the qin dynasty was not only the first dynasty but lasting 15 years it was also one of the shortest
king ying zheng or qin shihuang was the first emperor of china he destroyed all rival kingdoms
constructed the terracotta warriors built much of the great wall and established an empire he
achieved all this through a powerful army and the rule of lore but the life of an ordinary qin
dynasty citizen was mostly unrecorded that was until one day when a group of diggers in 1975
stumbled upon a tomb it was the resting place of judge Xi while not a famous man what makes
him remarkable is that he was buried with an entire library of legal documents detailing the
crimes and punishments of the qin people this is a brief look at legalism these are their stories
before we begin we should understand what exactly legalism is belonging to the 100
schools of thought it was created by lord Shang and further refined by hanfei legalism is a
philosophy which is almost the exact opposite of confucianism confucian theory believes that we
must observe traditions and diligently respect the past it also promotes that all men are essentially
good and that through correct cultivation and by listening to his advisors a leader can become a
sage legalism on the other hand promotes that all men are born evil and can only be encouraged to do
good through reward and intense punishment it also states traditions are not useful for the running
of a modern society western legalism is generally viewed as the creation of law by the people (tm)
for the people chinese legalism is viewed as the creation of laws for the good of the king and
the kingdom for the first time in chinese history clearly defined and written law was distributed
to the common people this was achieved thanks to the simplification and standardization of
the chinese writing system called the lesser seal script everything from currency to road
with became standardized under the chin rule and as everyone now had access to the laws they were
expected to not only follow it themselves but also make sure that those around them did too
the court cases showed that people who did not report suspicious activity were punished
and those who falsely reported a crime would receive a punishment equal to the reported crime
for the people during the time of the chin it was a life of unease having neighbors and family
members being required to spy on each other or face severe discipline police work and forensics
at this time were also surprisingly advanced in one case a thief tunneled into a house to steal
some clothes but was ultimately captured thanks to witness profiling and his footprints left at
the scene of the crime it wasn't a perfect system though all crimes required a culprit
and many people were tortured into confessing even if they didn't actually do it even suicides
required someone to be punished but what's more interesting than the crimes are the punishments
the lightest punishment is of course a fine this would usually be paid in armor rather than money
to help support the chin's huge army the next penalty would be demotion and loss of land
after that was mutilation which involved blinding getting tattooed castrated or having one's nose
cut off mutilated and crippled criminals were sometimes sentenced to the job of palace watchmen
where it was their job to secretly open doors and curtains and remain hidden from sight
unsurprisingly one of the most common penalties was execution which came in a variety of flavors
beheading was the vanilla of executions after that it was being cut in half and then it was
being drawn and quartered and finally there was dishonorable which involved receiving all
punishments before finally being executed for serious crimes the criminal's entire family or
even whole community could be sentenced to death but we cannot forget about slave labor countless
criminals and captured enemies were sent into the deserts and snowy mountains to spend the rest of
their lives working on structures like the great wall of china while the punishments were extreme
for the first time in chinese history they were equal and applied to everyone regardless of rank
it was a meritocracy meaning you had to earn your position in the past feudal lords would receive
taxes from their peasants and then give a small percentage to the king under the chin rule lords
were replaced with government officials and all prophets went directly to the kingdom however poor
citizens could now earn a plot of farming land by joining the army and help conquering new kingdoms
these two changes help fund the qin expansion and cement the emperor's power the qin dynasty is
truly a remarkable time in history on the one hand it was one of the first bureaucratic societies on
the other it was cruel to the point of fascism but it was under the chin rule that china for
the first time became united the qin dynasty was quickly followed by the han dynasty which
pretty much copied the legalist system word for word while future dynasties tried to follow more
traditional philosophies and demonize legalism the truth is that much of their government structures
were based on legalism even in modern history mao zedong was an avid admirer of qin dynastic power
proudly stating we have buried 46 thousand scholars alive we have surpassed qin shi huang
a hundred fold so regardless of where you stand on the issue the qin dynasty is an incredibly
fascinating period of history and for better or worse its influence in china and throughout
the world can still be felt to this day so thank you for watching another one of my videos don't
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my more recent ones as always thank you so much for watching i'm wukong and goodbye