The First Empires 21
economic resources in the great task of conquering and pacifying all of
the Warring States.
The men most responsible for this monumental task were King
Zheng, who ascended to the Qin throne as a mere boy of thirteen
in 246 bce, and his chief minister, Li Si, who had worked as a lowly
clerk in the southern state of Chu and who came to the Qin state just
about the same time that King Zheng rose to power. For the fi rst few
years of King Zheng’s reign, the real power behind the throne was the
prime minister of Qin, Lü Buwei, whom Confucian historians later
charged with being the actual father of (the therefore illegitimate) King
Zheng. We will probably never know the truth of this story because
the records of the Qin dynasty have been compiled and recorded for
many centuries by Confucian historians who had many reasons for
hating the Qin regime and all associated with it. Nevertheless, it is
clear that Li Si ingratiated himself with Lü Buwei and King Zheng
by sharing their ambition and clearly outlining ways to steadily bol-
ster their power. King Zheng assumed power in his own right at age
twenty-two in 237 bce; just two years later, Lü was forced to drink
poison. Thereafter, Li Si became Commandant of Justice, overseeing
the internal administration of the strict Qin laws in all areas under Qin
control. For the next fi fteen years, King Zheng and his civil and mili-
tary advisors presided over the rapid military conquest and political
takeover of all the other Warring States.
In quick succession, Qin occupied the state of Han immediately
to its east in 230, defeated Zhao on its northeast border in 228, and
defeated Wei (to the south of Zhao) in 226. One year later, Qin con-
quered the largest rival state, Chu, which had controlled the entire
Yangzi River valley all the way from the southwest border of Qin to the
Pacifi c Ocean. The state of Yan in the far northeast fell to Qin in 222,
and last but not least, the small state of Qi, just to the south of Yan, fell
in 221, bringing to an end the era of the Warring States. Thus, in the
space of a decade King Zheng, Li Si, and a small circle of close advisors
to the king presided over the conquest of what they saw as the entire
civilized world.
Once the last state, Qi, had fallen into Qin hands, King Zheng
adopted a new and elevated title, Qin Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor
of Qin (literally the First Sovereign Lord of Qin). Within a few years,
Li Si was promoted to the position of chancellor, the highest and most
powerful civilian post under the emperor. As chancellor, Li Si was the
mastermind of the unifi cation process in a stunning series of changes
imposed on all the former states. The aristocratic families of all the states