Sima Qian said in "Tai Shi Gong's Preface": "King Wen was restrained and performed the "Book of Changes"; Zhongniee wrote "Spring and Autumn"; Qu Yuan was exiled and wrote "Li Sao"; Zuoqiu was blind and wrote "Guoyu"; Sun Tzu Bin "Jiu, The Art of War, Xiu Li; Bu Wei moved to Shu, "Lu Lan" was passed down from generation to generation; Han Fei was imprisoned in Qin, "Speaking of Difficulties" and "Lonely Fury"; there are three hundred poems, most of which were written by sages out of anger."
It can be seen from this that Sima Qian compared Han Fei with King Wen of Zhou, Confucius, Qu Yuan, Zuo Qiuming, Sun Bin, Lu Buwei and others in terms of status, which proved that his achievements were also very high; it also showed that people like Han Fei A wise man must go through hardships before he can achieve success.
Han Fei is from Xinzheng, South Korea, and can be regarded as one of the princes of the Korean royal family. Together with Li Si, he studied under Xunzi, but Li Si studied the art of emperors, while Han Fei was proficient in the "study of criminal names". Han Fei had profound thoughts, inspiring literary talent, sincere heart, and profound knowledge, which were beyond Li Si's reach. If Li Si can be regarded as an extraordinary talent, then Han Fei can only be described as a wizard.
However, no one is perfect and no one is perfect. Han Fei, a talented man, also has his own shortcomings - stuttering. For ordinary people, this kind of flaw would be a source of frustration; for Han Fei, it would be a failure. It is Han Fei's tragedy that he has unlimited talents and amazing strategies, but he can only write down them in writing and cannot teach them by word of mouth and example. There are many vulgar and muddy people in the world who have not realized Han Fei's talent. Naturally, they will not realize the depth of his thoughts and the height of his wisdom under his brilliant literary talent.
At that time, South Korea was surrounded by Wei, Zhao and Qin, and it could be said that it was struggling to survive in the cracks. Although South Korea united with Wei, it was still severely defeated by Qin general Bai Qi. Since then, South Korea has been in dire straits, and now it is in dire straits and barely surviving. In fact, it would be easy for Qin to destroy South Korea, but Qin believed that the time had not come yet and was still accumulating strength to wait for the changes.
No matter how poor and weak South Korea is, it is Han Fei's beloved country. With the ambition to serve the country, Han Fei devoted himself to studying under Xun Qing, and with the heart of serving the country, he returned to South Korea before completing his studies. The world only knew that Li Si admired Han Fei very much, but little did they know that Han Fei also had extraordinary worries about Li Si. Especially after hearing that Li Si went to Qin, Han Fei returned to South Korea immediately because he was worried that the country Li Si advocated to destroy first was Han.
It's a pity that King Han doesn't care much about the political situation in South Korea, or he is already beyond his capabilities. Han Fei wrote many times to ask for the eradication of the shortcomings of poverty and weakness in South Korea, reforms to strengthen the country, and reforms to survive, but the King of Han ignored it. In fact, both Han Fei and King Han knew that it was the general trend for Qin to unify the world. Even if South Korea reformed and became stronger, it would only be for temporary use and would not be used forever. Han Fei's move was tantamount to going against nature.
What is even more regrettable is that every time King Han asked Han Fei to express his thoughts and principles, Han Fei always hesitated and could not explain his true thoughts. Han Fei's stuttering and poor speech greatly affected his career, his self-esteem and charisma, and the entire country's understanding of Han Fei. As a result, many things have changed. Han Fei began to think seriously about the dangers of the world and the unpredictability of people's hearts; he also began to reconsider the future of South Korea and his own career. After thinking about it, Han Fei came to the conclusion that integrity cannot tolerate evil and dishonest officials. Helpless, he had no choice but to turn to academic research and write down the strategies in his mind one by one in books.
What you can still see today are 55 articles such as "Five Beetles", "Internal and External Reserves", "Shuo Lin", "Gu Anger", "Shuo Nan", etc., all of which are included in the book "Han Feizi". The remaining words.
Since most of Han Fei's works are about conspiracy, the ancients defined him as a conspiracy scholar. However, later generations comprehensively summarized "Han Feizi" and found that the laws, techniques and momentum in it were the most critical. Therefore, Han Fei was finally defined as the master of Legalism. At the same time, Han Fei was also considered to be a materialist in the late Warring States period. ism-colored philosopher.
Han Fei's method organically combines Shang Yang's "method", Shen Buhai's "technique" and Shen Dao's "power". When Han Fei was studying under Xun Qing, he strongly praised the theories of Shang Yang and Shen Buhai. At the same time, he creatively pointed out that the theories of Shen and Shang were not perfect. Their biggest shortcoming was that they did not combine laws and techniques. ; The second major shortcoming of Shen Buhai and Shang Yang's doctrines is that they are "unfinished", "Shen Zi did not perfect his skills, and Shang Jun did not perfect his methods" ("Han Feizi·Dingfa"). Starting from the reality of the world, Han Fei discussed the contents of art, law, and power as well as the relationship between the three. He believed that to govern the country, the monarch must make good use of power, and at the same time, the ministers must abide by the law, and the world must learn to take advantage of the situation. From this point of view, his thoughts can transcend what is seen in the world and can be used in the world.
"Han Feizi" mainly talks about criminal law and morality, or punishment and rewards, but he is more inclined to criminal law and punishment, and believes that these are mandatory things and do not require payment of existing wealth. It can be said that through the use and implementation of this political system and legal regulations, the authoritarian system has been able to continue for 2000 years.
The art of "Han Feizi" is to teach kings to combine kingly ways with domineering ways to consolidate their rule. In this regard, it is indeed worthy of the word "conspiracy". After comprehensively considering and studying the various behaviors of various ministers (including traitorous ministers and loyal ministers), Han Fei also formulated various preventive measures for the king accordingly, forming a He developed a set of methods to prevent, identify, investigate and deal with traitors, and summarized them into a series of political strategies such as the Eight Classics, the Eight Traitors, Binai, Sanshou, Employment, and Nanfang. It involves various aspects such as emperors and concubines, subjects, heirs, civil and military officials, etc. Han Fei started from Xunzi's "theory of evil nature" and aimed to establish a feudal centralized authoritarian state as his political purpose. Furthermore, it is believed that the relationship between people is a relationship of interest, and human psychology is all "afraid of punishment but benefited by reward" ("Er Handle"). The king's duty is to use "punishment" and "virtue" to make the people Fear power and return to profit. His statement is a bit shocking, but if it rises to this level, it should be attributed to conspiracy. Han Fei's original intention was not to use these methods to punish people, but to warn people and serve the rulers.
"Han Feizi" means power and political power. He appreciated what Shen Dao said: "Yao, as an ordinary man, could not rule three people, but Jie, as the emperor, could bring chaos to the world" ("The Difficult Person"), and proposed that "according to the law, the situation will be governed, and defying the law and castrating the power will lead to chaos" ("The Difficult Person") Difficult situation") and other arguments, and strongly advocated that only the combination of law, technique and force can truly consolidate the throne and stabilize the regime.
The most commendable shining point of Han Feizi is that the law is not noble, and he advocated that "the ministers should not be spared from punishment, and the good should not be spared from the common people." It is a step forward compared to Xunzi's old Confucian saying that "properties cannot be extended to common people, and punishments cannot be extended to officials" ("Book of Rites: Qu Li"). This is a major contribution to Chinese legal thought and has a positive impact on eliminating aristocratic privileges and safeguarding the dignity of the law. But this does not mean that Han Fei believes that everyone is equal before the law. His purpose is to concentrate all power on the monarch. This is also the fundamental purpose of Han Fei's theory.
However, according to Han Fei, the power of a monarch alone is not as good as the power of everyone, nor is he intellectually competent for ten thousand things at the same time. Rather than relying on the power of a monarch alone, it is better to rely on the power of a country. As long as they learn to use the manpower of a country, their eyes can become the eyes of the monarch, and their ears can become the ears of the monarch. In this way, they can see and hear clearly to the maximum extent. On this basis, Han Fei divided the monarchs into three classes: the inferior monarchs only know how to use their own wisdom and talents, the middle monarchs can use everyone's strength, and the superior monarchs can use everyone's wisdom. The way to use others is to "listen to their words and be sure to check their use (practical); to watch their actions, you must seek their merits (effects)" ("Han Feizi·Six Antis").
Han Fei combined the concepts of his predecessors, integrated social reality and his own innovation, and finally formed extreme feudal despotism. Although Han Fei's thoughts may seem undesirable today, at the time they were nothing short of a panacea to save the world.
As early as the late Spring and Autumn Period, two emerging classes, farmers and landlords, began to emerge. However, compared with the lord class, their power was really insignificant. That is why Confucius advocated the revival of Zhou Dao in order to achieve political unification. This was undoubtedly the two classes. the political demands of an emerging class.
After the three families of Han, Zhao, and Wei were divided into Jin, the power of the peasant class and the landlord class increased greatly. Therefore, Mencius advocated benevolent government and rule by etiquette, which to a certain extent reflected that the landlord class had its own independent political concepts, but they could not do without the support of the peasant class.
In the late Warring States period, the power of the landlord class became even stronger, and the traditional lords no longer posed any threat. The peasant class became the class that opposed the landlord class. Xunzi during this period advocated the use of absolutism to achieve unity in his doctrine. Han Feizi developed and improved the theory of centralized power system based on the work of his predecessors.
