Answered by Person from Canada | Jan. 13, 2014 20:36
Between, but more towards tyrant. He built the Great Wall, but the resulting high taxes left many farmers unable to buy food and drink. Those who could not pay the taxes were seized, branded and made to work as laborers in very harsh conditions. They were then buried alive in huge pits after their work was complete. Also, he made all the concubines who did not bear him children seal themselves in his tomb with him after he died. These articles are actually rather inaccurate. The most probable cause of death is poisoning, because he drank mercury in the later years of his life. (He claimed to have "rivers of mercury" running through his tomb, and tests have shown that the area around his tomb has incredibly high levels of mercury there.) He believed that the mercury would lend him immortality, which was obviously not the case. (quite the opposite, in fact).