Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Qin Shihuang Di (c. 259-210 B.C.E.): The first unifier of the Chinese empire. Known for his cruelty, he burned Confucian books and buried Confucian scholars alive. Mao Zedong once boasted that when it comes to cruelty, 'we surpass Qin Shihuang 100 times.'" [Fall and Rise of China Guidebook, p. 208] "Under the Qin, the First Emperor's ruthless exactions of men and taxes year after year exhausted the people and the state's other resources. After 37 years as ruler of the Qin state, he suddenly died at age 49 in 210 BC. His empire quickly disintegrated." [Fairbank: China, p. 1]