Conclusion
This overview has sketched a history of violence in early China as seen in the sources available today. The fact of violence was, by all appearances, constant, varying only in the disuse of certain forms - such as human sacrifice - and the expansion of others - such as large-scale battles.
Expressed attitudes about violence remained always equivocal. There is nevertheless a discernible arc of development leading from a textual sublimation of violent imagery to the ready depiction of even extreme cruelty. I suggest that the Qin dynasty made violence and its overcoming a topic of its self-depiction. In their bid for legitimacy, their Han successors took this up and turned it around, to present the Qin as violent oppressors. Around the same time we see authors, especially the historian Sima Qian, presenting more detailed narratives of violence. Like any development, this one surely had numerous causes. Qin rhetoric and the legitimating Han historiography were the most visible and determinative aspects of this shift.
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