Wikipedia says the Qin general Bai Qi was responsible for the deaths of between 890,000 to 2 million enemy troops during the Qin's Wars of Unification, 400,000 of which were buried alive after the Battle of Changping. How did the Warrings States of China raise so many troops to make this possible? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

Wikipedia says the Qin general Bai Qi was responsible for the deaths of between 890,000 to 2 million enemy troops during the Qin's Wars of Unification, 400,000 of which were buried alive after the Battle of Changping. How did the Warrings States of China raise so many troops to make this possible?

by Miaolong

TeamRedRocket

What's the time period for burying 400k people? Seems like it would take a long time and/or require huge personnel output before Era of machines. Also what was the expected end result?