Penalties and punishments can deter people from wrongdoing, but to encourage them “whatever the leader wants,” positive incentives – “ranks and emoluments” – are no less important. The ruler`s main goal, as Shang Yang keeps repeating, is to turn his subjects into industrious peasants and brave soldiers. This can only be achieved if engagement in these “bitter and dangerous” professions is the only way to ensure material wealth and fame. This understanding is in the background of Shang Yang`s most famous reform: the replacement of the traditional hereditary aristocratic order of Qin with the new system of “rank of merit.” Therefore, my teaching is that those who seek advantages gain them nowhere else but in tillage, and those who want to avoid evil escape nowhere else but in war. Within the borders, everyone in the people devotes himself first to agriculture and war, and only then receives what he wants. Although the area is small, grain is abundant, and although there are few people, the army is powerful. Those who are able to implement these two within borders will complete the path of hegemony and monarch. (Shang jun shu 25:139; Book of Lord Shang 25.5) Poems, documents, rites, music, kindness, self-cultivation, benevolence, righteousness, argumentation, prudence: if the state has these ten, the superiors [the people] cannot defend themselves and fight. If the state is governed according to these ten, then when the state arrives, it will certainly be dismembered, and if the enemy does not arrive, the state will certainly be impoverished.
If the state annihilates these ten, then the enemy will not dare to arrive, and even if he does, he will certainly be repulsed; If an army is raised and sent into a campaign, it will surely conquer [the enemy`s land]; If the army is restrained and does not attack, the state will certainly be rich. (Shang jun shu 3:23; Book of Lord Shang 3.5) What is Qin`s “Law” at the end? Can the measures used by the Qin Dynasty to centralize power and suppress the people be considered “laws”? On the one hand, Qin`s system gives society a set of standard rules that everyone must follow. Therefore, it can be considered a legal system because it has sovereign power and clearly defined norms. But Qin`s legal system is very different from our own conception of what a legal system should be. The Qin Dynasty, due to its totalitarianism, used the legal system to strengthen the power of the central government and weaken the people. Therefore, laws have been used as a tool to maintain control rather than as a balance to maintain justice. A legal system under a totalitarian government focuses on how government can be maintained and strengthened by leaving government power in a few hands. Absolutism with a legal system is the same as absolutism without a legal system, since in both cases the government can do whatever it wants and there is no regulation for its actions. Qin`s legal system has a standard, but it is not the norm of the whole society, which includes both the government and the people. Two other legalistic texts mentioned in the Han Imperial Catalogue have not been preserved intact, but lengthy quotations of them in the Imperial Encyclopedia have allowed for a partial reconstruction of their contents. Shēnzi申子 is attributed to Shen Buhai, who served as Chancellor of the State of Hán 韓 in the middle of the fourth century BC. J.-C.
and is credited with a significant administrative improvement there. Of the original six chapters, fewer than three dozen fragments have remained intact (Creel, 1974). Another text, Shènzi 慎子, became Shen Dao 慎到 (fl. c. 300 BC), of which very little is known (it is even possible that the figure of Shen Dao is an amalgam of several personalities; see Xu Fuhong 2013:2-8). Of the original 42 chapters, seven have survived (albeit in incomplete form) in a seventh-century encyclopedia; In total, more than 120 surviving fragments of the text are considered authentic (Thompson 1979; cf. Xu Fuhong 2013). To avoid confusion between Shēnzi and Shènzi, they are hereinafter referred to as the works of Shen Buhai and Shen Dao respectively. Of the ten “legalistic” texts in the Han Emperor`s catalogue, six ceased circulation more than a millennium ago; Two have arrived relatively unscathed, and of two others, only a few fragments have survived the vicissitudes of time. The oldest text (in terms of composition) is the Book of Lord Shang (Shang jun shu 商君書), attributed to Shang Yang (aka Gongsun Yang 公孫鞅 or Lord Shang / Lord of Shang 商君), a major reformer who orchestrated the rise of the state of Qin 秦 to position himself as a leading power in the Chinese world. During the transfer, the book lost at least five chapters; Others had been severely damaged and barely legible. Since the end of the 18th century, efforts have been made to prepare a critical edition of the text and to change its corrupt parts; However, more than two centuries passed before the complete critical edition was published (Zhang Jue 2012).
The composition of the text is very heterogeneous: some chapters were probably written by Shang Yang himself; others may have come from the hands of his immediate followers, but others were written decades and even more than a century after his death (Pines 2016a). However, the text presents a relatively coherent ideological vision, and it is likely to reflect the intellectual development of what Zheng Liangshu (1989) called Shang Yang`s “intellectual current” (xuepai 學派). This seems to be a rare glimpse into the fundamental inability of the administrative system to monitor itself in the long run; However, the discovery does not lead to radical alternatives to the system of control over officials. The chapter merely asserts the superiority of techniques and rules over personal interference by the leader in policy-making, and does not explain how these would prevent the machinations of supervisors. To the extent that techniques and rules are implemented by selfish – or simply erroneous – people, the question remains: to what extent can the impersonal mode of government cure the diseases inherent in the bureaucratic system (cf. Van Norden 2013)? This question remains one of the greatest challenges to the legacy of legalists. The Qin dynasty was based on legalism, so its fate was closely tied to the success and failure of legalistic doctrines. The strength of legalism lies in its belief in a unified legal system. Under legalism, ministers draft concrete laws that show ordinary people what is right and wrong, creating a simple and understandable standard for society. Confucius, on the other hand, travels through states and collects good examples of governance. Therefore, the Confucian teachings contain examples of good people and good deeds, but are subject to interpretation. In addition, legalists establish sovereignty in the legal system, allowing laws to impact society rather than sitting idle on paper.
Finally, legalism stems from the urgent need for a more realistic way of organizing society and thus commits itself to enacting a series of laws administered impartially. And after Qin managed to establish a well-defined legal system, he could easily enact laws to encourage military adventures and build large public projects like the Great Wall. The technique consists in assigning official positions according to one`s own responsibility, examining reality according to one`s name, holding the clutches of death and life, judging the abilities of each minister.