They were commissioned in 221BC by the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi, who used the forced labour of 700, 000 subjects to create a mausoleum guarded by an entire army.
The legalists were famous for laying the intellectual basis for the rule, through strict laws, of China's first emperor, Qinshi Huangdi he of the terracotta warriors, the Great Wall, the burning of books and the burial alive of Confucianists.