The Shortcomings Of King Zheng Of Qin

1254 Words6 Pages
Throughout history, civilizations and empires have faced many of the same challenges. These challenges could have been problems with communication, external threats, internal instabilities, overextension of territory, and so on. These empires also have another thing in common. This is the fact that they all try to deal with these problems in the best way possible, or so they think. King Zheng of Qin succeeded in defeating the remaining Warring States between 230 and 221 BCE, ending one of the most violent periods in Chinese history. Zheng assumed the mandate of heaven from the Zhou and unified the states into a centralized empire, declaring himself Shi Huangdi. This declared the Qin Dynasty. To further strengthen his power, he forced…show more content…
When he regained the throne from the priests in 521 BCE, his territory consisted of 1,865 miles East to West, and 933 miles North to South. It was at the time the largest empire ever, and it even included seventy separate ethnic groups. It was hard for Darius to maintain hegemony. He was having a problem with overextension of his territory, external threats, and internal threats all at once. So, Darius moved the capital to Persepolis. The capital of New Persia was meant to unify everyone and differentiate himself as a ruler. He uses it as a political propaganda. He also builds the Royal road to facilitate rapid communication throughout his enormous empire. It would take about seven days to cross if you were on a mount. He then divides everything into twenty-three territories called satraps. The satraps were ruled by local governors, and their most important duty was to collect taxes. He also uses a system of checks and balances to ensure internal stability, as well as a constant military presence, and spies everywhere to ensure external stability. Darius has an account of his success engraved into a side of a cliff in Persian, Akkadian, and Elamit, so it could be read by everyone. Darius wanted everyone to know that he was there to rule, and no one would take that away from…show more content…
He increases it to about 250,000 men, and gives them rewards and benefits for participating. He also began a massive building campaign. He built roads, aqua ducts, and coliseums. This helped the economy by providing services, jobs, and entertainment for the people of Rome. He even fixed prices so people could afford things, and the people of Rome loved Octavian. This eventually allowed the republic to turn into an empire and the people never protested because their lives were actually better now. Octavian began the Paxromana period, and had a very strong hold on the Mediterranean trade routes. He even had Roman stations all along the Silk Road. Culture traveled along the road, and religions like Buddhism and Christianity came about. Octavian knew what the people of Rome wanted, and became a successful ruler as a result of giving them what they wanted. He communicated well with them, and became one of the most popular Roman rulers ever. All of these rulers and empires attempted to deal with the problems that came about from trying to manage a civilization. Some were extremely successful, and others not so much. People like Qin Shi Huangdi folded under the pressure, and became too paranoid of his own people. Octavian on the other hand, knew the possibilities of internal and external threat, but actually made successful reforms to eliminate the possibility. A lot of the success rate of these empires
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