During the Qin Dynasty, all books that did not support legalistic philosophy were burned, and writers, philosophers, and teachers of other philosophies were executed. The excesses of legalism of the Qin Dynasty made the regime very unpopular with the people of the time. After the fall of Qin, legalism was abandoned in favor of Confucianism, which significantly influenced the development of Chinese culture. In imperial times, the position of legalism was somewhat paradoxical. On the one hand, their ideas have remained very influential, particularly in the field of administrative practice, but also with regard to the policy of enrichment and empowerment of the State, as well as in certain legal practices. On some occasions, some of the leading imperial reformers – from Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 (181-234) to Su Chuo 蘇綽 (498-546), from Wang Anshi 王安石 (1021-1086) to Zhang Juzheng 張居正 (1525-1582) – were able to openly confess their guilt to the legalistic methods of reviving the government apparatus and restoring the economic and military capabilities of the state. On the other hand, most political reformers and activists remained underground legalists at best. For the vast majority of scholars, Shang Yang, Han Fei and others were negative examples; As a result, most of the texts associated with the legalistic school ceased to circulate, and very few merited comment. Open support for Shang Yang, for example, would be virtually impossible for a respected man of letters. Legalism has been practiced by enacting laws to control the population of China. These laws would include the treatment of social superiors, women, children, domestic servants, as well as criminal law dealing with theft or murder.
As it was self-evident that people would act in their own self-interest, and always in the worst way, penalties for breaking the law were severe and included heavy fines, conscription into the army, or years of community service in the construction of public monuments or fortifications. Teaching people to “sing and sing about war” could easily refer to military indoctrination as we see in other countries that have used mass armies. But Lord Shang`s book never talks about, for example, the cult of the warrior spirit, the dehumanization of the enemy, the identification of martial life with masculinity, and similar means used elsewhere in militarist education. On the contrary, for Shang Yang and other contributors to “his” book, “teaching” simply means people`s internalization of the fact that the only way to satisfy their desires for wealth and glory is to excel in war. Hence the war, which elsewhere in the book is openly associated with what people hate (Shang jun shu 18:108; Lord Shang 18:2) becomes the center of people`s aspirations. “Teaching” is not a question of ideological indoctrination; It is just a matter of deliberate adherence to government policy. Well, the reason why a ruler builds high interior walls and outer walls, looking carefully at the bars of doors and doors, is to prepare [against] the coming of invaders and bandits. But whoever assassinates the ruler and takes his state does not necessarily climb difficult walls and slams doors and doors with bars. [He can be one of the ministers who] by restricting what the ruler sees and restricts what the ruler hears, takes his government and monopolizes his orders, owns his people and takes his state. (Creel 1974:344, modified translation) A scholar of Confucianism would advise the king to reject the rule of law in favor of laissez-faire leadership, meritocracy defining those who seek to rule others. The king would be advised to put the interests of his citizens first and abandon practices that might suggest a preference for his interests over those of his subjects.
Since the state of Qin was originally governed by strict laws that provided for abrasive punishments, including punitive slavery, the king would be advised to look for ways to promote harmony in his jurisdiction and act ethically so that his subordinates would regard him as a role model and also act ethically. Censorship: An interesting fact is that the Qin practiced total censorship. He persecuted scholars and destroyed books. He defined useless books as any book about anything other than books on topics such as medicine and agriculture. There was no room for subjects such as art and literature, as was the case later during the Tang Dynasty. Qin Huang Di, his advisors, thought that if people spent more time learning, they would have less time growing food for the masses. A remarkable historical fact is that hundreds of scholars who refused to hand over their books were buried alive. Later, when they had more pressure to expand the Great Wall, they were sent to the construction site to work until they died.
Legalism is just one of many intellectual currents that flourished in China in the three centuries before imperial unification in 221 BC. This period, often referred to as the “hundred schools” age, is exceptionally rich in political thought. The eruption of interest in political issues is no coincidence: it took place in the context of a serious systemic crisis. The end of the Spring and Autumn Period (Chunqiu 春秋, 770-453 BC) was marked by the gradual disintegration of political structures in the Zhou Empire (then the Chinese world). Gradually, the Zhou world became entangled in a network of crippling struggles between rival political regimes, between powerful nobles and lords within each regime, and between aristocratic lines, and between rival branches within the main lines. In the fourth century BC. A certain degree of recentralization was achieved in individual political regimes, but interstate warfare continued to intensify, giving the new era a threatening name: the Warring States era (Zhanguo 戰國, 453-221 BC). As wars became increasingly bloody and devastating, with no adequate diplomatic means in sight to resolve conflicts, most thinkers and statesmen understood that the unity of “Everything Under Heaven” (tianxia 天下) was the only way to achieve peace and stability (Pines 2000). How to achieve this unity and how to “stabilize everything under the sky” became the central question raised by competing thinkers. Ultimately, the ability of legalists to provide the most convincing answers to this question became the sole source of their ideological appeal.
The main achievement of Qin is the fact that it unified China and created the First Dynasty led by the first Qin emperor Shi Huang. Other well-known achievements include the creation of the Great Wall and a large army of terracotta warriors. 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) Since Confucianism and legalism are ideologically different, there would be objections to the Confucian advice to the first emperor, who was legalistic.