We, the Chinese nation, have a long history, and in the long river of history, there is a historical figure who has been unsurpassed for thousands of years, and he is Qin Shi Huang. His historical merit was to unify China, establish the first centralized feudal dynasty, and proclaim himself the first emperor. Before the Qin Empire, our Land of China also had a great unification, namely the Xia-Shang Dynasty, but later generations listed Qin Shi Huang as the first person to unify China.
First of all, although the Xia Shang Zhou dynasty was a unified dynasty, it was loosely structured, and the entire dynasty was composed of many princely states, which were not unified in form. As the boss of the princes, he is only the ally of the princes, and when the alliance lord is powerful, he can command the world, and once the strength of the alliance lord is no longer there, the princes will do it themselves. Then there are the cultural differences between the various princely states, the key is that the writing is different, when the instructions of the allies are issued below, some places even need to be translated into local languages, how can this be regarded as a unified country.
When Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms, he first abolished the old habit of dividing the feudal seals, no longer engaged in the country within a country, but divided the whole country into counties and counties, directly under the leadership of the central imperial court. This political structure prevented the local forces from becoming larger, maintained the centralization of power, and formed a truly unified state. This system set a tone for the state form for more than two thousand years in the future, and after the Han Dynasty and the Qin Dynasty, the sub-feudal system occasionally returned, but Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ordered the princes of all walks of life to overthrow and return to the county system, after which the system lasted for two thousand years.
Qin Shi Huang also carried out a major reform in the field of culture, that is, the unification of writing, which is a thing that benefits all generations and is an invisible bond that the Chinese nation can unite. At that time, although the country was unified in form, each spoke its own words, wrote its own language, and its decrees were very poor. Because of the vastness of the region, it is difficult to unify the dialects of various regions, but it can be done that the book is the same text, with Qin Xiaozhuan as the official script and Lishu as the folk script, and unified throughout the country. At that time, this practice encountered great resistance, and although the other six countries also used hieroglyphs, they were very different from each other, which was equivalent to re-learning a new script. Moreover, the six royal families still exist, all want to restore their respective kingdoms, and naturally attach great importance to the writing of their ancestors. The Qin Dynasty implemented an iron fist for this, "book burning pit Confucianism" was only a small episode, and more bloodshed was staged everywhere, and finally it was possible to realize the same book.
For military reasons, Qin Shi Huang built many spacious "Chi Dao" from Xianyang City in all directions, just like today's highways. And the rules of vehicles across the country have been unified, and the so-called "car on the same track" is also, so that all kinds of vehicles can run along fixed ruts, which greatly improves traffic efficiency. In addition, in the economy, weights and measures and currency were unified, and a unified calendar was used to establish common customs and festivals, making the whole of China like a real big family.
All this was not done by the Xia and Shang Dynasties on Wednesday, and only the appearance of Qin Shi Huang enabled us not only to stand on a unified land, but also to realize the same book, the same track, and the same line, and the title of Qin Shi Huang's emperor for thousands of years is truly deserved.