Puzzle No. 124: When?

After a campaign of conquest begun in 230 BCE, King Zheng of Qin defeated the last of the rival Warring States in 221 BCE, ending centuries of fragmentation and creating the first unified Chinese empire. He took the unprecedented title Shi Huangdi ('First Emperor'), elevating himself above the old Zhou kings. With his chancellor Li Si he replaced the feudal order with a centralised administration of commanderies and counties staffed by appointed officials, and standardised the written script, coinage, weights, measures, and axle widths across the realm. These measures imposed a single bureaucratic framework on a vast and diverse territory and forged the model of a centralised imperial state that would shape Chinese governance for over two millennia. Although the Qin dynasty itself lasted only about fifteen years, collapsing soon after the First Emperor's death in 210 BCE, the institutions and the very idea of a unified China it created proved enduring.

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