This period ended with the rise of the Qin Dynasty and the subsequent purge of dissent.

The founder of the Qin Dynasty, who implemented Legalism as the official philosophy, quashed Mohist and Confucianist schools.

* 1461 – The Ming Dynasty Chinese military general Cao Qin stages a coup against the Tianshun Emperor.

As far back as the Qin Dynasty ( 221 BC – 206 BC ), the government required blacksmiths and weapon-makers to engrave their names onto weapons in order to trace the weapons back to them, lest their weapons should prove to be of a lower quality than the standard required by the government.

This practice began with the Qin Dynasty: in 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang united the various warring kingdoms and created the first Chinese empire.

Historians often refer to the period from Qin Dynasty to the end of Qing Dynasty as Imperial China.

Following the abandonment of Legalism in China after the Qin Dynasty, Confucianism became the official state ideology of China, until it was replaced by the " Three Principles of the People " ideology with the establishment of the Republic of China, and then Maoist Communism after the ROC was replaced by the People's Republic of China in Mainland China.

Following the Qin Dynasty, Confucianism became the dominant philosophical school of China.

Mohism though popular at first due to its emphasis on brotherly love versus harsh Qin Legalism, fell out of favour during the Han Dynasty due to the efforts of Confucians in establishing their views as political orthodoxy.

Legalism was the chosen philosophy of the Qin Dynasty.

The short founder Qin Dynasty, where Legalism was the official philosophy, quashed Mohist and Confucianist schools.

His followers competed successfully with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin Dynasty.

Li Ssu, Prime Minister of the Qin Dynasty convinced Qin Shi Huang to abandon the Confucians ' recommendation of awarding fiefs akin to the Zhou Dynasty before them which he saw as counter to the Legalist idea of centralizing the state around the ruler.

Handheld crossbows with complex bronze trigger mechanisms have also been found with the Terracotta Army in the tomb of Qin Shihuang ( r. 221 – 210 BC ) that are similar to specimens from the subsequent Han Dynasty ( 202 BC – 220 AD ), while crossbowmen described in the Qin and Han Dynasty learned drill formations, some were even mounted as cavalry units, and Han Dynasty writers attributed the success of numerous battles against the Xiongnu to massed crossbow fire.

The Terracotta Army commissioned by the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi is a collection of about 8000 life-sized ceramic soldiers and horses buried with the emperor.

The original form of the theorem, contained in a third-century AD book The Mathematical Classic of Sun Zi ( 孫子算經 ) by Chinese mathematician Sun Tzu and later generalized with a complete solution called Da yan shu ( 大衍术 ) in a 1247 book by Qin Jiushao, the Shushu Jiuzhang ( 數書九章 Mathematical Treatise in Nine Sections ) is a statement about simultaneous congruences ( see modular arithmetic ).

The Han Dynasty ( simplified Chinese: 汉朝 ; traditional Chinese: 漢朝 ; pinyin: Hàn Cháo ; 206 BCE – 220 CE ) was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms ( 220 – 265 CE ). Spanning over four centuries, the period of the Han Dynasty is considered a golden age in Chinese history. To this day, China's majority ethnic group refers to itself as the " Han people ".

Tianyi Chamber, founded in 1561 by Fan Qin during the Ming Dynasty, is the oldest existing library in China.

Tianyi Chamber, founded in 1561 by Fan Qin during the Ming Dynasty, is the oldest existing library in China.

* March 29 – The Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang is discovered at Xi ' an, China.

* China is divided between the Former Qin in the north and the Eastern Jin in the south.

* The last ruler of Former Qin, Fu Chong is killed in battle against an army of Western Qin, bringing Former Qin to an end.

This date could be revised if the tomb of Qin Shi Huang is excavated and the account in the Records of the Grand Historian concerning a model map of the empire is proven to be true.

Despite its rapid end, the Qin Dynasty influenced future Chinese empires, particularly the Han, and the European name for China is thought to be derived from it.

Qin is shown in pink

The Qin capital was destroyed the next year, and this is considered by Derk Bodde, as well as other historians, to be the end of the Qin empire.

The name ' Qin ' ( pronounced as ' Chin ') is believed to be the etymological ancestor of the modern day European name of the country, China.

This etymology is dismissed by some scholars, who suggest that ' Sina ' in Sanskrit evolved much earlier before the Qin dynasty.

The exact date of the Hong Gou's construction is uncertain ; it is first mentioned by the diplomat Su Qin in 330 BC when discussing state boundaries.

In India, the period includes the early period of the Middle Kingdoms, and, in China, the time up to the Qin Dynasty is included.

Meanwhile, the Roman Republic is embroiled in war against the Samnites, the Mauryan Empire continues to thrive in Ancient India, and the Kingdom of Qin in Ancient China, the one which in the future will conquer its adversaries and unite China, begins to emerge as a significant power during the Warring States Period.

* A merchant from the Roman Empire called " Qin Lun " by the Chinese, arrives in Jiaozhi ( modern Hanoi ) and is taken to see Sun Quan, king of Eastern Wu, who requests him to make a report on his native country and people.

The character was reserved for mythological rulers until the first emperor of Qin ( Qin Shi Huang ), who created a new title Huangdi ( 皇帝 in pinyin: huáng dì ) for himself in 221 BCE, which is commonly translated as Emperor in English.

The practice was also well known in ancient China, as in Jing Ke's failed assassination of King Qin Shi Huang ( 227 BC ).

* August 7 – The Ming Dynasty Chinese military general Cao Qin stages a coup against the Tianshun Emperor ; after setting fire to the eastern and western gates of the Imperial City ( Beijing ) ( which are doused by pouring rains during the day-long uprising ), Cao Qin finds himself hemmed in on all sides by imperial forces, loses three of his own brothers in the fight, and instead of facing execution he flees to his home in the city and commits suicide by jumping down a well located within his walled compound.

Next, Qin armies launched assaults to the east, and later the south as well ; they took the Wei city of Daliang ( now called Kaifeng ) in 225 BC and forced the Chu to surrender by 223 BC.

* 232 BC – Xiang Yu, Chinese rebel general against the Qin Dynasty, as well as the later arch nemesis of Liu Bang in the civil war of the Chu-Han contention ( d. 202 BC )

After defeating the Later Qin army in several battles, as well as an army of Northern Wei troops which had crossed to assist the Later Qin, Liu Yu recaptured the vital cities of Chang ' an and Luoyang, the former capitals of the Jin Empire.

* Xiang Yu, Chinese rebel general against the Qin Dynasty, as well as the later arch nemesis of Liu Bang in the civil war of the Chu-Han contention ( d. 202 BC )

During China's Qin Dynasty, records have shown that officials took hand prints, foot prints as well as finger prints as evidence from a crime scene.

* In the computer game Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, the Qin Dynasty campaign has the player as the head architect of Qin Shi Huang, in charge of overseeing the construction of the capital, the Lingqu canal, the Great Wall, as well as his tomb and the terracotta army, although the game takes liberties with the time frames in which these events actually took place.

After Zhao Tuo was made the Duke of Nanyue by the Qin Dynasty and given authority over the Nanyue region, many Han people entered the area and lived together with the Nanyue population, consequently affecting the lifestyle of the Nanyue people as well as stimulating the spread of the Chinese language.

was discovered on 29 March 1974 to the east of Xi ' an in Shaanxi province by a group of farmers when they were digging a water well around 1. 6 km ( 1 mile ) east of the Qin Emperor's tomb mound at Mount Li ( Lishan ), a region riddled with underground springs and watercourses.

" Of today ’ s scholars and high-ranking officials, there are those who are well-versed and can discuss in detail the Five Classics 五經 and the other philosophical treatises ... as well as the histories of Qin and Han, but as to the events of our country, they are utterly ignorant from beginning to end.

In 256 BC the State of Qin annexed the Eastern Zhou Dynasty as well as the Western Zhou state, but the Eastern Zhou state survived until 249 BC, when it was also annexed by Qin.

In 222 BC Liaodong fell as well, and Yan was totally conquered by Qin.

Traditional forms in Qin remained in use as well, so that two forms of writing coexisted.

With the failure of the coup, in order to escape being executed, Qin fled to his residence and committed suicide by jumping down a well within the walled compound of his home.

* Liu Qin ( a Mp3 recording available here as well )

Xiang Yu's grandfather, Xiang Yan, was a well known general who led the Chu army in resisting the Qin invaders led by Wang Jian, and was killed in action when Qin conquered Chu in 223 BC.