Who is Shin, and what is the Hi Shin Unit?
Shin, whose name is also rendered Xin, begins Kingdom as an orphaned servant boy training with wooden swords alongside his friend Hyou, dreaming of becoming a great general. Hyou's death in a palace coup pulls Shin into Ei Sei's service, and from there his life becomes the Qin army itself, one promotion at a time.
The manga tracks his rank with unusual care: five man squad member, hundred man commander, and upward through thousand and five thousand man commands toward general. Each promotion is a story event, won in a specific battle, which makes the Hi Shin Unit's growth chart read like the series' own progress bar.
The Hi Shin Unit is the force Shin builds around himself, mixing veterans, strategists and odd talents. Its strategist Karyo Ten, a girl who disguised herself to join the war, plans its battles, while officers such as En and the archer brothers give the unit its character. The unit's name uses a character associated with flying, a statement of intent for a unit built on speed and morale.
Shin's weapon is part of his iconography. He inherits the glaive of General Ouki, his mentor, a huge polearm he initially can barely lift. Learning to wield it across hundreds of chapters is the visual shorthand for his growth, and the glaive appears on covers and film posters as his signature.
Hara based Shin loosely on the historical Qin general Li Xin, who appears in the Shiji with a mixed record that includes a famous failed invasion of Chu. The manga has not yet reached that campaign, and how Hara will handle his hero's recorded failure is one of the most discussed questions among Japanese readers.
