws but also created some other horrendous laws. Qin Shi Huang Di made forced slavery, which is giving men no choice of what they want to do and making them work on projects. One of these projects was called The Great Wall of China, building this wall took fifteen years and over two million men were killed due to the lack of food and hard labor. He believed that the only books needed were books about agriculture, medicine, and law; therefore he burned all other books. Any religious book is also included in being burnt, so during Qin Shi Huang Di reign many newly developed religions were nearly forgotten. Qin Shi Huang Di also believed in the thought of legalism, which is using strong laws with great punishments. Legalist (some on who believes in legalism) don't trust anyone, Qin Shi Huang Di didnt trust his own mom and thought she was plotting against him so he exiled her from China. This just shows how evil Qin Shi Huang Di can be. Qin Shi Huang Di also did have a couple very smart laws he created along with some of his horrible one. He started a thing called a bureaucracy, which is when there are bunch of different people working that only know how to do one thing only, but are very good at that one thing. Having a bureaucracy really helped stabilize Qin Shi Huang Dis government and made everything a lot easier for people. He also standardized (to make everything the same) the writing, the money, and the way things are measured. As you can tell this would definitely make everything much easier. The last great thing

Qin Shi Huang Di did was that he ended feudalism (where a noble would own all of the peasants land). Now peasants could own their own land and do whatever they wanted with it. Qin Shi Huang Di did have some terrible laws, but he was definitely not stupid because he knew how to make life much easier for his citizens. As you can tell Qin Shi Huang Di is a man that brings great controversy over peoples minds all over the world. Many think that he is a great brilliant ruler with some down sides, while others think he is just a terrible person. I personally think that he is genius, but was selfish that lead him to make some pour laws. The question is, what do you think of Qin Shi Huang Di, Chinas First Emperor.