Qin Shihuang ~~apocryphaly~~ (sp?) allegedly ordered the mass burning of Confucian texts and live burial of scholars in an effort to solidify ideology and history, combat heterodoxy, introduce 'legalism' as a system of just rule and create a concept of unified China. So he has this reputation as a despot. Memes being memes took this to be that he shot fireballs from his hands to destroy heretics. I don't think there's much more to it than that.
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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Theres also this alleged mao quote
He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive... You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold. When you berate us for imitating his despotism, we are happy to agree! Your mistake was that you did not say so enough.
But it sounds fake as fuck
But, I suppose some in the CPC view him as a historically "progressive" figure who overthrew a decentralized feudal society and instituted a authoritarian bureaucratic state, or it might simply but a nationalist thing since he is the first emperor of a unified China
I went searching for an attribution for that quote and found nothing, but did turn up this Guardian article which has this quote:
MacGregor has been fascinated to see at close quarters the Chinese beginning to open up to the world. It had initially been hard, he suggested, even to describe the concept of the British Museum to the Chinese, its role as a storehouse of global memory. 'It is,' he told me, 'an alien concept for the Chinese to have a museum that houses the whole world. Their museums only have Chinese objects in them..."
HOW DID THE BRITISH MUSEUM GET THOSE ARTIFACTS MACGREGOR. HOW
lmao
They liked him because he hated Confucians and brought China out of the Warring States period, which Chinese people see as a parallel to the Warlord era that the CPC brought China out of.
In the modern day replace scholars with US Journalists and burying them alive starts to sound like a really great idea.
Can we do this with Gamers™
He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive... You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold. When you berate us for imitating his despotism, we are happy to agree! Your mistake was that you did not say so enough.
I'll allow it if the "scholars" are business/econ majors in the West or 
Edit: Read the replies below and happy to know that this is the case — the quote is so much more based with context
I've seen recent efforts to repair the popular image of QSH, similar to efforts to reinstate Caocao's image as a judicious ruler against the Confucian-backed Liu Bei. I'm not enough of a history geek to really understand it but it's interesting nonetheless. Sure others can chime in
i dont know the answer to this but one thing i can say for certain is in my expert opinion as an enjoyer of historical cdramas life sucked for most people back in the old days.
"You can't expect to inherit the mandate of heaven just cause you stumbled over some dusty jade seal"
If it's particularly for the purpose of killing Confucianism, I think that's a good thing.
Hehe fireball go brrr
He has a cool name
His surname literally means "Win" in chinese
To be fair, he literally invented the Chinese word for "emperor" just so he could rename himself to "First Emperor"