Qin’s Wars of Unification

What Happened

Between 230 BCE and 221 BCE the state of Qin (秦) fought a sequence of campaigns that destroyed the six other major states of China and ended the Warring States period. The king of Qin, Ying Zheng (嬴政), opened the sequence in 230 BCE and pursued it state by state rather than in a single war. Han (韓) fell first, in 230 BCE. Zhao (趙) followed in 228 BCE, then Wei (魏) in 225 BCE, Chu (楚) in 223 BCE, Yan (燕) in 222 BCE, and finally Qi (齊) in 221 BCE.

The campaigns were not a single army marching in one direction. Qin struck different states in different years, shifting its forces between northern and southern fronts and timing each attack to exploit the isolation of its target. By the time Qi, the last surviving state, was taken in 221 BCE, no coalition remained that could oppose Qin.

With the conquest complete, Ying Zheng took a new title. He declared himself Shi Huangdi (始皇帝), conventionally rendered in English as "First Emperor", and the unified realm he ruled became the Qin dynasty. The old Zhou order, in which power was distributed among hereditary lords under a ceremonial king, gave way to a centralised government answerable to the emperor.

Background

The Zhou dynasty (周) had long since lost effective power. During the Warring States period that followed its decline, the Zhou king was reduced to a weak and ceremonial figure, and real authority lay with the rulers of the surviving states. These coalesced into the Seven Warring States, a group that included Qin alongside Han, Zhao, Wei, Chu, Yan and Qi.

Qin, based in the west, developed into the most powerful of the seven. Its strength was relative: the other six states each held their own territory and armies, and any one of them could threaten Qin if it allied with others. The unification wars were therefore as much a matter of breaking combinations as of winning battles. Ying Zheng's campaigns picked off the six states one at a time, so that no alliance of the remaining states could form against him.

Why It Mattered

The wars ended the Warring States period and produced the first unified Chinese empire. The fall of Qi in 221 BCE closed the sequence, and the new Qin dynasty replaced the fengjian (封建) system — the Zhou arrangement of enfeoffed hereditary lords — with a more centralised form of government. Authority moved from local lords to officials appointed by the centre.

The change was structural, not merely a change of ruler. The title Shi Huangdi was itself new, marking a sovereign whose position differed in kind from that of the Zhou kings. The political map of East Asia was redrawn around a single imperial centre, and the pattern of centralised rule established in 221 BCE became the model against which later Chinese dynasties measured themselves.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name is 秦の統一戦争, read しんのとういつせんそう (shin no tōitsu sensō). It breaks down as follows.

• 秦 — read しん (shin) here. This is the name of the state of Qin, the western state that carried out the conquests. The same character is also read はた (Hata) as a Japanese surname, but in this phrase it names the Chinese state.
• の — read の (no). A particle linking the two halves of the phrase; it marks 秦 as the agent, so the phrase reads "Qin's…".
• 統 — read とう (tō). It carries the sense of bringing things together under one head, as in 統一 (unification) and 統治 (rule, governance).
• 一 — read いつ (itsu). The character for "one". Combined with 統 it forms 統一 (tōitsu), "unification" — literally making many into one.
• 戦 — read せん (sen). The character for war or battle, as in 戦争 (sensō) and 戦国 (sengoku, "warring states").
• 争 — read そう (sō). The character for strife or contention. Together, 戦争 (sensō) means "war".

So the whole phrase is 秦 (Qin) + の (of) + 統一 (unification) + 戦争 (war): "Qin's War of Unification". Note that 戦国 (sengoku), the "warring states" of the period this war ended, uses the same first character, 戦.

Key Figures

Ying Zheng (嬴政) — King of Qin. In 230 BCE he began the sequence of campaigns against the six remaining states, and in 221 BCE, with the fall of Qi, he declared himself Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor of a unified China under the Qin dynasty.

Qin (秦) — The western state that launched the campaigns. The most powerful of the Seven Warring States, it fought and defeated each of the other six in turn.

Han (韓) — The first of the six states to fall, conquered in 230 BCE.

Zhao (趙) — Conquered in 228 BCE.

Wei (魏) — Conquered in 225 BCE.

Chu (楚) — Conquered in 223 BCE.

Yan (燕) — Conquered in 222 BCE.

Qi (齊) — The last of the six to fall, conquered in 221 BCE, completing the unification.