Qin's Great Chancellor
The man who designed the imperial system that lasted two thousand years — and was executed by being cut in half with his family.
Li Si came from Chu to study law under Xun Kuang, then went to Qin to serve Ying Zheng. He convinced the King of Qin that he should not merely be king but Emperor — and helped him conquer all six rival kingdoms. After unification, Li Si became Chancellor. He standardized the script, reformed weights and measures, abolished feudal titles. He implemented Shang Yang's legal reforms across the unified empire. He also burned the books that opposed Legalist philosophy and buried 460 scholars alive on the Emperor's orders. When Qin Shi Huang died, Li Si conspired with the eunuch Zhao Gao to place the Second Emperor on the throne. The Second Emperor turned out to be brutal and paranoid. Zhao Gao accused Li Si of treason. Li Si was executed by being cut in half at the market — and his three generations of family were exterminated. His reforms outlived him by two millennia. The imperial system he designed was still being used in 1912.