SEAL OF EVIL

Qin. The purpose of the reform was to rule the state by law, reward
those who had made contributions in farming or on the battlefield,
abolish the land owning system of the past, recognize the private
ownership of land and allow land to be bought and sold. Under this
new system Qin was governed by a centralized military administration
which applied the law impartially. All citizens were forced into
productive occupations such as agriculture and the army and merchants
and intellectuals were regarded as harmful.
Shang Yang was the first great legalist. Legalism was based on the
idea that man is naturally evil and undisciplined and can only be kept
in order by fear and harsh punishment. Such a policy may not
encourage a happy population but it certainly had a dramatic effect on
Qin’s efficiency and it quickly became the most commercially
dynamic and the most militaristic of all the states. Shang Yang did not,
however, receive the rewards he might have expected as the author of
such a successful policy. He was killed by conservatives who opposed
his reform policy and his body was torn limb by limb by chariots.
Invigorated by the reform policy launched by Shan Yang Qin had, by
the time of the rule of King Zhao (306 – 251 BC), become a powerful
and prosperous state with an army of one million troops and grain and
fodder were in abundant supply. King Zhao of Qin had succeeded in
breaking through the alliance formed against Qin by the other six states
by using a strategy proposed by Fan Sui “Make friends with distant
states and attack the neighboring ones”. In using this policy King Zhao
was able to weaken the other states one by one until, in the end, only
Qin was strong enough to unify the country.
In 259 BC Ying Zheng, the future First Emperor of Qin, was born. In
246 BC his father, King Zhuang Xiang of Qin, died and he became
King Zheng of Qin at the age of 13. At first his mother and the Prime
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