Qin Dynasty
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50 free Qin Dynasty trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Qin dynasty turned a patchwork of feuding kingdoms into a single empire and set the pattern for Chinese government for the next two thousand years. Its founder standardised how people wrote, paid and travelled, then filled a vast burial complex with an army made of clay. This quiz follows the whole story: the rise of the Qin state in the west, the conquests that created the empire, the reforms and building projects of the First Emperor, and his fear of death. A large share of the questions cover the fall of the Qin: the plot over the succession, the uprisings that spread across the empire, and the rebel leaders who finished the dynasty off. The questions run from classroom basics to details for keen readers of Chinese history, so the quiz suits middle school and high school students revising ancient China, and anyone who has stood in front of the Terracotta Army and wondered how it got there.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Terracotta Army stayed hidden until 1974, when local farmers were digging what?
A well
A well shaft struck a pit of full-size clay soldiers about 1.5 km east of the First Emperor's tomb mound. The farmers had only been looking for water.
Q 02Which substance is said to have flowed as model rivers and seas inside the First Emperor's tomb?
Mercury
Mercury may really be down there: soil tests over the unopened tomb mound found levels far above normal, which backs the ancient description.
Q 03What was carted beside the dead First Emperor's wagon to mask the smell of his corpse in 210 BC?
Rotten fish
Rotten fish covered the stench in the summer heat while plotters hid his death for the two-month journey home, changing his clothes and bringing him meals each day.
Q 04Which animal did Qin's chief eunuch bring to court and call a horse to expose disloyal ministers?
A deer
A deer was the test, and every official who called it one was executed. Pointing at a deer and calling it a horse survives as a Chinese idiom.
Q 05In which object did an assassin hide a poisoned dagger to get near the King of Qin in 227 BC?
A rolled-up map
A rolled-up map of land offered in surrender hid the blade. The king tore his sleeve free, dodged behind a pillar and survived to become the First Emperor.
Q 06What did the First Emperor order collected and burned in 213 BC, on the advice of his chancellor?
Books
Books of poetry, history and philosophy went into the flames, while works on medicine, divination, farming and forestry were spared.
Q 07What did the First Emperor send the court sorcerer Xu Fu across the eastern sea to bring back?
The elixir of life
The elixir of life was said to be kept by immortals on a peak called Penglai. Xu Fu sailed with thousands of boys and girls, and from his second voyage he never returned.
Q 08What delayed a band of 900 conscripts in 209 BC, sparking the first great uprising against the Qin?
Heavy rain
Heavy rain flooded their road, and in the traditional account Qin law punished lateness with death, so the men gambled on rebellion instead.
Q 09Which record does the Qin hold among China's major imperial dynasties?
Shortest-lived
Shortest-lived of China's major dynasties, the Qin had only two emperors and collapsed within four years of the first one's death.
Q 10What covered the Terracotta Army's soldiers until it flaked off within minutes of being unearthed?
Bright paint
Bright paint gave the figures pink faces and dark facial hair. In the dry local air the lacquer beneath it can curl in fifteen seconds.
Q 11Which peasant-born rebel reached the Qin capital first and went on to found the Han dynasty?
Liu Bang
Liu Bang had been a local sheriff. He took the last Qin ruler's surrender, then beat his rival rebels to win the whole empire.
Q 12Which younger son of the First Emperor took the throne as Second Emperor through a forged will?
Huhai
Huhai was the eighteenth son, and the same forged edict ordered his eldest brother, the real heir, to kill himself. He reigned for three years as a puppet.
Q 13Which eunuch forged the First Emperor's will and later drove the Second Emperor to his death?
Zhao Gao
Zhao Gao had once tutored the Second Emperor in Qin law. He was killed in turn by the next ruler he put on the throne.
Q 21Which school of thought, preferring harsh punishment to moral example, guided Qin's rulers?
Legalism
Legalism earned such a brutal name under Qin that later dynasties proclaimed Confucianism instead, while quietly keeping the bureaucracy Qin had built.
Q 22Which era of Chinese history ended in 221 BC when Qin conquered the last of its six rivals?
Warring States
Warring States is a fair name: seven major powers had fought for supremacy for some two and a half centuries before Qin swallowed the other six in under a decade.
Q 23Which nomadic people of the northern steppe was the First Emperor's Great Wall meant to keep out?
Xiongnu
The Xiongnu of the Ordos were barred from trading with Qin farmers, so they raided them instead. A Qin army drove them north before the building began.
Q 14Which rebel general sacked the Qin capital in 206 BC and declared himself Hegemon-King?
Xiang Yu
Xiang Yu also executed the last Qin ruler and his family, then split the fallen empire into eighteen kingdoms.
Q 15Which eldest son of the First Emperor obeyed a forged order to kill himself in 210 BC?
Fusu
Fusu had been sent north after protesting his father's killing of scholars. His commander doubted the order and urged him to check it, but he obeyed and took his own life.
Q 16Which chancellor, who gave Qin one standard script, was cut in two at the waist in 208 BC?
Li Si
Li Si was framed for treason by the eunuch who had been his partner in the succession plot, and his whole family was wiped out with him.
Q 17Which last ruler of Qin killed the kingmaker who enthroned him, then surrendered after only 46 days?
Ziying
Ziying reigned as a king rather than an emperor, because so little of the empire was left. He gave up the capital without a fight and was later executed.
Q 18At which 207 BC battle did rebels sink their boats and smash their pots before routing the Qin?
Julu
Julu was won by men left with three days of rations and no way back across the river. The beaten Qin army surrendered to the rebels within months.
Q 19Which vast Qin palace, long said to have burned when the capital fell, was in fact barely begun?
Epang
Epang Palace became a symbol of Qin luxury lost in the blaze, yet decades of digging suggest that only its front hall was ever built.
Q 20Which former farmhand led the first uprising against the Qin in 209 BC and made himself a king?
Chen Sheng
Chen Sheng was murdered by his own chariot driver within months, but the revolts he set off across the empire did not stop.
Q 24Which city on the Wei River served as the Qin capital for over 140 years until rebels sacked it?
Xianyang
Xianyang means 'fully yang': it lay south of the mountains and north of the river, both the sunlit sides in Chinese geography.
Q 25The First Emperor split his empire into which units, run by appointed officials rather than nobles?
Commanderies
Commanderies numbered 36 at first, split into more than a thousand districts, and they replaced rule by noble families with a central bureaucracy.
Q 26The First Emperor set one standard length for which wagon part, to ease travel on his roads?
Axles
Axles of one length eased road transport across the empire, part of the same drive that standardised coins, weights, measures and writing.
Q 27Qin's standard banliang coin was a bronze disc pierced by a hole of which shape?
Square
Square holes let coins be threaded on a cord and carried in strings, a habit Chinese money kept until the 1910s.
Q 28Which new title did the King of Qin coin for himself in 221 BC, usually translated as emperor?
Huangdi
Huangdi joined the names of legendary sage rulers, the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, and monarchs of China kept using it for two thousand years.
Q 29Which reformer made Qin a military power with harsh laws, then was torn apart in 338 BC?
Shang Yang
Shang Yang fled when his patron died and, the story goes, was turned away from an inn because his own law required guests to show identification.
Q 30Which Qin general led 300,000 men north to build the Great Wall, then was made to kill himself?
Meng Tian
Meng Tian commanded the border army alongside the rightful heir, so the plotters who forged the First Emperor's will removed them both.