The sovereigns of the next 2,000-odd years followed the feudal ... for 5,000 km in northern China. Qin Shi Huang had work on his enormous mausoleum started early in his reign.

By 221 B.C. he had unified a collection of warring kingdoms and took the name of Qin Shi Huang Di—the First Emperor of Qin. During his rule, Qin standardized coins, weights, and measures ...

220 B.C., under Qin Shi Huang, sections of earlier fortifications were joined ... a military architectural ensemble which served a single strategic purpose for 2000 years, but whose construction ...