Qin Shi Huang also worked with his minister Li Si to enact major economic and political reforms aimed at the standardization of the diverse practices among earlier Chinese states.

According to the sinologist Michael Loewe "few would contest the view that the achievements of his reign have exercised a paramount influence on the whole of China's subsequent history, marking the start of an epoch that closed in 1911".

[j] The First Emperor also arrogated the first-person pronoun 朕 for his exclusive use, and in 212 BC began calling himself The Immortal (真人, Others were to address him as "Your Majesty" (陛下, in person and "Your Highness" (上) in writing.

[33] According to translations of the Lüshi Chunqiu, Zhao Ji gave birth to the future emperor in the city of Handan in 259 BC, the first month of the 48th year of King Zhaoxiang of Qin.

Sinologist Derk Bodde wrote: "There is good reason for believing that the sentence describing this unusual pregnancy is an interpolation added to the Shiji by an unknown person in order to slander the First Emperor and indicate his political as well as natal illegitimacy".

[42] In 238 BC, while the king was travelling to the former capital, Yong (雍), Lao Ai seized the queen mother's seal and mobilized an army in an attempted coup d'état.

[10] Crown Prince Dan of Yan plotted an assassination attempt against King Zheng, recruiting Jing Ke and Qin Wuyang for the mission in 227 BC.

[32][10] The assassins gained access to King Zheng by pretending a diplomatic gifting of goodwill: a map of Dukang and the severed head of Fan Wuji.

In 227 BC, fearing a Qin invasion, Crown Prince Dan of Yan ordered a failed assassination attempt on King Zheng.

Led by General Meng Tian, Qin armies successfully routed the Xiongnu from the Ordos Plateau, setting the ancient foundations for the construction of the Great Wall of China.

In the South, Qin Shi Huang also ordered several military campaigns against the Yue tribes, which annexed various regions in modern Guangdong and Vietnam.

[46] In an attempt to avoid a recurrence of the political chaos of the Warring States period, Qin Shi Huang and Li Si worked to completely abolish the feudal system of loose alliances and federations.

Kong Anguo (c. 165 – c. 74 BC), a descendant of Confucius, described the alchemists as Confucianists and entwined the martyrs' legend with his story of discovering the lost Confucian books behind a demolished wall in his ancestral house.

In 214 BC the Emperor began the project of a major canal allowing water transport between north and south China, originally for military supplies.

[73] In one case he sent Xu Fu, a Zhifu islander, with ships carrying hundreds of young men and women in search of the mystical Mount Penglai.

In 211 BC, a large meteor is said to have fallen in Dongjun in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, and someone inscribed the seditious words "The First Emperor will die and his land will be divided" (始皇死而地分).

[78] During his fifth tour of eastern China, the Emperor became seriously ill in Pingyuanjin (Pingyuan County, Shandong), and died in July or August of 210 BC, at the palace in Shaqiu prefecture, about two months travel from Xianyang,[79][80] at the age of 49.

[82] Upon witnessing the Emperor's death, Chancellor Li Si feared the news could trigger a general uprising during the two months' travel for the imperial entourage to return to the capital Xianyang.

[10] Li Si ordered carts of rotten fish to be carried before and behind the wagon of the Emperor, to cover the foul smell of his body decomposing in the summer heat.

[84] Li Si and Zhao Gao forged a letter from Qin Shi Huang commanding Fusu and General Meng to commit suicide.

British historian John Man points out that this figure is larger than the population of any city in the world at that time and he calculates that the foundations could have been built by 16,000 men in two years.

[96] Sima Qian's description of the tomb includes replicas of palaces and scenic towers, "rare utensils and wonderful objects", 100 rivers made with mercury, representations of "the heavenly bodies", and crossbows rigged to shoot anyone who tried to break in.

Jia Yi's essay, admired as a masterpiece of rhetoric and reasoning, was copied into two great Han histories and has had a far-reaching influence on Chinese political thought as a classic illustration of Confucian theory.

[102] Jia Yi wrote that: Qin, from a tiny base, had become a great power, ruling the land and receiving homage from all quarters for a hundred odd years.

At a time when foreign nations encroached upon Chinese territory, leading Kuomintang historian Xiao Yishan emphasized the role of Qin Shi Huang in repulsing the northern barbarians, particularly in the construction of the Great Wall.

Another historian, Ma Feibai (馬非百), published in 1941 a full-length revisionist biography of the First Emperor entitled Qín Shǐ Huángdì Zhuàn (秦始皇帝傳), calling him "one of the great heroes of Chinese history".

Chiang's Northern Expedition of the late 1920s, which directly preceded the new Nationalist government at Nanjing was compared to the unification brought about by Qin Shi Huang.

In the new era, Qin Shi Huang was seen as a far-sighted ruler who destroyed the forces of division and established the first unified, centralized state in Chinese history by rejecting the past.

The new evaluations described approvingly how, in his time (an era of great political and social change), he had no compunctions against using violent methods to crush counter-revolutionaries, such as the "industrial and commercial slave owner" chancellor Lü Buwei.

However, he was criticized for not being as thorough as he should have been, and as a result, after his death, hidden subversives under the leadership of the chief eunuch Zhao Gao were able to seize power and use it to restore the old feudal order.