Many modern innovations have roots in early Chinese civilization. By 221 BC the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, had united the warring Chinese states and he created a common system for money, measurement, roads and writing and and began building the Great Wall of China. The inventions, and contributions of the subsequent Han Dynasty included paper, the weaving loom, the wheelbarrow, and the Silk Road trading route. The Tang Dynasty, the Golden Age of Chinese Art and Culture, developed a tax system, schools, a code of laws, woodblock printing gun powder. These inventions still affect our lives today. Video developed by a history curriculum writer.