[So at this point, Qin Shi Huang had to find a way to make everyone completely and thoroughly acknowledge him as The First Emperor.]
[How should this be done?]
[First, let’s rule out recuperation and rebuilding. People’s resistance consciousness still remained. Even though Han was the first state conquered by Qin in 230 BC, by the time Qin unified all states in 221 BC, only nine years had passed.]
[Even with shorter lifespans back then, people still lived to at least 30. The veteran soldiers from the Warring States period were still alive. How could you say I’m a Qin person just because you claim so?]
[You destroyed my Han state and incorporated me into Qin, but I’m still a Han person.]
[Under such circumstances, if you were to say: “Everyone stop fighting, let’s all take a step back and recuperate!”]
[If that were the case, future time-travel novels would have to ask Qin Shi Huang: “Is this the First Warring States period or the Second Warring States period?”]
Ying Qingyue twitched her mouth, feeling this dark joke was truly chilling.
“First War or Second War”?
The Warring States period was still war.
[In such a situation, was there any good method to keep these people busy, leaving them no time to contemplate restoration?]
Consolidate rule, unify against external threats.
[Ah, there was, there definitely was, brother.]
[That would be the ancestral craft passed down through generations…]
[As early as Duke Xiao of Qin’s era, during Shang Yang’s reforms, there was already a methodology for how to exhaust common people and prevent them from rebelling.]
[As stated in the Book of Lord Shang: “What makes a state prosper is agriculture and war.”]
[To make the state prosperous, people could only do two things.]
[Either farm, or fight.]
[Based on this, activities like commerce were considered the dregs of society and couldn’t make Qin stronger.]
[If you didn’t engage in these two occupations, you couldn’t hold your head up as a person. So starting from Duke Xiao of Qin, official positions in Qin were awarded based on headcount.]
[Whether you were a young master from nobility or a farmer’s child.]
[Want promotion? Want promotion then go to the battlefield and kill people!]
[As long as your blade was sharp enough and you killed enough people, you were certain to rise above others!]
[Just imagine, with this combination of measures, ambitious young men were all eager to make military achievements on the battlefield.]
Under the beacon tower of the Great Wall in the northern frontier.
Qin soldiers who had just finished patrol duty were sitting around a fire. As the sky screen’s words about “awarding official positions based on headcount” faded, a squad leader chewing dried meat slammed his bronze knife on a stone first, the knifeback sending sparks flying into dry grass.
“When I followed General Meng against the Xiongnu, I killed two barbarian cavalry and was promoted from commoner to squad leader, receiving two qing of land! What the sky screen says now has always been Great Qin’s rule! When we fight again, I’ll make sure my wife and children don’t have to eat millet cakes anymore!”
Nearby, several soldiers recently transferred from Ba-Shu gathered around.
The lead soldier with dark skin approached the fire, speaking with a distinctive Ba-Shu accent: “It’s only been six years since Ba-Shu joined Qin. Last year, my brother followed Li Bing’s son to repair tributaries of Dujiangyan, and received the rank of Gongshi for diligent supervision.”
“This year I enlisted to march north, hoping to earn the rank of Shangzao by taking enemy heads! My mother said if I can obtain a noble rank, our family will be exempt from corvée labor, and we’ll never have to worry about grain taxes again!”
As he finished speaking, his companion quickly added: “Back in Shu, we heard that Qin soldiers who take one enemy head are rewarded with one qing of farmland and nine mu of residential land. Now the sky screen says official positions are granted based on headcount – exactly what the government promised!”
“During our last encounter with a small Xiongnu cavalry unit, I wounded a barbarian horseman. Our squad leader said I just need one more kill to record merit. I’ve been sharpening my sword every night, hoping to take several more next time!”
Across the campfire, an older soldier from Ba-Shu gazed at the sky screen with conviction: “As long as we fight for Great Qin, whether we’re from Guanzhong or Ba-Shu, we can rise through military merits. This is the path to survival for us Qin people!”
In Qin’s ranking system, even lower noble titles like Gongshi and Shangzao carried practical benefits of exempting family members from corvée labor. The specific duration and scope varied according to rank and service type, such as garrison duty or corvée labor.
According to excavated documents like the Shuihudi Qin bamboo slips, the Qin System clearly stipulated: achieving the Gongshi rank exempted one from personal garrison duty.
Advancing to Shangzao not only exempted the individual from service but could also extend to family members, such as exempting one household member from corvée labor or reducing taxes.
This system of using noble ranks to exempt from service was one of the core attractions of Shang Yang’s military merit system after his reforms, and a key reason Qin soldiers were willing to fight desperately for military achievements.
The cold wind whipped sand across the camp, but the soldiers paid no mind, tightening their grips on their weapons.
Veterans touched scars on their chests, recounting merits earned at Changping and during the conquest of Han. New recruits stared at the sky screen, calculating how many enemy heads they needed to take to secure better lives for their families.
This belief was carved into the bones of Qin people through generations.
[But here comes another problem.]
[When you implement this system, the common people become more aggressive and prone to violence. The whole social atmosphere becomes like Texas. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to have a few bloodraged Darius in the populace every day?]
Who is Texas?
And who is Darius?
Qinghe scratched his head, wondering why the sky screen kept using such incomprehensible terms.
[So the Qin state chose to deal with this problem by cracking down hard internally, using law. Good behavior gets rewards, bad behavior gets punishment.]
[I won’t elaborate on the rewards, but the key is the punishment – not only are wrongdoers punished, but their neighbors connected to them get punished too.]
[This is really unreasonable.]
At this point, Shi Jin’s expression suddenly changed as she said with exasperation: [You mean: if I went out farming yesterday and didn’t stop my neighbor from killing his enemy, I have to be executed with him today???]
《Basic Edition of Clan Elimination》
[In that case, couldn’t I just kill him first before you execute me? What do you mean if I kill him, my whole family gets implicated too.]
“Too severe,” Ying Qingyue commented mildly.
The excessive severity of collective punishment kept the populace in a state of high tension, which was why Qin Er Shi’s reign collapsed so quickly in history.
The people’s prolonged mental strain, combined with resentment over corvée labor, allowed the subsequent Han dynasty to surpass and replace them.
[It sounds absurd, but this system made common people monitor everyone connected to them – “Hey you, don’t you dare secretly commit crimes!”]
The people of Great Qin: “……”
What’s going on? As I listened, tears began to flow.
Wuwuwu, the tears taste so salty.
However, Li Si, who advocated for Legalism, remained indifferent.
Just then, the eldest prince Fusu stepped forward. Before he even spoke, Li Si knew what he was going to say.
“Father, your son has something to say. I wish to advise against the practice of collective punishment…”
Qin Shi Huang looked up at him but said nothing.