Who they were
Born Ying Zheng, he became king of Qin in 246 BC as a boy of 13. After unifying China he took the new title Shi Huangdi, “First Emperor”.
What they did
He built a centralized bureaucratic empire of commanderies and counties, standardized the script, currency, and weights and measures, laid out a road network, and connected northern walls into an early Great Wall. Traditional accounts in the Shiji describe the burning of books and execution of scholars in 213–212 BC, and his obsessive search for elixirs of immortality.
Legacy
He died in 210 BC on an inspection tour, and the dynasty collapsed within four years — yet his centralized model lasted two thousand years. His mausoleum near modern Xi’an is guarded by the Terracotta Army, discovered in 1974.