Saylor.org's Ancient Civilizations of the World/The Qin Emerging
from the chaos of the Warring States period, the Qin (or Ch’in)
Dynasty conquered its rivals and unified the country. The Qin
dynasty was one of the shortest in all of Chinese history. It
lasted only about fifteen years. But it was one of the most
important dynasties, because it united China for the first time
in centuries, and unified China as a single state—in many ways,
for the first time. Foundations of the Unification The forces
that allowed the Qin to grow from a small state to a power that
dominated China had developed before the first Qin emperor was
born. The state started out as a fief in the west bestowed by
King Ping, the first of the Eastern Zhou kings, from the lands
around the old Zhou capital in the west. As one of the powerful
states of the time, Qin competed with its rivals during the
Eastern Zhou period. But for centuries it was just one of
several states, none of which could overpower the others. Qin
was home to perhaps the s