Line #13 Series/TheQinEmpire


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rezzyc.jpg]]
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3	In 361 BC, Duke Xian of Qin dies. His son [[WisePrince Ying]] [[WarriorPrince Quliang]] becomes Duke Xiao of Qin, inheriting a state so poor and war-torn that "the dogs don't shit there," sneered upon by the more powerful and cultured six states to the east. And he's willing to pay any price to save his people from destruction.
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5	This is not [[UsefulNotes/QinShiHuangdi the Qin you may be familiar with]].
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7	Meanwhile, a certain brilliant, ambitious minor official in the state of Wey (卫) finds himself looking abroad for employment options. He's full of grand, dangerous ideas for reform, and he's looking for a ruler willing to use him to his full potential. They call him Wey Yang at the time, but years later, for his services, Ying Quliang will enfeoff him as [[Literature/TheBookOfLordShang Lord Shang]].
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9	Based on the book series by Sun Haohui, [[BasedOnATrueStory which covers the entire rise and fall of Qin]], ''Series/TheQinEmpire'' takes a rare sympathetic view at Legalism, Shang Yang's reforms, and the state of Qin. There's a second season, and more in the works, (loosely) following the later books.
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11	!!Tropes appearing in this work:
12	* BigEater: ''Wei Yang.''
13	* BigScrewedUpFamily: Subverted with the Ying family. Sure, the relationships between certain members can get a bit homicidal, but that never keeps the family from being pretty damn effective as a political unit.
14	* CainAndAbel: A complicated version springs up between the Ying brothers and Wei Yang.
15	* CallThatAFormation: In the first episode the soldiers barely keep a closed formation and fighting devolves into messy duels as soon as the two sides clash.
16	* ChildSoldiers: Pre-reforms Qin is so desperate for soldiers that it sends children and old men to the front lines. According to the novel, Ying Quliang himself joined the army as a common soldier at the age of twelve.
17	* CoolSword: Ying Qian's Tianyue sword. Also the Ying family's ancestral Sword of Duke Mu.
18	* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Hilariously subverted with the black-robed rulers of Qin, who are, for once, the ''protagonists''.
19	** Played straight with Wei Yang, who always wears white, the color of death, light, and purity.
20	* CorruptionOfAMinor: Poor Ying Si.
21	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Wei Yang is sentenced to be torn apart by chariots, although [[spoiler: Bai Xue poisons him first to spare him in the show.]]
22	* {{Doorstopper}}: The first two seasons are 51 episodes each, and covering all the books will probably take 300+ episodes total. The novels themselves count-- 5 books divided over 9 volumes.
23	* EnfanteTerrible: Ying Si, primed by his uncle and detonated by [[spoiler: Gan Long]].
24	* HoldingHands: Ying Quliang and Wei Yang do this a lot. Subverted heartbreakingly in the later episodes after [[spoiler: Ying Quliang dies and Wei Yang collapses under the strain of having to break his own laws. He instinctively reaches up for a hand that isn't there anymore.]]
25	* HeterosexualLifePartners: Dear god, Ying Quliang and Wei Yang. They trust each other unconditionally, sacrifice everything for each other's sakes, and fight hand in hand for twenty years to reform Qin. When Ying Quliang dies, Wei Yang is holding his hand.
26	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Most of the main characters except the love interests.
27	* HistoricalHeroUpgrade: This is one of the few adaptations where ''Lord Shang'' gets this. Instead of his typical portrayal as a [[SmugSnake smug asshole]] who [[LaserGuidedKarma gets his just rewards]], Series/TheQinEmpire shows him to be a [[WellIntentionedExtremist fierce reformer]] who genuinely ([[TheExtremistWasRight and correctly]]) believes that Legalism is the only way to [[HobbesWasRight save Qin]] and [[HumansAreBastards leash the evil tendencies in people's hearts]], and [[HeroicSacrifice ultimately sacrifices himself to preserve his reforms]].
28	* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Gan Long and the nobles. Pang Juan actually doesn't get as bad a case of this as he typically does, since the focus of this work isn't on his treatment of Sun Bin.
29	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Wei Yang can't find refuge at an inn because his own laws forbid innkeepers from accepting travellers who don't have official identifying passes.
30	* HumansAreBastards: Wei Yang's philosophy.
31	* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Gan Long and the other nobles, at least until the second season.]]
32	* MagneticHero: Ying Quliang is so beloved by his people and ministers that his death creates a massive crisis of state.
33	* OldRetainer: Hei Bo.
34	* PyrrhicVictory: Every battle that Duke Xian fights against Wei costs Qin a little more of its strained food supplies and manpower.
35	** On a larger scale, Qin succeeds in uniting China, but sows the seeds of its own annihilation in the process.
36	* SpellMyNameWithAnS: There are two states of Wei at this time, spelled identically in pinyin down to the tones. Wei Yang was born in one of them (the less prominent one, often spelled Wey for clarity in English works) and worked for the other. To make things more confusing, the Wei in Wei Yang's name is the same character as the name of his birth state, but is never spelled Wey.
37	* SweetPollyOliver: Ying Yingyu and Bai Xue. Xuanqi does this in the books, too.
38	* WarriorPrince: Ying Quliang and Ying Qian. Wei Yang technically counts too, since he's related to the royal house of Wey/Wei, and later [[spoiler: the Ying family]] by marriage.
39	* WellDoneSonGuy: Ying Si seems to be at once jealous of Wei Yang for claiming a greater share of Ying Quliang's esteem than him and of Ying Quliang for claiming a greater share of Wei Yang's esteem than him.

Context Series / TheQinEmpire