Qin's wars of unification in the context of "Wei (state)"

The Zhou dynasty (/dʒoʊ/ JOH; Chinese: 周; pinyin: Zhōu, pronunciation: [ʈʂóʊ]) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from c. 1046 BC until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period (c. 1046 – 771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military control over territories centered on the Wei River valley and North China Plain. Even as Zhou suzerainty became increasingly ceremonial over the following Eastern Zhou period (771–256 BC), the political system created by the Zhou royal house survived in some form for several additional centuries. A date of 1046 BC for the Zhou's establishment is supported by the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project and David Pankenier, but David Nivison and Edward L. Shaughnessy date the establishment to 1045 BC.

The latter Eastern Zhou period is itself roughly subdivided into two parts. During the Spring and Autumn period (c. 771 – c. 481 BC), power became increasingly decentralized as the authority of the royal house diminished. The Warring States period (c. 475 – 221 BC) that followed saw large-scale warfare and consolidation among what had formerly been Zhou client states, until the Zhou were formally extinguished by the state of Qin in 256 BC. The Qin ultimately founded the imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC after conquering all of China.

Qin Shi Huang (Chinese: 秦始皇, Qín Shǐ Huáng, pronunciation; February 259 – 12 July 210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of China. Rather than maintain the title of "king" (wáng 王) borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he assumed the invented title of "emperor" (huángdì 皇帝), which would see continuous use by monarchs in China for the next two millennia.

Born in Handan, the capital of Zhao, as Ying Zheng (嬴政) or Zhao Zheng (趙政), his parents were King Zhuangxiang of Qin and Lady Zhao. The wealthy merchant Lü Buwei assisted him in succeeding his father as the king of Qin, after which he became King Zheng of Qin (秦王政). By 221 BC, he had conquered all the other warring states and unified all of China, and he ascended the throne as China's first emperor. During his reign, his generals greatly expanded the size of the Chinese state: campaigns south of Chu permanently added the Yue lands of Hunan and Guangdong to the Sinosphere, and campaigns in Inner Asia conquered the Ordos Plateau from the nomadic Xiongnu, although the Xiongnu later rallied under Modu Chanyu.

Emperor Gaozu of Han (256 or 247 – 1 June 195 BC), personal name Liu Bang, was the founder and first emperor of the Han dynasty.

Liu Bang was among the few dynastic founders to have been born in a peasant family. He initially entered the Qin dynasty bureaucracy as a minor law enforcement officer in his hometown in Pei County, within the conquered state of Chu. During the political chaos following the death of Qin Shi Huang, who had been the first emperor in Chinese history, Liu Bang renounced his civil service position and became a rebel leader, taking up arms against the Qin dynasty. He outmanoeuvred rival rebel leader Xiang Yu to invade the Qin heartland and forced the surrender of the Qin ruler Ziying in 206 BC.

The Qin dynasty (/tʃɪn/ CHIN) was the first imperial dynasty of China. It is named for its progenitor state of Qin, a fief of the confederal Zhou dynasty (c. 1046–256 BC). Beginning in 230 BC, the Qin under King Ying Zheng engaged in a series of wars conquering each of the rival states that had previously pledged fealty to the Zhou. This culminated in 221 BC with the successful unification of China under Qin, which then assumed an imperial prerogative – with Ying Zheng declaring himself to be Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, and bringing an end to the Warring States period (c. 475–221 BC). This state of affairs lasted until 206 BC, when the dynasty collapsed in the years following Qin Shi Huang's death. The Qin dynasty's 14-year existence was the shortest of any major dynasty in Chinese history, with only two emperors. However, the succeeding Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) largely continued the military and administrative practices instituted by the Qin; as a result, the Qin have been credited as the originators of the Chinese imperial system that would endure in some form until the Xinhai Revolution in 1911.

Qin was a minor power for the first several centuries of its existence; its strength greatly increased in the 4th century BC, in large part owing to the administrative and military reforms of Shang Yang. They sought to create a strong, centralised state and a large army supported by a stable economy, which were developed in the Qin homeland and implemented across China following its unification. Reforms included the standardisation of currency, weights, measures, and the writing system, along with innovations in weaponry, transportation and military tactics.

Qin (CHIN, /tʃɪn/, or Ch'in) was an ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty. It is traditionally dated to 897 BC. The state of Qin originated from a reconquest of western lands that had previously been lost to the Xirong. Its location at the western edge of Chinese civilisation allowed for expansion and development that was not available to its rivals in the North China Plain.

After extensive reform during the 4th century BC, Qin emerged as one of the dominant powers among the Seven Warring States. It unified the seven states of China under Qin Shi Huang in 221 BC. This unification established the Qin dynasty, which, despite its short duration, had a significant influence on later Chinese history. Accordingly, the state of Qin before the Qin dynasty was established is also referred to as the "predynastic Qin" or "proto-Qin".

The small seal script is an archaic script style of written Chinese. It developed within the state of Qin during the Eastern Zhou dynasty (771–256 BC), and was then promulgated across China in order to replace script varieties used in other ancient Chinese states following Qin's wars of unification and establishment of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) under Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.

The Warring States period in Chinese history (c. 475 – 221 BC) comprises the final centuries of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046 – 256 BC), which were characterized by warfare, bureaucratic and military reform, and political consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded with the wars of conquest that saw the state of Qin annex each of the other contender states by 221 BC and found the Qin dynasty, the first imperial dynastic state in East Asian history.

While scholars have identified several different dates as marking the beginning of the Warring States period, Sima Qian's choice of 475 BC is the most often cited. The era largely corresponds to the second half of the Eastern Zhou period, where the king of Zhou formally ruled as Chinese sovereign, but had lost political power and functioned in practice as a figurehead. This dynamic served as the backdrop for the machinations of the eponymous Warring States. The label "Warring States period" derives from the Record of the Warring States, a work of history compiled during the early Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD).

The Han–Xiongnu Wars or Sino-Xiongnu Wars, were a series of military conflicts fought from 133 BC to 89 AD between the agrarian Chinese Han Empire and the nomadic Xiongnu confederacy, although extended conflicts can be traced back as early as 200 BC and as late as 188 AD.

The Chinese civilization initially clashed with Inner Asian nomadic tribes (then collectively known as Di) that would later become the Xiongnu during the Warring States period, and various northern states built elongated fortifications (which later became the Great Wall) to defend against raids down from the Mongolian Plateau. The unified Qin dynasty, who conquered all other states under Emperor Qin Shi Huang, dispatched General Meng Tian in 215 BC in a successful campaign to expel the Xiongnu from the Ordos region (which was often used as a staging area to threaten Qin's Guanzhong heartland). However, the subsequent civil wars following the Qin dynasty's collapse gave the Xiongnu tribes, who were then unified into a large confederacy under Modu Chanyu, the opportunity to reinvade the Ordos region. After the Han dynasty was established in 202 BC, Emperor Gao tried to fight off Xiongnu invasions but had himself trapped in an ambush during the Battle of Baideng, and a truce was negotiated by bribing Modu's wife, thus ending first Han–Xiongnu War. Decades of de jure peace then followed with the Chinese gifting "harmony via marriage" to appease the Xiongnu, who still routinely raided Chinese borderlands.