3. The Fall of Feudal society
Immediately after his ascension to the throne, he began an overall reorganization by dividing the country in 36 provinces (jun) which later became 40, each of which was subdivided into districts (xian). For every province there were three representatives for the Throne - one civil governor (shou), one military governor (wei) and one imperial inspector (jian-yu-shi), whose task was to supervise the other two governors' governing. The power of control was not in the hands of the aristocrats anymore. These three officers were appointed on their abilities only. Further, a clever bureaucratic system developed with non-heritage offices. And so the foundation of the centralized imperial bureaucratically system pyramid was laid, a system that would last for over 2,000 years.
The emperor incapacitated the nobility by commanding 120,000 wealthy and influential families from all of the kingdoms corners to move to the capital where he could have them under surveillance. If you realize that the average family size in those days was about five people, it isn't hard to see what a tremendous effort it must have been. At the same time, Shi Huang also took care of their weapon-arsenals which were melted into temple bells and into twelve huge statues, these statues of bronze weighed about 30 tons and had a height about 7-8 meters. (These statues were later melted to become coins.)
