22 China in World History
were forced to move to the Qin capital of Xianyang, where new palaces
were built for them and they were far removed from their former power
bases and kept under close surveillance. All the former currencies of the
states, and their standards of weights and measures, were replaced by
Qin currency and Qin standards. The states had evolved different styles
of writing Chinese over the centuries, and these styles were also replaced
by the Qin “small seal” style of writing. Axle lengths of chariots and
carts, which had also differed from state to state, were now regularized
so that roads throughout this new empire would be accessible to one
size of chariot and cart. More than 4,000 miles of imperial highways
were built to facilitate transportation throughout the empire. This level
of state centralization and standardization was not achieved in Europe
until 2,000 years later. Hundreds of thousands of conscript laborers built
a Grand Canal from south to north China and unifi ed parts of earlier
state walls into one Great Wall^1 extending 4,000 miles along the north-
ern and western borders of the empire. Qin Shi Huangdi took numerous
inspection tours throughout the empire and had inscriptions carved in
stone to commemorate his visits and his achievements.
Against offi cials who argued for the establishment of decentral-
ized rule after the Zhou pattern (with imperial princes and allies inde-
pendently ruling outlying territories), Li Si prevailed in establishing a
centralized state, dividing the entire Qin kingdom into thirty-six large
administrative units called commanderies (jun), and subdividing each
commandery into several counties (xian). Each commandery and each
county were presided over by a civil offi cial, a military offi cial, and an
inspector offi cial, each reporting directly to the court or central govern-
ment. The Qin administrators divided the entire population of all the
former states into small groups of fi ve and ten families and made each
group collectively responsible for the behavior of everyone in the group.
If anyone in the group committed a crime, all would be held responsible
and punished equally unless they reported the crime themselves. Thus
the entire population was mobilized in the task of law enforcement.
The Qin success was breathtaking in its scope and in the speed of
its accomplishment, but it was also highly dependent on a very few
extremely capable and hardworking men at the center of power, most
especially Li Si and Qin Shi Huangdi. As the emperor became increas-
ingly obsessed with seeking immortality for himself, he also became
increasingly paranoid about avoiding death and seeing to his own pro-
tection after death. He had his lavish tomb built over a period of more
than a decade and positioned armies of terra cotta warriors around
it for protection in the afterlife. Peasants digging a well in the 1970s