In the 3rd century BC, what we now know as China was divided into many states. This was called the "Warring States Period." Civil war was rampant, and eventually the number of states was reduced to seven. Of these, the state of Qin on the western border was despised as the most barbaric and weakest of all the states. There, a boy of thirteen became king and his name was Ying Zheng. The young man found men to fight for him, and at the age of twenty, he began a war of conquest defeating all the other states. He completed this by his thirty-eighth year. On his ascension to ruling the country,...