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Ancient China Qin and Han
The heyday of Legalism was in Qin just before the creation of the Chinese Empire. The Legalist hammered Qin into a strong state with a strong military. That enabled its armies to defeat the other kingdoms and create the Chinese Empire. But the Qin dynasty survived only a few years after the death of the first emperor. The Han dynasty that took over control of the empire adopted the Qin innovation of a professional bureaucracy to run the empire.
Legalism went beyond the proposition of the need for a comprehensive set of laws. The three elements of proper government according to Legalist theory were: Shih: Power and position Shu: Administrative techniques and methods Fa: A Comprehensive system of laws. The Legalists not only asserted that humans were by nature evil but they expanded their notion of evil to include those activities which were not deemed socially productive, such as reading and scholarship. The Legalists believed that the only productive occupations were farming and weaving. This meant that reading was simply a waste of the labor resources of the society. So all books other than those on farming, weaving and divination were burned, and those scholars who refused to heed the administrators' edicts against pursuing useless activities were punished and some were even buried alive.
CENTRALIZATION & STANDARDIZATION: • Eliminating regional differences, his central government standardized everything from money to weights & measures. For instance, he mandated that all cart axles all have the same length. • .
Qin Contributions • Read this document and create a bullet list of contributions
End of Lesson #1 Qin to Han
