206 BC

Qin dynasty

Ziying surrenders Qin; Xiang Yu later destroys its palaces

Ziying surrendered in a plain carriage drawn by white horses, a cord around his neck. The rebel who took the imperial seals spared him; the general who arrived a month later did not.

Two rebel armies and one capital

Qin's end is conventionally dated to 206 BCE, but the surrender that ended its government came earlier. Late in 207 BCE Liu Bang's rebel army defeated the remaining Qin forces, passed through Wu Pass and reached Bashang, near the capital at Xianyang.

Ziying had abandoned the imperial title and ruled 46 days as King of Qin. Sima Qian describes him coming out to surrender at Zhi Road in a plain carriage drawn by white horses, a cord around his neck, handing over the imperial seals and credentials.

Liu Bang spared him, sealed Xianyang's palaces and storehouses, and withdrew his army back to Bashang.

Why the dynasty ends in 206 and the surrender happens in 207

Modern scholarly chronologies place Ziying's surrender, and with it the effective fall of Qin, at the end of 207 BCE. Traditional dynastic tables run Qin from 221 to 206 BCE, because Ziying was killed and the post-Qin political settlement made in early 206.

The root of the split is Sima Qian's calendar. He dates the surrender to the tenth month of the first Han year, in a reckoning whose year began in autumn, and it is the conversion of that notation into modern BCE years that separates 207 from 206.

The surrender to Liu Bang, Ziying's later execution by Xiang Yu and Xiang Yu's partition of the empire were separate events, not one dated act.

What Xiang Yu did when he arrived

About a month after Ziying's surrender, Xiang Yu entered the former capital. He killed Ziying, who had already given himself up, and destroyed or looted Qin's palaces.

Xiang Yu then divided the former empire among regional kings, dismantling what remained of the Qin order. Liu Bang had announced the replacement of most Qin law with his 'three articles' before withdrawing his army to Bashang.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~-0206.

What the sources leave uncertain

Modern scholarly chronologies commonly put Ziying's surrender and the effective fall of Qin at the end of 207 BCE. Traditional dynastic tables often label Qin 221–206 BCE because Ziying was killed and the post-Qin political settlement occurred in early 206.
Sima Qian dates the surrender to the tenth month of the first Han year, using a calendar whose year began in autumn. Converting that notation into modern BCE years is the source of much 207/206 inconsistency.
The surrender to Liu Bang, Ziying's later execution by Xiang Yu and Xiang Yu's partition of the empire were separate events, not one dated act.