The Greatest Emperor: Qin Shi Huang.

I watched a show on the Discovery Channel and I believe that this man was the greatest man to have ever ruled Imperial China, uniting China under a single centralized beaurocracy that lasts till this day, made China to what it is and started many civil projects such as the Great Wall of China and reformed the system of writing into a single written language where once before the symbol for swords had 12 different ways of writting it!

Its a shame that he was fed mercury tablets in the hopes of increasing longivity.

I kinda got the impression he was insane...wanting to prolong life. Btw, his name is just Qin Shi. The last two parts, Huang di denote "king".

You must realise this guy killed more people than Caesar and hussein combined, in both wars and the building of the wall.

Ah he did slowly become mad due to mercury poisoning.

Aside from that he created China, he unified all the warring states and unified China under a single system. His tomb is now the only surviving world wonder that is still largely intact, he was the greatest, some things may have been terrible but he was still great.

Do you mean the one after the Chinese mega dam? I watched that to.

His wanting immortality could hardy be described as unusual, most great rulers want immortality in one form or another after they become truly successful. Napoleon is a somewhat recent example he loved his wife but since she could give him a child, he went through a lot of stuff to get one.

Granted the great wall and the super tomb weren't really that useful, and killed a lot of people...

but hey a unified language really brings a lot of benefits. My physics teacher was always telling us how the main thing holding India back, not that it isn't doing well, was the fact that people from different towns simply cannot understand each others language.

Isn't the movie The Myth based during the Qin Dynasty? Its a good movie.^_^

I know that "Hero" with I think Jet Li is also based on the Qin. At the end the reason why the Assasin doesn't kill the King is because of the words "Under Heaven" or "Our Land"? inwhich ending war and strife was to his mind more important then preserving the independance of the Zhao.

it doesn't matter what you guys think, to me, he is not the greatest emperor. the only real achievement he made is to unite china... for a very brief period of time. sure he started the great wall, but it costed both many many lives and his empire. it is one of the most important reason why Qin dynasty collapsed, too many slave labour and inhuman rules. if he was born any other time, he would not have been as well recieved. the fact that he is so popular now is because he was the first emperor to unite china, but he is in no way the only one. china was divided once again immediately after the fall of Qin and that's where the Chu and Han conflict came from.

The way He ruled was very well documented and there is no dispute that he ruled with an iron fist. His single-mindedness was his undoing, but it is also the reason why he can be considered the greatest of all emperors. The linking of the Great Wall, for the first time provided the chinese plains to have a tangible defense against the north. The Grand Canal he ordered still serve china today. But most importantly, he proved to the chinese culture that China can be ruled as one and its not a dream. He did more to unify the chinese culture than anyone else in history.

Ender Wiggin said:

I know that "Hero" with I think Jet Li is also based on the Qin. At the end the reason why the Assasin doesn't kill the King is because of the words "Under Heaven" or "Our Land"? inwhich ending war and strife was to his mind more important then preserving the independance of the Zhao.

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You should watch "The Emperor and the Assassin", its the best movie about him IMO.

The First emperor's main accomplishment is the establishment of a unified language, writing system, legal system, and beaurocracy that remained mostly unchanged until today. For example, provinces were ruled by 1 civilian governer, who was chosen by the central goverment, and 1 military governor. The military governer is ALWAYS subbordinate to the civilian one. The same system is in place today in many parts of the world, including the USA.

After the QIn Dynasty fell, the "mandate of heaven" changed to the HAN, but they still used the same systems and beaurcracy of the Qin.

Well, I have not learn of his mercury intake, but if he did, I hope his terror was caused by the mercury.

He could've been quite great.........

But he went around slaughtering instead...

He may have united China, but he did not have to kill civilians. He wiped the Zhou off the world!