Where is the essence of Legalist thought, where is the essence of Legalist thought?

In the final analysis, Legalist thought pursues the "royal law", the essence of which is "only loyal to the emperor alone" and "making a murder knife for the emperor".

Giving one's life to practice and shedding blood to mourn is the idea of blood.

The essence of Legalist thought is: "Things are in the Quartet, and they must be in the first place; The saint holds the filial piety, and the Quartet will follow" sixteen words. Meaning Qiaoqiqing is the power of the country, to be concentrated in the hands of the monarch alone, the monarch must be powerful and powerful, in order to govern the world, Legalist thought for the Qin State and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to establish a centralized state, providing a theoretical basis.

The source of Legalist thought can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period. During the Warring States Period, Li Kui, Wu Qi, Shang Ying, Shen Dao, Shen Bu and others inherited and vigorously developed, and then became a school. At the end of the Warring States period, Han Fei summarized and synthesized their doctrines, and collected the culmination of legalists.

A complete theoretical system has been formed.

Legalism valued the law and opposed Confucianism.

The "rites". They believed that the emerging landlord class at that time.

It is a very fair and correct proposition to oppose the hereditary privileges of the aristocracy to monopolize economic and political interests, and to demand private ownership of land and the granting of official positions according to merit and talent. And the etiquette system that upholds the privileges of the nobility is backward and unfair. The first advantage is that it is "fixed and disputed", that is, the ownership of the thing is clarified.

One of the Legalists made a very simple analogy: "When a rabbit goes, a hundred people chase it." Accumulate rabbits in the city, and ignore them.

If you don't want a rabbit, you can't fight for it. This means that when a rabbit runs, many people chase it, but they don't look at so many rabbits in the market. It's not that you don't want rabbits, it's that the ownership has been determined and you can't fight for it anymore, otherwise it's against the law and you're going to be sanctioned.

The second advantage is that "meritorious service and fear of violence", that is, laughter encourages people to make military exploits, and makes those lawless people feel afraid. The ultimate goal of Xinggong is to repent of the dust in order to enrich the country and strengthen the army, and to win the annexation war. Legalist thought.

There is a fundamental difference from the democratic form of rule of law that we are advocating now, the biggest thing is that Legalism strongly advocates the centralization of monarchical power, and it is absolute. This should be noted. We can selectively borrow and use other ideas of Legalism.

Strengthen the law, pay attention to power changes, oppose the old system (Confucianism), and advocate military merit.

For Lu Xi to strengthen the country and strengthen the people, the tree is careful to establish the country's idealism, execution, and have a positive effect.

Legalism is based on "human nature is evil", believing that people are selfish and pursuing fame and fortune, so Legalism proposed "rule of law" and "heavy punishment and light reward", and use force to suppress evil human nature, so as to maintain normal social order. In addition, Legalism takes enriching the country and strengthening the army as its ultimate goal. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that the French family is the "art of the emperor".

Next, today we will introduce four representatives of Legalist thought: Guan Zhong, Wu Qi, Shang Ying, and Han Fei. Through their thoughts and deeds, they expound the essence of Legalism's thoughts.

First place: Guan Zhong.

Guan Zhong was a well-known statesman and thinker of the Spring and Autumn period, born in an unknown date, and died around 645 BC, more than a hundred years before Confucius and Lao Tzu. His ideological work "Pipe" is also a classic.

Guan Zhong was in business in his early years, but he failed repeatedly, and he can be said to be a relatively failed businessman, but he was later appointed as the secretary of state by Qi Huan, the monarch of Qi State, and presided over the political situation of Qi State for 40 years. He was determined to carry out reforms, promote the good and eliminate the bad, and accumulate money, and carried out a series of reforms, and in the book "Two Thousand Years of Might" by Wu Xiaobo, the economic and political changes of Guan Zhong were elaborated in detail.

Through these changes, Guan Zhong governed the state of Qi into the most powerful vassal state of the time. Backed by strong national strength, he assisted the Duke of Qi Huan to call on the world to "respect the king". The so-called respect for the king is to support the emperor of the Zhou Dynasty who has lost his actual control; The so-called rebellion is to resist other ethnic groups other than the Huaxia in the Central Plains.

This plan was extremely successful, not only stabilizing the situation in the world, but also making the Duke of Qi Huan appear in front of the princes and the world as a mainstay, becoming the first overlord in the Spring and Autumn Period.

In addition to building the State of Qi into the strongest vassal state at that time, Guan Zhong was also the first person to clearly propose "governing the country according to law" and put it into practice. However, unlike the later "rule of law" of Wu Qi, Shang Ying, and Han Fei, Guan Zhong's "rule of law" was not so extreme, and at the same time, it also added the element of "rule by virtue", and while safeguarding the interests of the country and the monarch, it also conformed to the will of the people and won the love and support of the broad masses of the people.

Second place: Wu Qi.

Wu Qi, who may not know much, was a famous military strategist and thinker during the Warring States period, born in 440 BC and 381 BC. Wu Qi once devoted himself to Confucius's students to study under the sect, but later gave up Confucianism, studied the art of war, and embarked on the road of politics. His book "Wu Zi's Art of War", "Wu Zi's Art of War" occupies an important position in ancient Chinese military classics, later generations will "Wu Zi's Art of War" and "Sun Tzu's Art of War" together called "Sun Wu Art of War", the Northern Song Dynasty will "Wu Zi's Art of War" included in the "Seven Books of Wujing".

Wu Qi served in a number of vassal states. First of all, he was a general in the country of Lu, defeated the Qi army, and created a record of defeating the strong with the weak. Later, he came to Wei as a general, attacked Qin, and won five cities in a row, and achieved the biggest victory in Wei's war against Qin.

He also commanded 50,000 soldiers and defeated 500,000 Qin troops, creating a miracle in the history of military warfare. The king of Wei entrusted him with the Xihe region, where he practiced ploughing warfare and carried out reforms to make the region gain.