who was the first emperor of ancient china
Qin Shi Huang Qin Shi Huang (Chinese: 秦始皇; literally: "First Emperor of Qin",  pronunciation (help·info); 18 February 259 BC – 10 September 210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and was the first emperor of a unified China. He was born Ying Zheng (嬴政) or Zhao Zheng (趙政), a prince of the state of Qin. He became Zheng, the King of Qin (秦王政) when he was thirteen, then China's first emperor when he was 38 after the Qin had conquered all of the other Warring States and unified all of China in 221 BC.[2] Rather than maintain the title of "king" (王 wáng) borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Emperor (始皇帝) of the Qin dynasty from 220 to 210 BC. His self-invented title "emperor" (皇帝  huángdì), as indicated by his use of the word "First", would continue to be borne by Chinese rulers for the next two millennia.
History of China Historians often refer to the period from Qin dynasty to the end of Qing dynasty as Imperial China. Though the unified reign of the First Qin Emperor lasted only 12 years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of the Han Chinese homeland and to unite them under a tightly centralized Legalist government seated at Xianyang (close to modern Xi'an). The doctrine of Legalism that guided the Qin emphasized strict adherence to a legal code and the absolute power of the emperor. This philosophy, while effective for expanding the empire in a military fashion, proved unworkable for governing it in peacetime. The Qin Emperor presided over the brutal silencing of political opposition, including the event known as the burning of books and burying of scholars. This would be the impetus behind the later Han synthesis incorporating the more moderate schools of political governance.
History of the Great Wall of China One of the first mentions of a wall built against northern invaders is found in a poem, dated from the seventh century BC, recorded in the Classic of Poetry. The poem tells of a king, now identified as King Xuan (r.  827 – 782 BC) of the Western Zhou dynasty (1046 – 771 BC), who commanded General Nan Zhong (南仲) to build a wall in the northern regions to fend off the Xianyun.[22] The Xianyun, whose base of power was in the Ordos region, were regarded as part of the charioteering Rong tribes,[23] and their attacks aimed at the early Zhou capital region of Haojing were probably the reason for King Xuan's response.[22] Nan Zhong's campaign was recorded as a great victory. However, only a few years later in 771 BC another branch of the Rong people, the Quanrong, responded to a summons by the renegade Marquess of Shen by over-running the Zhou defences and laying waste to the capital. The cataclysmic event killed King Xuan's successor King You (795–771 BC), forced the court to move the capital east to Chengzhou (成周, later known as Luoyang) a year later, and thus ushered in the Eastern Zhou dynasty (770–256 BC). Most importantly, the fall of Western Zhou redistributed power to the states that had acknowledged Zhou's nominal rulership. The rule of the Eastern Zhou dynasty was marked by bloody interstate anarchy. With smaller states being annexed and larger states waging constant war upon one another, many rulers came to feel the need to erect walls to protect their borders. Of the earliest textual reference to such a wall was the State of Chu's wall of 656 BC, 1,400 metres (4,600 feet) of which were excavated in southern Henan province in the modern era. However the Chu border fortifications consisted of many individual mountain fortresses; they do not constitute to a lengthy, single wall. The State of Qi also had fortified borders up by the 7th century BC, and the extant portions in Shandong province had been christened the Great Wall of Qi. The State of Wei built two walls, the western one completed in 361 BC and the eastern in 356 BC, with the extant western wall found in Hancheng, Shaanxi.[24] Even non-Chinese peoples built walls, such as the Di state of Zhongshan and the Yiqu Rong, whose walls were intended to defend against the State of Qin.[25]
History of the Great Wall of China One of the first mentions of a wall built against northern invaders is found in a poem, dated from the seventh century BC, recorded in the Classic of Poetry. The poem tells of a king, now identified as King Xuan (r.  827 – 782 BC) of the Western Zhou dynasty (1046 – 771 BC), who commanded General Nan Zhong (南仲) to build a wall in the northern regions to fend off the Xianyun.[22] The Xianyun, whose base of power was in the Ordos region, were regarded as part of the charioteering Rong tribes,[23] and their attacks aimed at the early Zhou capital region of Haojing were probably the reason for King Xuan's response.[22] Nan Zhong's campaign was recorded as a great victory. However, only a few years later in 771 BC another branch of the Rong people, the Quanrong, responded to a summons by the renegade Marquess of Shen by over-running the Zhou defences and laying waste to the capital. The cataclysmic event killed King Xuan's successor King You (795–771 BC), forced the court to move the capital east to Chengzhou (成周, later known as Luoyang) a year later, and thus ushered in the Eastern Zhou dynasty (770–256 BC). Most importantly, the fall of Western Zhou redistributed power to the states that had acknowledged Zhou's nominal rulership. The rule of the Eastern Zhou dynasty was marked by bloody interstate anarchy. With smaller states being annexed and larger states waging constant war upon one another, many rulers came to feel the need to erect walls to protect their borders. Of the earliest textual reference to such a wall was the State of Chu's wall of 656 BC, 1,400 metres (4,600 feet) of which were excavated in southern Henan province in the modern era. The State of Qi also had fortified borders up by the 7th century BC, and the extant portions in Shandong province had been christened the Great Wall of Qi. The State of Wei built two walls, the western one completed in 361 BC and the eastern in 356 BC, with the extant western wall found in Hancheng, Shaanxi.[24] Even non-Chinese peoples built walls, such as the Di state of Zhongshan and the Yiqu Rong (義渠), whose walls were intended to defend against the State of Qin.[25]