Lees

Lees

Li Si (?)? (208 BC), a native of Shangcai (now lisilou village, Lugang Township, Shangcai County, Henan Province) in the late Warring States period. Qin Dynasty is a famous politician, writer and calligrapher.

He was a little county official and studied from Xunqing. At the end of the Warring States period, he entered the state of Qin and was appointed Minister Lu Buwei. He was appointed as the chief historian and paid homage to the guest minister. In the tenth year of the reign of the king of Qin (237 BC), when he ordered to expel the guests, he wrote a letter to admonish them that they could not be expelled, which was adopted by the king of Qin. He also planned for the Qin Dynasty to merge the six states. He suggested that Korea should be conquered first, and then the vassal states should be eliminated one by one, so as to complete the great cause of reunification.

After the unification of the whole country in 221 BC, Tingwei was ordered to negotiate the title of "emperor" with Prime Minister Wang Wan and imperial historian Feng Jie. Later prime minister, many times with the emperor tour. He opposed Chunyu Yue's proposal of enfeoffment of his children, and advocated banning private learning, abolishing poetry, books, historical records of six countries, and "baijiayu". Taking Xiaozhuan as the standard, he sorted out the characters and made Cangjie chapter as a model.

After the death of the first emperor, he and Zhao Gaojiao forced Fu Su to commit suicide and made Hu Hai emperor. After the outbreak of the peasant uprising in the late Qin Dynasty, the second emperor was advised to enforce the law and strengthen the monarchy. Later, Zhao Gao falsely accused him of treason, with five punishments, beheaded in Xianyang City, Yi three ethnic groups.

Life of the characters

Learn from Xunzi

At the end of the Warring States period, Lisi was born in Shangcai, Runan (now lisilou village, Lugang Township, Shangcai County, Henan Province). Its name is not found in historical records, Hanshu and other documents, while Wu Qiuyan's xuegubian and other books in the Yuan Dynasty call it "the word is ancient", and its reliability is questionable.

When he was young, Liz was a clerical clerk. In the Warring States period, when everyone was fighting for fame and profit, Liz also wanted to do something. In order to achieve the goal of prosperity, Lisi resigned as a petty official and went to the state of Qi to study. Xunzi's thought is very close to the idea of Legalists, and it is also a study of how to govern the country, that is, the so-called "imperial technique". After finishing his studies, Li Si decided to go to the state of Qin after analyzing and comparing the situation of various countries.

Assisted by Ying Zheng

After Li Si arrived in the state of Qin, he soon got the respect of Lu Buwei, the Prime Minister of Qin, and became a minor official of the state of Qin.

Once, Lisi said to the king of Qin, "anyone who has made a successful 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 ripe. Since Qin Xiaogong, the emperor of Zhou declined completely, and the state of Qin took the opportunity to become strong after years of wars. Now the state of Qin is powerful and virtuous. It is as easy to wipe out the six kingdoms as it is to sweep away the dust on the stove. Now is the best time to complete the imperial industry and unify the world. We must not miss it. "

King Qin listened to Lisi's plan to alienate the monarchs and ministers of all countries. For the six countries, Lisi also put forward the annexation order of "destroy Korea first, for fear of other countries". So he got the appreciation of the king of Qin, and was promoted to a long history. Li Si advised the king of Qin to send people to take gold and jade to various countries to buy, bribe and alienate the monarchs and ministers of the six countries. As expected, he also received the effect, and he was appointed guest minister again.

When the king of Qin made up his mind to unify the six states, South Korea was afraid of being destroyed by the state of Qin. He sent Zheng, a hydraulic worker, to Qin to encourage the construction of canals, in order to weaken the human and material resources of the state of Qin and restrain the eastward advance of Qin. Later, the purpose of Zheng's canal construction was exposed. At this time, the eastern countries also sent spies to the state of Qin as guests. The officials had a lot of comments on the foreign guests and said to the king of Qin, "people from all countries come to the state of Qin to do damage work for their own national interests. Please order the king to expel all visitors." The king of Qin issued the expulsion order, and Lisi was also expelled.

Li Si wrote a letter to the king of Qin, advising him not to chase guests. This is the famous book of remonstrating and chasing guests. He said: "I heard that the officials talked about chasing guests, which is wrong. Once upon a time, Duke mu of Qin asked for virtuous people. He invited you Yu from Rong in the west, Bai Lixi from Chu in the East, and Jian Shu from song. He appointed PI Bao and Gong Sunzhi from Jin. Qin Mu Gong appointed these five people, annexed 20 countries, and dominated Xirong. Qin Xiaogong used Shang Yang to carry out the new law, changed the customs, made the country rich and strong, defeated Chu and Wei, and expanded the territory for thousands of miles. With Zhang Yi's stratagem, King Hui of Qin broke up the six countries' collusion against Qin and forced them to obey Qin. King Zhao of Qin Dynasty got fan Ju, weakened the power of his relatives, strengthened the royal power, encroached on the princes, and Qin became an emperor. The four kings all made contributions to the state of Qin by appointing Keqing. If these four kings also ordered the expulsion of guests, it would only make the country not rich and powerful

The king of Qin discriminated between right and wrong, decisively adopted Li Si's suggestion, and immediately cancelled the order of expelling guests. Li Si was still highly valued and was granted the title of Ting Wei.

The change of sand dunes

See: < / I >

Change of sand dunes

When the first emperor of Qin died in the sand dune during his tour, eunuch Zhao Gao coerced Li Si to launch the "change of sand dune". They conspired to tamper with the imperial edict of the first emperor, abolishing Fu Su and establishing Hu Hai as the new emperor and Qin II.

Killed and exterminated

In order to repair the Afang palace, Hu Hai, the second emperor of Qin Dynasty, levied corvee and pushed the people into the abyss of suffering. At that time, the Chinese people's anti Qin uprising had been surging. For the common interests of the ruling class, Li Si, together with the right Prime Minister FENG Quji and general Feng Jie, advised Qin II Hu hai to stop building Afang palace and reduce some corvee.

At that time, Qin II was having a banquet with his maids. When he saw Li Si and others writing, he was very angry and ordered them to be arrested and jailed. Lisi wrote many times in prison, and was detained by Zhao Gao. Zhao Gao took the opportunity to say that Lisi and his son Liyou conspired against him and tortured Lisi and extorted a confession by torture. Lisi was forced to admit rebellion and was killed in July of the second year of Qin II (208 BC). There are three ethnic groups. His son, Li you, was still out. Soon after, he fought with Xiang Yu and Liu Bang in yongqiu. He was defeated and killed by the rebel army.

Main achievements

Politics

Disused enfeoffment

After the unification of the Zhou Dynasty, King Wen and King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty granted many children. Later, they became estranged one by one and regarded each other as enemies. Wars often took place, and the emperor of the Zhou Dynasty could not prohibit them. County, the world can be peaceful. Qin Shihuang also believed that the world had been unified, and the establishment of many more countries was not conducive to reunification, and there was no guarantee of peace. Therefore, he supported Lisi's opinion. So he divided the country into thirty-six counties, with counties below. Compared with the enfeoffment system, the county system is a progress, which is conducive to the unity of the country.

This set of centralized system fundamentally eradicated the evil root of the separatist rule of the kingdoms, and played a positive role in consolidating national unity and promoting social development. Therefore, this system has been used for nearly two thousand years in the imperial society after Qin Dynasty.

Culture

Unified text

In 221 B.C., the first emperor of Qin accepted the prime minister Lisi's suggestion that the ancient characters left by the feudal states should be banned, and the Qin seal script should be taken as the unified style. After reunification, China urgently needs a unified official language. Li Si was ordered by the first emperor of Qin to make this kind of standard characters, which is Xiaozhuan.

As for the origin of Xiaozhuan, Xu Shen said in Shuowen Jiezi · Xu: when Li Si and others made standard characters under the orders of the first emperor of Qin, "they all took Shizhen Dazhuan or changed it a little, so-called Xiaozhuan.". The name of Xiaozhuan is also called Xiaozhuan in order to respect Dazhuan.

Then, in order to promote the unified writing, Lisi personally wrote seven chapters of Cangjie chapter, with four words as sentences, which were used as learning textbooks for people to copy. Before long, Li Si adopted a calligraphy style created by a small official named Cheng Miao in the Qin Dynasty, breaking the curving and looping structure of seal script and forming a new calligraphy style, Lishu.

From then on, Lishu, as an official style, began in the Qin Dynasty and flourished in the Han Dynasty. It was not until the popularity of regular script in the Wei and Jin dynasties that it was gradually replaced. But as the art of calligraphy, seal script and official script are deeply loved by later generations because of their unique style. Li Si contributed to the four major styles of Chinese Calligraphy: Zhen, Cao, Li and Zhuan.

Economics

Unified weights and measures

After the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, in order not to affect the economic exchanges and development of the dynasty, Lisi proposed to abolish the old system of the six countries and unify the weights and measures from the confusion, which was approved by the first emperor of Qin Dynasty.

The metric system takes Cun, Chi and Zhang Yin as units, and uses decimal system to count; the metric system takes he, Sheng, Dou and Tong as units, and also uses decimal system to calculate; the balance system takes baht, Liang, Jin, Jun and Shi as units, 24 baht as one or two, 16 Liang as one jin, 30 jin as one Jun, and four Jun as one stone. In order to effectively unify the system and unify the instruments, lees took measures from the system and law to ensure the accurate implementation of weights and measures.

This is another achievement of the king of Qin in unifying China, after Li Si was the prime minister. And its impact is self-evident. For thousands of years, regardless of the change of dynasties, this measurement method has never changed, and it still exists in our life.

Unified currency

In the 37th year of the first emperor of Qin Dynasty (210 BC), Lisi gave the last important memorial to the first emperor of Qin Dynasty: abolishing the currency of the six countries that were used outside Qin Dynasty and unifying the currency in China. Although it had no great effect on the economic development of Qin Dynasty, it had great influence on later generations.

Under the leadership of Lisi, the currency stipulated that gold should be used as the upper currency, and the long should be used as the unit. Each long weighs 24 Liang, and the copper half Liang should be used as the lower currency. Ten thousand copper coins should be converted into one long gold. They also strictly ordered that jade, tortoise, shellfish, silver and tin as ornaments and treasures should not be used as currency. At the same time, it is stipulated that the right to make coins belongs to the state, that private persons are not allowed to make coins, and that violators are convicted.

Lee's move is regarded by later generations as a pioneering work in economic history. At the beginning, the round square hole half Liang coin (commonly known as Qin half Liang) which he was in charge of casting, because of its reasonable modeling design, easy to use and carry, one

Chinese PinYin : Li Si