Qin was the first centralized, unified, and multi-ethnic feudal dynasty in Chinese history. The Qin Dynasty was the dynasty that redefined China and made China a unified nation.

Originally, the Qin people were an ancient tribe in western China. During the rule of King Xiao of the Zhou Dynasty (11th century BC - 221 BC), Feizi, chief of the Qin tribe, raised horses for the king who then gave Feizi the surname of Ying. Later, Duke Zhuang, another chief of the Qin tribe, received orders from King Xuan to fight against the Quanrong who were badly defeated during the war. Thereafter, the Qin tribe gradually became more powerful.

In the later times of the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century BC - 771 BC), Duke Xiang of the Qin tribe was conferred as a vassal along with the land of Qixi (today’s Baoji City, Shaanxi Province) by King Ping, because he had made contributions to escort King Ping to move east.
In the Spring and Autumn Periods, Duke De of the Qin State moved the capital to Yong (today’s Fengxiang County, Shaanxi Province).
In the Warring States Period, Duke Xiao appointed Shang Yang, a Legalist scholar to carry out a series of political reforms to strengthen the state, which laid a solid foundation for the feudal economy and politics of the Qin State.
Since then, the Qin State gradually became more and more powerful. In the end, Qin unified China by destroying the other six states - Han, Zhao, Wei, Yan, Chu and Qi and established the first centralized, unified, and multi-ethnic feudal state in Chinese history - the Qin Dynasty.

Who was the first emperor of Qin Dynasty?

In 221 BC, Ying Zheng, the king of the State of Qin, a man of great talent and bold vision ended the Warring States Period and unified the country. He made Xianyang City of Shaanxi Province as the capital and called himself Qin Shi Huang ("First Emperor of Qin").

Politics
The First Emperor of Qin centralized all the political, economical and military power in his hands to make sure that his power was supreme. In the central government, he set up the Prime Minister, Yushi Dafu (Supreme Censor) and Taiwei (Commander in Chief). In the local government, drawing the lesson from Zhou Dynasty, he carried out the system of prefectures and counties. The country was divided the whole country into 36 prefectures. By doing so, the First Emperor of Qin grasped nearly all the power of the country in his own hands.

Economy

The First Qin Emperor standardized the length, measures and weights, and unified the currency, which promoted the economical communications among different ethnic groups regions. It conveniently provided opportunities for social and economic development.

Culture

The First Qin Emperor unified the characters by making the mini-seal scripts as the official ones, which promoted cultural communications. However, in order to reinforce control over the people's ideas, he ordered the burning of all historical books, literary works and poems collected by the Chinese people, only leaving medical books, books of auguring, crops books, and the books about the Qin State. Furthermore, the First Emperor of Qin buried 460 men of letters alive, because some shamans and scholars had secret discussions about his absolutism, covetousness of power, and excessive punishment. That is the well-known event – “Burn the books and bury the scholars alive”.