Though the Zhou Emperors had considerable consolidation over their lands, disputes between the emperor and his regional rulers became increasingly common over time. Eventually, they finally boiled over in 325BC, when a local general from Xian named Ying Zheng attempted to encourage the Zhou leadership to annex the Korean peninsula to the east in face of the rising Japanese influence in the area. However, the Zhou Emperor disagreed, claiming that he "did not want to expand in a foreign area and incur an expansion penalty". Historians are still baffled by the meaning of this statement, and many believe it to be a mistranslation. Nevertheless, Ying Zheng was not satisfied, and rallied a large army to sack Beijing in 325BC. The city was taken easily, and the last Zhou king was executed via the bee method. After Beijing fell, the rest of China quickly surrendered to Ying's forces, and that year he proclaimed himself Qin Shi Huang, Emperor of all China. This ushered in the Qin dynasty.
The new dynasty marked a new interest in trade with foreign powers. At the beginning of the Qin dynasty, China was technologically backwards compared to classical civilizations in the west, and Qin Shi Huang attempted to remedy this by teaching Greeks how to count.
However, the greatest achievement of the Qin dynasty is believed to be the introduction of the world's very first calendar, which magically made bananas edible.
This in turn led to the creation of a brand new religion called Taoism, which was revealed to Qin Shi Huang himself when he suddenly realized the secrets of life and nature while he was sitting in his garden smoking some dye. The religion was officially endorsed by the Qin government in 300BC.
Qin Shi Huang's dreams of annexing Korea were finally realized in 299BC, when his son Fusu gave it to him as a 60th birthday present. Legend has it that everyone hid in the bushes while Fusu walked his father into Pingrang, and jumped out yelling "SURPRISE!" as soon as they reached the center of the city.
By 284BC, Qin Shi Huang was feeble with old age, and desperately searched for a way to prolong his life. He sent his advisors to the ancient Babylonian empire, to find out how Hammurabi had managed to live for thousands of years. Qin Shi Huang suspected that the secrets of meditation were key, and His advisors approached the Babylonian leadership about the issue. Unfortunately, Hammurabi was unwilling to share the secrets with the Qin advisors, and instead repeatedly yelled at them to "have a great prophet research it".
Qin Shi Huang passed away later that year, with his family at his side, desperately proclaiming that he didn't want to go.
He was succeeded by Fusu, who resumed trading with the classical powers in the west. He knew that sharing the secrets of the Chinese calendar with others would make iron pop out of the ground, and quickly shared the knowledge with merchants from the Roman Empire.
At its height, the Qin Empire was home to half a million people.
However, the royal line soon died out, and in 109BC the last heir to the Qin throne died, leaving behind no sons to take up the reigns. The emperor of Japan, Jimmu (who was a direct descendent of the deaf-mute Emperor who had united the island centuries earlier), saw this as an opportunity to increase Japan's influence in Korea, quickly declared war on the Chinese people.
However, a local military hero of Beijing named Liu Bang, who had defended the city from countless Barbarian invasions, quickly stepped up and claimed the title of emperor of China. In the face of the Japanese threat from the east, the Mongol raids from the north, and Tibetan raids from the west, much of the empire immediately swore allegiance to the new emperor, who proclaimed himself the first emperor of the Han dynasty.
Artist's rendition of Liu Bang stabbing a horse
The Han leadership finally reached an agreement with Japan in 16AD, agreeing to cede a tiny slice of Korea over to Japan in exchange for peace.
To show that there were no hard feelings, the Emperor of Japan agreed to allow Taoist teachings to flourish in his empire, and soon much of Japan was Taoist.
However, the peace was shattered when Jimmu's grandson Jimmu declared war on the Han dynasty after a Han noble joked that his beard made him look like Santa Claus.
To the west however, relations with foreign nations proved much less stressed, as trading began with the Ethiopian Empire, which was Taoist despite never having been contacted by any Taoist powers in the past. Historians have been unable to explain this, although it is widely suspected that
Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Stuff may have been involved.
Although Japan had not yet invaded any part of China, the Han leadership devised a genius plan to prevent the Japanese from wiping out the Han Dynasty. The Han Emperor ordered the construction of a city in a spot that was so horrible, no one would ever want to invade it. It worked.
After the development of a paper currency, the Han Dynasty traded it to the Roman Empire on the condition that Roman delegates come to China and teach everybody their ABCs.
Finally, after centuries of diplomatic warfare, a peace was obtained in 161AD after the Jimmu family won a lawsuit in which the Han court agreed to pay the Japanese imperial family a large sum of gold for "emotional damages" in exchange for peace.
After nearly 500 years, the Terra Cotta Army that had been ordered by Qin Shi Huang to protect him in the afterlife was completed, at the cost of many lives.
By 200AD, the Han Dynasty had reached the height of its power. Its population reached a million people, making it the second largest empire in the world. Contemporary historians agree that everyone was jelly of the great Han Empire, except for the Romans, who were not jelly.
Here is the Han Empire at its greatest extent, in 200AD:
