Han Fei

Great synthesizer of Legalism, author of The Five Vermin and Solitary Indignation; destroyed by Li Si.

Life

Prince of Han

Han Fei was a prince of the State of Han. He stuttered and was poor at speaking but excelled at writing. He and Li Si both studied under Xunzi, and Li Si considered himself inferior to him.

Law, technique and power

Seeing the State of Han grow weaker by the day, he repeatedly petitioned the King of Han without success, so he wrote Solitary Indignation, The Five Vermin, The Difficulties of Persuasion and other works totaling more than 100,000 words, fusing Shang Yang's "law," Shen Buhai's "technique" and Shen Dao's "positional power" into one system.

Died in a Qin prison

Ying Zheng, King of Qin, read his writings and sighed, "If I could meet this man and keep company with him, I would die without regret." In 234 BCE Han Fei was sent as envoy to the State of Qin. Li Si and Yao Jia, jealous of him, slandered him and had him imprisoned, and the next year Li Si sent him poison to force him to kill himself. By the time the King of Qin regretted it, he was already dead.

Legacy

Han Fei's thought became the theoretical foundation for the Qin unification of the realm, and the political tradition of "Confucian on the outside, Legalist on the inside" over the next two thousand years was shaped by him.

Major works & achievements

• Han Feizi

Did you know? Idioms such as "waiting by the stump for a rabbit," "spear and shield contradicting each other" and "padding the ensemble with a fake yu player" all come from the Han Feizi.

Key dates

• 260 BCEStudied under Xunzi alongside Li Si (approx.)
• 245 BCEWrote "Solitary Indignation" and "The Five Vermin" (approx.)
• 234 BCESent as envoy to the State of Qin
• 233 BCEDied in a Qin prison