Professor Andrew Meyer

There really has been no formal transfer of power.

And so the Qin are sort of left holding the bag.

Ying Zheng, when he's become the first emperor of Qin, he's kind of left trying to figure out ways that he can ritually broadcast to the world

that this transition has really happened and it's really legitimate.

And that sort of becomes a problem that he struggles with for his entire reign.

That's the $68,000 question.

I forget what the name of the old game show was called.

Because I spent a lot of time thinking about this.

Well, how does one end this book?

Because I really do feel that we should understand this as a revolution.

What are the long-term consequences of this revolution that continue to resonate so powerfully?

In the simplest terms, the Warring States leads to the foundation of the Chinese empire.

Ying Zheng becomes the first emperor.

That's his title, but he literally is the first emperor.

He invents the title Huangdi, which we translate as emperor.

The territorial system that he institutionalizes lays down the norm for subsequent imperial governments down to the year 1911.

So, you know, the normative shape of the Chinese empire emerges from the warring states and a political system that controlled about a fifth and a quarter of humanity at any given time, that's very consequential.

And that understanding the origins of that system is obviously important.

To me, two of the biggest impacts of the warring states, really, we wouldn't have a unified nation of China today, but for the empire that emerges from the warring states.

So that's very consequential.