My Heretics podcast has done 3 episodes now on the history of ancient China. We’ve started with the Zhou, then into the warring states period that leads up to the formation of the Qin Dynasty. This is where you start to see a physical map of a Dynasty that actually looks like modern China.

Animated map of the warring states period from Wikipedia:

Despite ambitions to reign for a thousand years, the Qin Dynasty ended up being very short, but dramatic and introduced the key rulership idea of Chinese Legalism. The Qin Emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, was buried in a huge tomb which contained the now-famous Terracotta Warrior pictured above.

Here’s the episode:

The man who invented China

While Qin Shi Huangdi created China, he wasn’t liked by the people.  The hardline approach of Legalism didn’t have what it took to hold a geographic area of that size together and his dynasty ended pretty quickly after his death. The next dynasty, the Han Dynasty lead China into its golden age, introducing modern economics in the process. One of the reasons for the success of the Han that it changed government style, introducing something called the Han Synthesis, which enabled people to practice different religious or philosophical traditions at the same time.

The Han Dynasty saw several conflicts with the invading Xiongnu from the North, in the area we call Mongolia now.

Here are the episodes:

The Han dynasty (part 1)

The Han dynasty (part 2)