The reforms of Shang Yang: Qin becomes an engine of war
The adviser of the ruler of Qin brings in one law for all, collective liability and ranks for enemy heads—and prepares the unification of China.
In 356 BCE the ruler of the western state of Qin, Duke Xiao, charges a foreign adviser, Shang Yang, with reorganising the state. Shang Yang divides the population into groups of five and ten households answerable for one another; abolishes the hereditary privileges of the nobility and introduces twenty ranks given only for deeds in battle; encourages farming and weaving while oppressing merchants and turning the idle and destitute into slaves; the law is one for all—even the heir to the throne is punished, or rather his tutors. A second wave, from 350, brings in districts subordinate to the centre and uniform measures. Within a generation Qin becomes the strongest of the Warring States. After the death of Duke Xiao in 338 Shang Yang is executed under his own laws, but his order remains—and a hundred years later Qin Shi Huang will unify China by it.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian, biography of Shang Yang — collective liability, ranks for deeds and the execution of the reformer
Scholarship
- history of ancient China — the dating of the reforms to 356 and 350 BCE
Basis: documents and evidence.