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Li Si, surnamed Li, name Si, the word Tonggu. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info Qin Dynasty politicians. At the end of the Warring States period, he was a native of Shangcai (now southwest of Shangcai, Henan) in Chu State. In his early years, he was a county official, and later learned the art of the emperor from Xunzi and entered Qin. At the beginning, he was appointed by Lü Buwei as a lang, and then persuaded the king of Qin to destroy the princes and become the emperor, and was appointed as a long history. The king of Qin adopted his strategy, sent strategists to lobby the six countries of Kwantung with gold and jade, separated the monarchs and ministers of various countries, and appointed him as a guest secretary. In the tenth year of the reign of King Qin (237 BC), he ordered the expulsion of the guest secretaries of the six countries. Li Sishang's "Book of Exhortations to the Guest" was blocked, which was adopted by King Yingzheng of Qin, and soon became a court lieutenant. It played a great role in the cause of the unification of the six countries by the Qin Dynasty. After Qin unified the world, he agreed with Wang Juan and Feng Zai to respect Qin Wang Zheng as emperor and formulate relevant etiquette systems. He was appointed prime minister. He suggested that the walls of the county should be demolished and the weapons of the people should be destroyed in order to strengthen the rule of the people; oppose the sub-feudal system and adhere to the county system; He also advocated the burning of private collections of "poems", "books", and hundred languages, and the prohibition of private learning, so as to strengthen the centralized rule of **ism. He also participated in the formulation of laws to unify the system of rails, writing, and weights and measures. After the death of Qin Shi Huang, he conspired with Zhao Gao to forge an edict and force the first emperor's eldest son Fusu to commit suicide and appoint his young son Hu Hai as the second emperor. Later, it was jealous of Zhao Gao, and in the second year of Qin II (208 years ago), he was beheaded in the downtown of Xianyang, and razed the three clans.

Unwilling to be lonely and go to Qin Shicai

Li Si was born in the last years of the Warring States period, a native of Shangcai (now southwest of Shangcai County, Henan) in the state of Chu, and worked as a clerk in charge of documents when he was young. Sima Qian recorded such an incident in the "Historical Records: The Biography of Li Silie": Once, he saw rats eating human feces in the toilet, and as soon as he saw people and dogs, the rats were scared away. Later, he saw rats in the warehouse eating food very freely, and no one cared. So, he sighed: "People are not virtuous, like rats, in their own ears!" That is to say, if a person wants to get ahead in society, he should be like a rat stealing food in a granary, so that he can do whatever he wants and enjoy himself. It can be seen that in the Warring States Period, when everyone was vying for fame and fortune, Li Si was also unwilling to be lonely and wanted to make a career. In order to achieve the goal of soaring, Li Si resigned as a small official and went to Qi to study, worshipping Xun Qing as his teacher. Xun Qing was a famous Confucian master at that time, he lectured under the banner of Confucius, but he was not as conformist as Mencius, but from the political situation at that time, Confucius's Confucianism was exerted and transformed, so it was very suitable for the needs of the emerging landlord class. Xunzi's thought is very close to the ideas of Legalism, and it is also the study of how to govern the country, that is, the so-called "imperial art". After Li Si finished studying, he repeatedly thought about where he should go to show his talents and get glory and wealth. After analyzing and comparing the situation of various countries, he believed that the king of Chu had done nothing, and other countries were also going downhill, so he decided to go to Qin.

Before leaving, Xun Qing asked Li Si why he wanted to go to Qin, and Li Si replied: "There is a question of timing in doing business, and now all countries are competing for power, and this is a good opportunity to make a name for yourself." The Qin State was ambitious and wanted to strive to dominate the world, and it could do a lot there. In life, humility is the greatest shame, and poverty is the greatest sorrow. It is ridiculous for a person to be in a position of humility and poverty. Not loving fame and fortune and doing nothing is not the idea of a scholar. So, I'm going to Qin. Li Si said goodbye to his teacher and went to Qin to fulfill his wish.

The book exhorted the guests to kill Han Fei with jealousy

After Li Si arrived in the Qin State, he soon got the respect of Qin Prime Minister Lü Buwei, became a petty official of the Qin State, and had the opportunity to get close to the King of Qin. Once, he said to the King of Qin: Whoever succeeds in his career must seize the opportunity. In the past, although Qin Mugong was very strong, he failed to complete the great cause of reunification, because the time was not yet ripe. Since the reign of Qin Xiaogong, the power of Zhou Tianzi has declined, and the vassal states have been at war for many years, and the Qin State has taken the opportunity to become stronger. Now that the Qin State is powerful and virtuous, it is as easy as sweeping away the dust on the stove to eliminate the Six Kingdoms, and now is the best time to complete the imperial cause and unify the world, and it must not be missed. Li Si's opinion was correct, and he was appreciated by the king of Qin, so he was promoted to the rank of chief. Li Si persuaded the King of Qin to send people with gold and jade to various countries to buy and bribe, and divide the monarchs and ministers of the six countries, and sure enough, it also had an effect, and he was named a guest secretary again.

Just when the king of Qin was determined to unify the six kingdoms, Korea was afraid of being destroyed by the Qin state, so he sent Zheng Guo, a water engineer, to Qin to agitate for the construction of water canals, with the purpose of weakening Qin's manpower and material resources and restraining Qin's eastward advance. Later, Zheng Guo's purpose of repairing the canal was exposed. At this time, the eastern countries also sent spies to Qin as guests, and the ministers talked a lot about the foreign guests, and said to the king of Qin: "The people who come to Qin from all countries are probably coming to Qin for the benefit of their own country to do sabotage work, please ask the king to order the expulsion of all visitors." "The king of Qin issued an expulsion order, and Li Si was also among those who were expelled.

Li Si wrote a letter to the King of Qin, advising the King of Qin not to expel guests, which is the famous "Book of Expulsion of Guests". He said: "I have heard that the ministers are talking about expulsion, and this is wrong. In the past, Qin Mugong sought sages, invited Yu from Rong in the west, invited Baili Xi from Chu in the east, ushered in Uncle Jian from Song State, and appointed Pibao and Gongsun Zhi from Jin State. Qin Mugong appointed these five people, annexed twenty countries, and dominated Xirong. Qin Xiaogong reused Shang martingale, implemented new laws, changed customs, made the country rich and strong, defeated Chu and Wei, expanded the land for thousands of miles, and the Qin State became strong. King Hui of Qin used Zhang Yi's strategy to break up the alliance of the six kingdoms to resist Qin and force all countries to obey Qin. King Qin Zhao obtained Fan Ju, weakened the power of the nobles, strengthened the royal power, encroached on the princes, and Qin became the emperor. These four generations of kings all contributed to the Qin State because of the appointment of Keqing. What does Keqing have to be sorry for Qin Guo? If these four kings also ordered the expulsion of guests, it would only make the country not rich, and the Qin state would not have a strong reputation. ”

Li Si also said that the pearls and treasures of the King of Qin were not produced in Qin, and the beauties, good horses, and treasures were also from Eastern countries. If it was only the things that the Qin State wanted, then many good things would be gone. Li Si also asked rhetorically in the letter: Why these things can be used but the guests have to be chased, it seems that the king only values some things, but can not be reused for talents, the result is to strengthen the power of various countries, but not conducive to the unification of Qin. Li Si's letter is not only sincere, but also does reflect the actual situation of the history and current situation of the Qin State, and represents the opinions of people of insight at that time. As a result, this "Book of Exhortations" has become a historical masterpiece.

The King of Qin discerned right from wrong, decisively adopted Li Si's suggestion, and immediately canceled the expulsion order, and Li Si was still reused and was made a court lieutenant.

At this time, Zheng Guo, who was about to be killed, also said to the King of Qin: South Korea let Qin build a large water conservancy construction project, the original purpose was to consume Qin's strength, but after the canal was built, it was also beneficial to Qin. Although the construction of water conservancy reduced the pressure of Qin on the eastern countries and allowed Korea to exist for a few more years, the repair of the canal was "a contribution to the construction of Qin for all generations". The king of Qin felt that Zheng Guo's words made sense, and decided not to kill Zheng Guo, and let him continue to lead the construction of the canal, which was later famous in history, which played a certain role in the development and prosperity of Qin's economy.

Sun Ke is far away, and Sun Chayou hates the lone queen the most

After this iteration, the Qin State still adhered to the tradition of recruiting and reusing foreign guest secretaries, who played an important role in the process of Qin's unification of China.

Shortly after the cancellation of the eviction order, Wei Wei, a Liang man from Wei, also came to Qin. At that time, the situation was that the king of Qin had already eliminated the internal opposition Lü Buwei and others, further concentrated power, and actively expanded outward, and all the eastern countries were in danger. Wei Yu suggested to the King of Qin: At present, there is no problem in destroying the eastern countries with the power of Qin. However, if the various vassal states unite and join forces to resist Qin, it is difficult to say the result. Therefore, do not be stingy with your possessions, bribe the "nobles" who are in power in various countries, and sabotage their union, and with only 300,000 gold, you can achieve the goal of annexing various vassal states. The king of Qin adopted Wei Yu's strategy, and in the process of fighting against other countries, he used this strategy many times to achieve victory. Of course, Qin's counter-plot was backed by force, as Li Si said: "Those who refuse will be stabbed by a sharp sword."

The Qin State adhered to the policy of accepting and employing guest secretaries, and made positive contributions to its rapid economic, political, military, and cultural development. For example, in the era of Qin Shi Huang, there were: Wang Qi, Mao Jiao, Wei Yi, Wang Qian, Li Si, Wang Ben, Li Xin, Wang Li, Meng Tian, etc. Li Si's "Book of Exhortations to Guests" is a meritorious achievement for Qin to recruit talents from all over the world. Just as Li Si was rising step by step, King Qin loved Han Fei's talent very much. Han Fei and Li Si are classmates, he inherited Xunzi's doctrine, and on this basis, the cautious "potential", Shang Ying's "law", and Shen Buxian's "technique" were combined, and enriched and developed to form a complete set of monarch ** theory. Han Fei was a great thinker at the end of the Warring States period, and his knowledge was much greater than that of Li Si. Han Fei is not good at arguing because of his stuttering, but he is good at writing. After Han Fei returned to South Korea, he saw that South Korea was too weak, and wrote many books to offer advice, but they were not adopted. As a result, Han Fei wrote books in anger, and successively wrote "Lonely Anger", "Five Worms" Sound Jealousy, "Difficult to Say", etc. His book was transmitted to the Qin State, and because it was all about the theory of "respecting the lord and the country", the King of Qin greatly appreciated Han Fei's talent, and said: "If I could meet this person and associate with him, I would die without hatred." Soon, due to Qin's attack on Han, the king of Han had to use Han Fei and send him as an envoy to Qin. King Qin likes Han Fei very much, but he has not yet decided whether to keep him. Li Si knew that Han Fei's ability was greater than his own, and he was afraid that King Qin would reuse him and be detrimental to his future, so he spoke ill of Han Fei to King Qin. He said: "Han Fei is the same clan as King Han, the king wants to destroy all countries, Han Fei loves Han and not Qin, this is human nature." If the king decides not to use Han Fei and let him go, it will be not good for us, it is better to kill him. King Qin believed Li Si's words and arrested Han Fei. According to the Qin decree, prisoners in prison did not have the right to submit a written defense. After Han Fei arrived in the Qin State, he offended Yao Jia again. Yao Jia made contributions to the Qin state, won the reuse of the king of Qin, and was appointed as the secretary. Han Fei told King Qin that Yao Jia was not from a noble background, he had been a thief, and he was driven away when he was an official in Zhao State, and he thought that it was very undesirable to use such a person, which made King Qin very unhappy. Afterwards, King Qin asked Yao Jia about Han Fei again, and of course Yao Guan would not say good things about Han Fei. With the collusion of Li Si and Yao Jia, Han Fei had no choice but to eat the poison sent by Li Si and commit suicide. From then on, Li Si had no opponents, and he could display his talents and make suggestions for King Qin's unification of the six kingdoms. In the twenty-sixth year of the reign of King Qin (221 BC), the Qin Dynasty ended the long-term division of the situation, unified China, and established an unprecedented feudal unified state that stretched from the sea in the east, Lingnan in the south, to the Ganqing Plateau in the west, and to Inner Mongolia and Liaodong in the north. The King of Qin, at this time, was already called Qin Shi Huang. In order to consolidate this feudal unified country, Li Si also made a certain contribution.

(Another theory is that Li Si has always wanted to keep Han Fei in the Qin State and wait for Qin to destroy Han before he can be used by the Qin State.) However, due to Han Fei's book "Han Feizi", the analysis of the art of the emperor and the art of rule is too thorough, causing King Yingzheng of Qin to be afraid of his talent, coupled with Han Fei's three suggestions that are not conducive to the development of Qin and Yao Jia's frame-up, so that King Yingzheng of Qin sent Han Fei to prison and tortured. Li Si really wanted to save Han Fei, and once helped Han Fei present Han Fei's masterpiece "First Sight of Qin" to King Yingzheng of Qin, but King Yingzheng of Qin wanted to get rid of Han Fei. Later Qin Wang Yingzheng used the technique of removing "adultery" in the third part of the "Eight Classics" in Han Fei's book to Han Fei: ordered Li Si to deal with Han Fei's case (combined with what he said before, let Li Si kill Han Fei), blame Li Si, so as not to be infamy. Li Si had no choice but to poison Han Fei's diet from his fate, causing Han Fei to die violently. ）

Force-barge sub-envelope custom law

After the unification of Qin, Prime Minister Wang Juan first proposed that the whole country was too large and difficult to manage, and demanded that the sons of Qin Shi Huang be crowned kings like the Zhou Dynasty. Qin Shi Huang convened a meeting of his ministers to discuss, and all the ministers agreed with Wang Juan's opinion, and only Li Si put forward a different opinion. He said: King Wen of Zhou and King Wu of Zhou had many children, and later they were all estranged, regarded each other as enemies, and there were often wars, and Zhou Tianzi could not prohibit them. Now that the world is unified, counties and counties should be implemented, so that the world can be peaceful. Qin Shi Huang also believed that the world had been unified, and the establishment of many more countries would not be conducive to unification, and peace and tranquility would not be guaranteed, so he supported Li Si's opinion. So, he divided the country into thirty-six counties, with counties below them. The county system is an improvement over the feudal system, which is conducive to the unification of the country.

In the thirty-fourth year of Qin Shi Huang (213 BC), when the ministers gathered in Xianyang Palace to praise Qin Shi Huang, Dr. Chun Yuyue was very uninteresting and said to Qin Shi Huang: The reason why Yin Zhou existed for thousands of years is because it divided the world to his sons and heroes. Now that the world is so big, the children of the clan have no fiefdom, and like the people, if there is a change in Tian Chang and Liuqing, who will come to the rescue? Anyone who does not take the ancient as a teacher and can last for a long time in the world has not heard of it. Chun Yuyue viewed the politics of the Qin Dynasty from a Confucian standpoint, which was incompatible with Qin Shi Huang's thoughts and actions, which made Qin Shi Huang very dissatisfied and handed Chun Yuyue over to Prime Minister Li Si to deal with. Li Si did not agree with Chun Yuyue's opinion, and he expounded his views to Qin Shi Huang. He believes that due to the changes of the times, the methods of governing the country of the five emperors and the three generations are also different. The practice of the three generations is not worth emulating. At that time, the princes were juxtaposed and fought with each other, but now the world is unified, and the situation is completely different, and there is no need to imitate the ancients. Some Confucian scholars now always talk about how good the ancient times were, which is to use the past to distort the people's minds. Words and deeds that spread rumors to confuse the public and are not conducive to the unification of the world must be prohibited, otherwise the stability of the political situation will be affected and the authority of the emperor will be undermined. In the end, he blamed all this on the sake of reading, and suggested that Qin Shi Huang order the burning of books.

According to the decree made by Lees, it was quite cruel. All historical books other than the Qin Chronicles, poems, books, and hundred languages collected by doctors (referring to officials in charge of ancient and modern literary and historical classics) must be burned, and only books on medicine, divination, and tree planting are allowed to be left. After that, if anyone dares to talk about poetry and books anymore, they "abandon the market" (referring to the execution of the death penalty in the downtown area and expose the corpse to the street, which is called abandoning the market); "The clan of those who are not the present in the past (refers to the guilt of one person, and the punishment of parents, brothers, and wives are called clans)"; If a ruler knows about it and does not report it, he shall be guilty of the same crime. Those who still do not burn it for 30 days after the order is issued will be stabbed with a knife on the forehead and cheeks and then inked for "Chengdan" (a kind of punishment, losing the border and building the Great Wall for four years). If you want to learn the laws and regulations, you should take the officials as your teacher.

The reason for this book burning was caused by the discussion of whether or not to divide the feudals, and the ministers who advocated or opposed the secession were all for the sake of Qin Shi Huang's long-term rule, and there was no fundamental opposition between them. Li Si used the topic to play, and in the end it caused the ending of the book burning, which is not without reason.

Since the Shang Dynasty changed the law, the Qin State has always taken Legalist theory as the guiding ideology for governing the country. After Qin Shi Huang unified the world, he also ruled the country with legalism. During his nine years as emperor, his main energy was spent on establishing the central government, demarcating the national territory, unifying the written weights and measures, and building the Great Wall, etc., and paid little attention to cultural and ideological aspects. Chun Yuyue's use of Confucianism to advise Qin Shi Huang was not conducive to Qin's centralized rule. Therefore, Li Si, who was good at understanding Qin Shi Huang's intentions, put forward the above-mentioned proposal of burning books in order to combat the Confucian forces and consolidate the unified regime, which was agreed and approved by Qin Shi Huang. As a result, Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of books, and many ancient documents and ancient books of the pre-Qin period were burned, causing a huge loss of Chinese culture.

In the second year of the book burning, in the 35th year of Qin Shi Huang (212 BC), two warlocks secretly slandered Qin Shi Huang and died. When Qin Shi Huang learned of this, he was furious and sent the imperial history to investigate, and after the trial, more than 460 people were killed. This is the "Confucian" incident in history. Although later generations called this incident "Confucianism", in fact, it was the warlock who was killed by the pit, and it had nothing to do with Confucianism. Sima Qian has clearly stated in the "Historical Records: The Biography of Confucianism": "When it comes to the season of Qin, he burns poetry and books, and pits warlocks." It can be seen that there is nothing to do with Confucianism at all. However, since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Mei Yi presented the "Ancient Texts and Books", with the "Preface to the Book of Books" made by Kong Anguo, which has a cloud: "And Qin Shi Huang destroyed the classics of the ancestors, burned books and pit Confucianism, and the world's bachelors, fled and disbanded." My ancestors used to hide their family letters on the walls of their houses. "At this time, the Pit Warlock was transformed into a Pit Ru for the first time. Later, with the "Ancient Texts and Books" being designated as an official book, the theory of Confucianism was inherited and became a foregone conclusion. For Mei Yi's "Ancient Texts and Books" and Kong Anguo's "Preface to the Book of Books", there were many doubts in the predecessors, and in the Qing Dynasty, the identity of his fake books has become a coffin. The forger changed the pit warlock to the pit confucian, in fact, it was just to lead to the next sentence "my ancestors used to hide their family books on the walls of the house", thus indicating that the "ancient texts and books" have their origins. Considering his original intention, he probably just wanted to sell his fake, and he had no intention of pouring dirty water on Yingzheng. Later generations judged Confucianism as an ironclad case based on this, which must have been greatly unexpected.

(Literature and ancient books are preserved in the Qin court, as for being burned, it should be thanks to Xiang Yu's fire, and don't blindly blame Li Si.) ）

The second accomplice beheaded the clan

Due to Qin Shi Huang's appreciation, Li Si not only had a prosperous official fortune, but his children also followed suit. Li Si's eldest son, Li You, served as the county guard of Sanchuan and held a certain amount of military and political power, and his other children also married the imperial family. Once, when Li You returned to Xianyang, Li Si set up a family banquet, and all the officials came to the banquet to toast. At this kind of warm banquet, Li Si remembered his teacher Xun Qing's warning to him that "things are too jealous", and said with emotion: "I am a common man, but today I am the prime minister, and it can be said that I am extremely rich." However, the prosperity of things is declining, and I don't know what the outcome will be in the future, so it can be seen that Li Si is not completely intoxicated by the high-ranking officials, and his understanding of reality is still relatively sober.

After the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, due to Qin Shi Huang's brutal rule over the broad masses of the people, the resistance of the masses of the people in various places never stopped. In addition to the form of armed struggle, the broad masses of the people also cursed Qin Shi Huang in the form of songs, such as: "Ah Fang, Ah Fang, the first emperor of the dead" and so on. The dissatisfaction and resistance of the masses of the people made the landlord class also worried. Therefore, Qin Shi Huang carried out five long-distance tours in the more than ten years after unification. Its purpose is to show off its military might in various places and strengthen its control over the whole country.