During the Warring States period, the structure of the characters was roughly the same in each country, but there were still slight differences in the degree of complexity and the location of the sides. Qin Shi Huang asked Li Si to use the small seal used by the Qin people during the Warring States period as a basis for adjustment and unification, and promoted it throughout the country as an official standard script. At the same time, other variants were abolished. At that time, it was more popular among the people was Qin Li, which was simple to write, and it was said that it was invented by Cheng Miao, but it was actually evolved since the Warring States Period, and it was mainly used to manage the documents of prisoners and slaves, so it was called Lishu.
In 1975, the bamboo slip text unearthed from the Qin tomb of No. 11 Sleeping Tiger Land in Yunmeng County, Hubei Province is Lishu. Lishu broke the tradition of ancient Chinese characters, laid the foundation of regular script, and improved the efficiency of writing.
The unification and simplification of the Chinese language not only contributed to the implementation of national politics and religion and cultural exchanges between different regions, but also played an important role in the development of Chinese culture, and had an important impact on the long-term maintenance of cultural identity and cohesion of the Chinese nation.
Unified currency and weights and measures. Qin Shi Huang took two important unifying measures in the economy: first, he abolished the currencies of the six countries and fully adopted Qin's "half two coins", a monetary system that used ** and copper coins as the standard currency. These currencies are minted by the state, and private minting is strictly prohibited. Second, Qin Shi Huang unified weights and measures, and promoted the weights and measures standards formulated by Shang Ying to the whole country. On the edict unearthed from the site of Xianyang Palace, this incident is clearly recorded: "In the twenty-sixth year, the emperor unified the princes of the whole country, and the people were stable, so he was made emperor. Therefore, he ordered the prime minister and the queen to unify the law, weights and measures, and any unification.
1. If there is doubt, it must be clearly unified. ”
Build galloping and straights. In order to better control and manage the territory, Qin Shi Huang ordered the construction of roads from the capital Xianyang to all parts of the country. These gallops are about 69 meters wide, and the middle one is reserved for the emperor, and pine trees are planted every seven meters on either side. The most famous Chi Road is Shangjun Road, Linjin Road, Dongfang Road, Wuguan Road, West Road and so on.
After Qin Shi Huang unified China, he began to build a straight road from Xianyang through Yunyang (northwest of present-day Chunhua, Shaanxi) to Jiuyuan (present-day Baotouxi, Inner Mongolia), with a total length of about 1,800 li (about 750 km). The road passes through the Loess Plateau in northern Shaanxi and goes north along the Meridian Ridge, which is more than 1,600 meters above sea level. Along the way, there are steep mountains and desolate deserts, and there is no detour when encountering mountains. Despite more than 2,000 years of wind and rain, most of the roads are still intact and in some places even passable. The Qin Straight Road is made of loess ramming, because the ramming is particularly strong, so the trees planted on the straight road can not survive.
In the southwest region, a "five-foot road" was built from Yibin, Sichuan to Qujing, Yunnan (or Zhaotong), because this road is very narrow, only five feet wide, so it is called "five-foot road". Qin Shi Huang established the most developed transportation network in the world at that time in his capital Xianyang. According to statistics, the total length of roads built by Qin Shi Huang was about 6,800 kilometers, while the total length of roads in Rome reached nearly 6,000 kilometers about four centuries later. The extensive transportation not only promoted the exchange of materials and the development of commerce in various places, but also provided convenience for the rapid transportation of troops and personnel, and improved the Qin Dynasty's jurisdiction and ruling ability over the whole country.
At that time, the people depicted the scene of the great unification and prosperity, the emperor had to regularly go to inspect his territory, this process was called "patrol hunting", and the "Feng Zen" ceremony was held in Mount Tai. Qin Shi Huang, an emperor who thought that his merits surpassed those of the three emperors and the five emperors, naturally could not lack these rituals. From the second year of unification, Qin Shi Huang began a large-scale parade, and during his reign, a total of five such events were held.
In 219 BC, Qin Shi Huang chose the east for his second parade. He climbed Mount Tai, carved a stone monument, praised his great exploits, and then performed a ceremony of "sealing Zen". The ceremony didn't go very well. His ministers were still arguing about what to do at the last minute before the ceremony. Suddenly, it rained heavily during the ceremony. However, no matter what, Qin Shi Huang still told heaven and earth about his great exploits.
In February, Qin Shi Huang received a letter from Xu Fu, a scholar of Qi State, after holding a ceremony to seal the Zen Zen. The letter said that there are three mysterious sacred mountains in the sea, inhabited by immortals, who have the medicine of immortality. Xu Fu was willing to lead a group of boys and girls to find the elixir of immortality for Qin Shi Huang. Qin Shi Huang was already in his forties at the time, and he already had supreme power, but the last thing he wanted to face was the natural law of birth, old age, sickness and death. Xu Fu's letter gave him new hope, so he immediately ordered thousands of boys and girls to be found and spent a lot of money to build ships. Although the fleet encountered several waves at sea and was forced to turn back, they eventually disappeared into the vast sea and never returned.
According to Japanese legend, the fleet led by Xu Fu boarded Kumano, Kishu, Japan, and settled there. There are now Sufuku's tombs in Wakayama, Saga, Ishikawa, and Aichi prefectures in Japan. This time, Xu Fu went to sea in search of immortal medicine, which can be said to be the first large-scale sailing activity in Chinese history.