Qin Shi Huangdi's Central Bureaucratic System

Qin Shi Huangdi, the first Qin emperor, was an ambitious emperor who implemented a central bureaucratic system that oversaw the evolution and unification of China at the cost of public sentiment. The Qin Dynasty is considered to be among the most influential dynasties as it laid the foundation for the massive cultural and economic development of China that took place during the Han Dynasty, but it also failed to achieve many of its pro-commoner ideological goals. In fact, socioeconomic disparity was not alleviated and despite the notion of enriching the lives of the common people, it was under Qin rule in which public resentment of the authoritarian government peaked as there were countless peasant revolts against the iron-handed bureaucratic

In one instance, Qian writes that “Thirty thousand households were ordered moved to Beihe and Yuzhong and granted one step in noble rank” (Qian 59). In a single imperial order, thirty thousand households had their statuses elevated above the peasant class. The emperor’s power to arbitrarily assign nobility ranks engendered multiple levels in society. While the “black-headed” people expressed their discontent through unorganized revolts, there was an entity of people who became wealthy through following the law. Reflecting on the laws of the Qin, Qian mentions that, “failing to report an offense was to be cut in two at the waist and reporting an offense was to be rewarded the same way as cutting off the head of an enemy” (Qian 92). The act was pragmatic in that the bureaucracy saw the value in motivating citizens to serve the nation, but such a system realistically leads to the creation of a group that becomes wealthier than the average peasants as it is selectively awarded material goods for its loyalty to the nation. In other words, a system that awards those who act for the purpose of furthering the governmental influence and punishes those who don’t creates a disparity as Qin’s bureaucracy had more or less turned the nation into a police state by establishing a spy network from its own population. Furthermore, the Qin emperor

Just as Qin Shi Huangdi tore down the aristocracy and replaced it with a central government, Mao utilized the Great Leap Forward to put those who understood the interests of the people and state in power and to collectivize agricultural production. However, those that came into power through the sole governing party of China known as the Communist Party of China became another social class above the working class. In Mao’s reign, the Great Leap forward was proposed as an economic stimulus plan. The Great Leap Forward is akin to Qin Shi Huangdi’s ambitious projects to build the Great Wall as a robust defense against the northern barbarians as well as roads to foster economic activity. However, along with the implementation of the Great Leap Forward came banned private food production and forced labor for five years. Unlike the result of the Qin Dynasty’s forced labor, economic activity shrank in the Great Leap Forward and the Great Chinese Famine caused millions to die. The living standard of the peasant in this time period fully deteriorated as they did in the Qin Dynasty, yet the members of the party and its subordinates did not suffer the same fate. Like Qin, Mao clearly had enough political clout as he had some members of the party,