秦始皇本纪

The chapter covers the conquest of the other states, the unification of 221 BC, the standard script, weights and axle widths, the burning of books and the killing of scholars (焚书坑儒), and the emperor's death on a tour in 210 BC. It runs on into the reign of his son, when the eunuch 赵高 presented a deer to the Second Emperor as a horse to see which ministers dared contradict him (指鹿为马).

It records that the people were renamed 黔首 'the black-headed', and Sima Qian ends it with 贾谊's essay 过秦论 'On the Faults of Qin', which blames the dynasty's quick fall on ruling without benevolence.