Qin Shihuang, who lived from 259 to 210 BC, was the cunning first Emperor of a unified China. His brilliant military victories and political stratagems ended the Warring States period, time of disunity and upheaval. To consolidate his power, he embarked on construction projects of astonishing size and grandeur – the Terracotta Warriors and the Great Wall are all linked to him.

He became King of Qin when he was only 13 years old, but it wasn’t until he was in his thirties that he finally managed to defeat six other rival states and bring China under centralized control. He divided his new kingdom into 36 counties which were subdivided into prefectures. The local military and administrative leaders were all personally appointed by him.

Deciding his own achievements had surpassed those of previous rulers, he renamed himself Shi Huangdi. Shi means first, and Huang and Di were titles of earlier kings – together it came to mean “The First Emperor,” today he’s known as Qin Shihuang.

One important way for him to exert his control was to unify the various different standards that developed in each warring kingdom. He set to work standardizing weights and measurements, he formed one national currency using the Qin standard (round copper coins with square holes in their center), and standardizing the exact form of the written characters. New roads were built to link his capital in Xianyang (close to present day Xi’an) with his newly conquered domains.

There was, however, the vexing problem of nomadic tribes to the north of the empire. A number of walls had been built by individual states and Qin Shihuang had them repaired, enlarged, extended then linked them together to form the Great Wall. He also launched a military campaign against the tribes, but this would prove inconclusive and China would continue to be vulnerable to these mounted nomads throughout its history.

Qin Shihuang’s rule is often remembered for its ruthlessness. The Great Wall was con-structed by 500,000 laborers, most of whom were prisoners of war and it’s believed that up to 70% of them died from exhaustion or starvation. In 212 BC, when some intellectuals attempted to reinstate the systems of the Zhou dynasty, the emperor ordered the burning of any books not about medicine, divination or agriculture. This infamous book burning would destroy many of China’s earliest classics. A year later he buried alive 460 Con-fucian scholars who criticized his policies.

Work began on his mausoleum when he was only 13.Over 70,000 of his subjects constructed replica palaces, pavilions, ships and the famous Terracotta Warriors on a site covering over 50km² of land near Xi’an. The whole complex would only be completed a few years after his death.

In 1974 some peasants discovered the long forgotten site by accident while digging a well. Excavations have been slowly uncovering the area over the last 30 years, but the underground palace, the central part of the mausoleum remains a mystery. Archaeologists predict that it might take 200 years to unearth it all, and no one is quite sure what they’ll find – the artisans and craftsmen who built it were rumored to have been entombed inside to ensure they never revealed the emperor’s secrets.