China is unified
One script, one measure, one axle width
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The Qin dynasty lasted only 15 years, but the standardisation it imposed lasted two thousand. A shared writing system made it possible to administer an empire whose people spoke mutually unintelligible languages — a major reason China stayed unified where Rome fragmented. Legalism as an ideology, with harsh law and centralised bureaucracy, was later tempered by Confucian civil service norms under the Han. The Terracotta Army was discovered by well-diggers in 1974.
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After centuries of war between small states, Emperor Qin Shi Huang unified all of China. He decreed that everyone should use the same script, the same weights and even the same width between cart wheels. His tomb was guarded by 8,000 clay soldiers.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org