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Abstract
Although the Warring States followed a similar pattern of government, they each had different identities. Their administrative arrangements varied, they had their own currency and their own legal codes, and although all spoke versions of Chinese that were more or less related, each had developed its own variant of the script. All these differences were swept away forever when Cheng, the king of Ch’in, completed his conquest of these states in 221 BC. No single man ever, in the entire 3,000 years of Chinese history, per formed so historic a task as he did nor left so great and so indelible a mark on the character of government at any time or in any place in the world. Although he reigned a mere eleven years as emperor, the changes he wrought in China’s institutions were determinative. Shih Huang-ti was a barbarous and cruel megalomaniac of cyclonic energies who forged his newly con quered dominions into one community in the image of his own kingdom of Ch’ in writ large, and all the successor empires built upon and adapted its basic institutional structures. Furthermore, the political model he estab lished-of theunique, tightly unified, centrally directed chung kuo, that is, the world-central kingdom-has inspired every generation of patriotic Chinese down to this day.
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