The Book of Lord Shang商君書

Scroll One

Four chapters. Changing the Law is the overture — a debate at court. From The Order for Breaking Ground on, the talk comes down to earth: twenty measures for getting waste land under the plough. Farming and War twists the two into a single cord and is the programme of the whole book; Getting Rid of Strength is its arithmetic. A word first about the book’s parentage. It is ascribed to Shang Yang of Qin, and the Qing imperial catalogue says flatly that he did not write it: the Records of the Grand Historian has him fleeing for his life the moment Duke Xiao died, and torn apart by chariots soon after — hardly a man with leisure to compose; and had he written it earlier, the very first chapter would not open with Duke Xiao’s posthumous title. The catalogue’s verdict: “men of the legalist persuasion gathered up what Yang had left behind and made this book of it,” and it compares the Guanzi, whose author died before Duke Huan and which nevertheless keeps naming him. The Han bibliography lists Lord Shang in twenty-nine chapters; the present book has twenty-six titles and twenty-four chapters of text — number sixteen, Bond of Punishment, and number twenty-one, Curbing Robbers, are titles with nothing under them.

1. Changing the Law更法第一

A debate before Duke Xiao of Qin decides on reform. Three men speak in turn: Shang Yang for change, Gan Long for continuity, Du Zhi for caution. The whole weight of the chapter rests on two sentences of Shang Yang’s — “there is no one road to good government, and to profit the state you need not copy antiquity,” and “he who discusses the highest virtue is out of tune with the crowd; he who accomplishes a great work does not take counsel with the many.” The debate ends; the duke says one word, “Good”; and out goes the order for breaking ground, which is the next chapter. The Records of the Grand Historian tells the same scene with somewhat different wording.

Duke Xiao sat in council. Gongsun Yang, Gan Long and Du Zhi, three grandees, attended upon him: they considered how the affairs of the age had changed, examined the foundations of a correct law, and sought a way of directing the people. (“Gongsun Yang” is Shang Yang before he was enfeoffed at Shang. The Ming edition lacks the word “sought.”)

The ruler said: “Not to forget the altars of the state when one succeeds to the throne — that is the way of a ruler. To set the law in place and to see that the ruler’s position is clear and honoured — that is the conduct of a minister. Now I wish to change the law in order to govern, and to alter the rites in order to instruct the people; and I fear the empire will talk about me.”

Gongsun Yang said: “I have heard it said that hesitant action comes to nothing and a hesitant enterprise has no success. Let my lord settle his mind on changing the law quickly, and pay no attention to what the empire says. Besides, a man whose conduct stands above the crowd is bound to be disowned by his age, and a man with an insight of his own is bound to be reviled by the many. The saying goes: the fool is in the dark even about what is already done, while the wise man sees a thing before it has sprouted; the people cannot be consulted about beginnings, only invited to enjoy the result. The law-book of Guo Yan says: he who discusses the highest virtue is out of tune with the crowd; he who accomplishes a great work does not take counsel with the many. Law is the means of loving the people; rites are the means of making affairs convenient. Therefore the sage, if he can strengthen the state, does not copy its old ways; if he can profit the people, does not follow its rites.” (Guo Yan was a minister of Duke Wen of Jin and a reformer. Where our text has “disowned by his age” and “reviled by the many,” the Ming edition reads “condemned by his age” and “defamed by the many.”)

Duke Xiao said: “Good.”

Gan Long said: “Not so. I have heard it said that the sage instructs without altering the people, and the wise man governs without changing the law. Instruct by taking the people as they are, and success comes without effort; govern by the law that stands, and the officials are practised and the people at ease. If now we change the law and do not follow the old ways of Qin, and alter the rites in order to instruct the people, I fear the empire will talk about my lord. I beg him to consider it carefully.”

Gongsun Yang said: “What you say is what the world at large says. Ordinary men are comfortable in old habits, and scholars are sunk in what they have been told. Both sorts will do to hold office and keep the law; neither is fit to discuss anything outside the law. The Three Dynasties had different rites and each ruled as king; the Five Hegemons had different laws and each ruled as hegemon. So the wise make the laws and the foolish are governed by them; the worthy alter the rites and the unworthy are bound by them. A man bound by rites is not worth talking business with; a man governed by laws is not worth talking change with. Let my lord hesitate no longer.” (Our text lacks the connective in “hold office and keep the law”; supplied from the Ming and Siku editions. For “different rites” the Ming edition reads “different ways.”)

Du Zhi said: “I have heard it said: without a hundredfold advantage, do not change the law; without a tenfold gain, do not change your tools. I have heard that copying antiquity is never a fault and following the rites is never a deviation. Let my lord think it over.”

Gongsun Yang said: “Former ages did not teach alike — which antiquity would you copy? Emperors and kings did not repeat one another — which rites would you follow? Fu Xi and Shen Nong taught and did not execute; the Yellow Emperor, Yao and Shun executed but without anger; and when we come to Kings Wen and Wu, each made laws to suit his own time and framed rites to suit the business at hand. Rites and laws are settled according to the age; ordinances follow what is fitting; arms and equipment suit their use. Therefore I say: there is no one road to good government, and to profit the state you need not copy antiquity. Tang and Wu came to power without following antiquity; Yin and Xia perished without altering the rites. That being so, a man who goes against antiquity is not necessarily wrong, and a man who follows the rites is not particularly right. Let my lord hesitate no longer.” (The Ming edition drops the word “copy” from “need not copy antiquity,” and reads “Shang and Xia” for “Yin and Xia.”)

Duke Xiao said: “Good. I have heard that in a back alley there are many oddities, and in a narrow learning much wrangling. What the fool laughs at the wise man grieves over; what the madman delights in the worthy man mourns. I shall hesitate no longer over what the world may say.” (Our text reads “the worthy man worries” and writes “wrangling” with a variant character; both are corrected here from the Ming and Siku editions. The Ming edition also inverts the phrase about the fool.)

And so the order for breaking ground went out. — which is the next chapter.

2. The Order for Breaking Ground墾令第二

The order that went out after the duke said “Good”: twenty measures, every one of them built the same way — do this, and a certain kind of person has nowhere left to eat, and therefore must farm, and therefore “the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough.” Not one of the twenty is about agriculture. They are about shutting doors: on merchants, on inns, on wine and meat, on travelling scholars, on buying office through connections, on pleading for a convict. The object is not to open the waste land but to close every other exit, until farming is the only thing left to do.

Let no business be held over till the next day, and corrupt officials will have no time to make private profit out of the people, and the various offices will not delay one another. If the offices do not delay one another, the farmers have days to spare. If corrupt officials cannot make private profit out of the people, the farmers are not worn out. Farmers not worn out and with days to spare — and the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough. (In the Ming edition the second clause is not repeated.)

Tax by an assessment of the grain, and the standard above is single and the burden below is even. A single standard is trustworthy; being trustworthy, the officials dare not cheat. An even burden makes the people careful; being careful, they do not readily change their trade. With the standard trustworthy and the officials not cheating, the people careful and slow to change, those below do not blame those above and those in the middle are not harried by the officials. Then men in their prime will farm hard and not change their trade; and the young, seeing it, will keep learning it; and the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough. (The Ming and Siku editions read “the ministers dare not cheat.”)

Let no rank or office be had through influence from outside, and the people will not prize learning, nor will they despise farming. Not prizing learning they are simple; being simple they have no outside connections; having none, they work at farming and do not shirk. Not despising farming, the state is secure and not in danger. The state secure and not in danger, men working and not shirking — and the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough. (Our text transposes two characters here; corrected from the Ming and Siku editions.)

Where salaries are fat and taxes heavy, a household with many mouths to feed is a ruin to agriculture. Tax them then by the number of mouths they feed and lay heavy service on them, and the crooked, the dissolute and the idle will have nowhere to eat. Having nowhere to eat they must farm; farming, the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough.

Let merchants not buy grain and farmers not sell it. If farmers may not sell, the slack farmer must bestir himself. If merchants may not buy, they get no extra pleasure out of a good year; getting none out of a good year, they make no fat profit out of a famine year; with no fat profit they turn timid; turning timid they want to farm. The slack farmer bestirring himself and the merchant wanting to farm — and the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough. (The Ming edition reads “merchants cannot buy.”)

Let music and fine clothes not circulate through the hundred districts, and the people will have nothing to gape at while they work and nothing to listen to when they rest. Nothing to listen to when they rest, and their spirits do not run loose; nothing to gape at while they work, and their minds are necessarily single. Minds single and spirits not loose — and the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough.

Let no one hire labour, and the grandees and heads of houses cannot build and repair. Then pampered sons cannot eat in idleness, the idle cannot shirk, and hired men have nowhere to eat and must farm. Grandees and heads of houses not building, the farming season is not encroached on; pampered sons not idle and the idle not shirking, the old fields do not go to waste. The season unencroached on and the farmers all the more at their farming — and the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough. (The Ming edition reads “cannot be seen to repair.”)

Abolish the inns, and the false, the restless, the privately connected and those of two minds about farming cannot move about. The innkeepers, having nowhere to eat, must farm; farming, the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough.

Take the hills and marshes under a single hand, and those who hate farming, the slack and the greedy will have nowhere to eat; having nowhere to eat they must farm; farming, the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough. (“A single hand” means state monopoly of the produce of hills, forests and waters.)

Raise the price of wine and meat, make the tax on them heavy — ten times the cost of production. Then there will be few wine-sellers, the people cannot drink themselves merry, and the great ministers will not gorge. Few wine-sellers, and grain is not wasted above; the people unable to drink themselves merry, and farming is not neglected; the great ministers not gorging, and state business is not held up and the ruler makes no false moves. Grain not wasted and farming not neglected — and the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough. (The Ming edition writes “wine-sellers” with a different character.)

Make the punishments heavy and bind kinsmen into the offence, and the hot-tempered will not brawl, the headstrong will not go to law, the idle will not wander, the spendthrift will not practise his trade, and the flattering and evil-hearted will have no scope. With these five sorts not growing up within the borders, the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough.

Let the people not move at will, and those who live by fleecing the ignorant and disturbing agriculture will have nowhere to eat and must farm. The foolish and the restless being brought to one mind, the farmers are quiet. The farmers quiet and the fleecers of the ignorant turned to farming — and the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough.

Distribute evenly the services required of younger sons, levy them by their registered standing, raise the price of exemption, fix a quota for the service, issue the official ration by the levelled measure, and let no one buy his way out of it. Since high office cannot be had for the asking either, these younger sons will not go about attaching themselves to patrons. Not attaching themselves, they must farm; farming, the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough. (“Younger sons” are the sons other than the heir; the “levelled measure” is the strickle drawn across the top of a grain measure, so that the ration can be neither increased nor cut. The wording of this measure differs in every edition and the old commentaries do not agree.)

Let the great ministers and grandees of the state be forbidden wide learning, disputation, cleverness and residence abroad, and forbidden to travel or lodge about the hundred districts, and the farmers will hear of no novelties and see no other methods. Hearing and seeing none, the knowing farmer has no occasion to leave his old trade, and the ignorant farmer knows nothing and takes no pleasure in learning. Knowing nothing and taking no pleasure in learning, he farms hard; and the knowing farmer not leaving his old trade — the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough.

Let there be no women in the camp market, and let its merchants be entered by name; let each man furnish his own arms and be held answerable for the levies; and let no one carry grain into the camp market privately, and conspiracy will have nowhere to hide. Those who smuggle grain cannot loiter; the light-minded and idle do not frequent the camp market; the grain-thief has nowhere to sell. Grain carriers carrying nothing of their own and the idle keeping away, the farmers are not corrupted and the state’s grain is not wasted; and the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough. (This measure is corrupt in all editions and is punctuated differently in each.)

Let the hundred districts be governed on one pattern, and the muddling official cannot dress things up, his successor dare not alter the arrangements, and the man dismissed for a fault cannot hide what he did. Faults not hidden, there are no crooked men in office. The muddler not dressing things up and the successor not altering, the staff is small and the people are not worked hard. No crooked men in office, and the people do not gad about; not gadding about, their proper business does not fail. A small staff, and the levies are not vexatious; the people not worked hard, and there are more days for farming. More days for farming, levies not vexatious, business not failing — and the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough.

Make the duties at barriers and markets heavy, and the farmers will detest trade and the traders themselves grow doubtful and slack. Farmers detesting trade and traders doubtful and slack — and the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough.

Levy service on merchants by the number of their household, and let their menials, drivers, footmen and porters all be entered by name, and the farmer will have it easy and the merchant hard. The farmer having it easy, good fields are not left waste; the merchant having it hard, the whole business of gifts and escorts does not circulate through the hundred districts; then the farmers do not go hungry and their conduct is not showy. Not hungry and not showy, they will work hard at the public labour and not neglect their own, and agriculture is bound to prevail. Agriculture prevailing, the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough.

In carrying grain let no carriage fee be taken and no return load be picked up; let carts, oxen and loads be as registered. Then the going out is quick and the coming back quick, and the business does not spoil agriculture. Agriculture unspoilt, the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough.

Let no one plead with the officials on a convict’s behalf or send him food, and the lawless will have no patron. Having no patron, they will not be keen on their lawlessness; not being keen, they will have no stock in trade; having none, the farmers will not be corrupted; and the farmers uncorrupted, the waste land will certainly be brought under the plough.

3. Farming and War農戰第三

The programme of the whole book. In one sentence: the state recognises two activities, tilling and fighting, and every other road is to be closed. Office and rank are the only bait in the ruler’s hand, and that bait may issue from one hole only. Anything by which a man can get rich or honoured while going round farming and war — reciting the Odes and Documents, disputation, foreign patrons, trade, handicraft — must be suppressed, because it makes the bait worthless. Three words run through the chapter: one hole, doing one thing, and balling up — one exit, one occupation, and the people’s strength rolled into a single lump.

What a ruler uses to spur his people on is office and rank; what makes a state rise is farming and war. Now the people seek office and rank, and none of them by farming and war: they seek them by clever talk and empty doctrine. This is called wearing the people out. A state that wears its people out will certainly have no strength; and a state without strength will certainly be dismembered.

He who governs well so instructs his people that office and rank are to be had from one hole only. Therefore without farming and war there is no office or rank. When the state does away with talk, the people are plain; being plain, they are not dissolute. Seeing that the ruler’s benefits issue from one hole, they do one thing; doing one thing, they do not shirk. Not shirking and not dissolute, they have much strength; having much strength, the state is strong. (“One hole” is the single outlet; “doing one thing” means, throughout this book, farming and war.)

Now the people within the borders all say: farming and war can be dodged and office and rank can still be had. And so the able all change their calling: they study the Odes and Documents and attach themselves to foreign patrons — the best of them getting distinction, the rest getting office; while the second-rate go into trade or take up a craft. All to dodge farming and war. Once all these roads are open, the state is in danger. A people instructed by such an example will certainly see its state dismembered.

He who governs well does not slacken in agriculture though the granaries be full, nor let talk run loose though the state be large and the people many; then the people are plain and single. Plain and single, office and rank cannot be got by contrivance; not to be got by contrivance, no crookedness arises; no crookedness arising, the ruler is not deceived.

Now the people within the borders and those already holding office and rank see that in court office and rank may be had by clever talk and disputation, and so office and rank lose all regularity. Therefore at court they bend to the ruler’s wishes and at home they scheme to fill their own pockets; and so the power below is put up for sale. To bend to the ruler and scheme for oneself is not to the state’s advantage, and men do it for the sake of rank and salary; to sell the power below is not the conduct of a loyal minister, and men do it for the sake of the profits of trade. (“The profits of trade” — literally the goods of the branch occupations, agriculture being the root.)

Then the lesser officials who hope for promotion all say: with money enough, the higher post can be had and may be coveted. And they say: if I do not serve my superiors with money and yet seek promotion, it is like baiting a trap for mice with a cat — there is no hope in it. If I serve my superiors with plain sincerity and seek promotion, it is like hauling on a rope already snapped in order to climb a crooked tree — there is even less hope. Since neither will get me promoted, how can I help squeezing the people below for money to serve my superiors with, and so seeking promotion?

And the common people say: I farm hard and fill the public granary first, and only what is left over keeps my parents; I forget my life and fight for my superiors, to honour the ruler and secure the state. And still the granary is empty, the ruler is not honoured and my house is poor — better go and look for an office! Once relatives and friends have agreed on it, the man changes his mind. So the able study the Odes and Documents and attach themselves to foreign patrons; the second-rate go into trade or take up a craft; all to dodge farming and war. With such an example for instruction, how can the grain not run short and the army not grow weak?

He who governs well keeps the law of office clear and so does not rely on anyone’s cleverness; the ruler does one thing, and so the people are not slack and dissolute, and the strength of the state is balled up. A state whose strength is balled up is strong; a state fond of talk is dismembered. Therefore it is said: among a thousand men who farm and fight, let there be one who recites the Odes and Documents and is clever at argument, and all thousand will grow slack at farming and war. Among a hundred who farm and fight, let there be one craftsman, and all hundred will grow slack.

A state is secure through farming and war; a ruler is honoured through farming and war. That the people do not farm and fight is because the ruler is fond of talk and office has lost its regularity. Regular office, and the state is well governed; a single occupation, and the state is rich; rich and well governed — that is the way of a true king. Therefore it is said: the kingly way arises when a man sets his own preferences aside and does one thing, and nothing more.

Now the ruler appoints men by weighing their talent and cleverness, and the clever watch his likes and dislikes and arrange offices and affairs to suit his mind. So office has no regularity, the state is disordered and not single, and the disputers are without any rule. In such a case how can the people’s distractions not multiply and the land not go to waste?

Odes, Documents, rites, music, goodness, cultivation, humanity, integrity, disputation, cleverness: where a state has these ten, the ruler cannot get anyone to defend it or fight for it. Govern with the ten, and when the enemy comes the state will surely be dismembered, and if he does not come it will surely be poor. Get rid of the ten, and the enemy dare not come; if he comes he is surely driven off; raise an army and attack, and you surely take what you attack; hold your hand and do not attack, and you surely grow rich. (The same list recurs in the next chapter in a slightly different form.)

A state fond of strength is said to attack with what is hard, and one that attacks with what is hard surely rises; a state fond of disputation is said to attack with what is easy, and one that attacks with what is easy is surely in danger. Therefore the sage and the enlightened ruler are not men who exhaust all things; they are men who know what matters in all things. And so in governing they look to what matters, and no more.

Now those who govern mostly miss what matters. At court they talk about government, chattering away, each busy overturning the last man. So the ruler is muddled by their arguments, the officials thrown into confusion by their words, and the people are slack and do not farm. All the people within the borders are changed into lovers of argument and students of learning, traders, craftsmen, dodgers of farming and war — and then ruin is not far off.

Let something happen to the state, and the learned detest the law, the traders are good at shifting their ground, the craftsmen are of no use; so such a state is easily broken. Farmers are few and idle mouths many, so the state is poor and in danger. Locusts and grubs live from spring to autumn, and one visitation leaves the people short of food for years; now one man ploughs and a hundred eat, and the pest is a good deal larger.

Though there be the Odes and Documents, a bundle to a village and a copy to a house, it is of no use to government and is not the way to turn the thing round. Therefore the former kings turned it round upon farming and war. Hence it is said: where a hundred farm and one sits idle, the state rules as king; where ten farm and one sits idle, it is strong; where half farm and half sit idle, it is in danger. So he who governs wants his people to farm.

A state that does not farm cannot hold its own in the struggle for power with the other lords, because the strength of the many is not enough. Then the lords work upon its weakness and take advantage of its decline, and its territory is pared away without recovery; and then it is too late. The sage knows what matters in governing a state, and so he makes the people turn their hearts to agriculture. Turning their hearts to agriculture, they are plain and can be set straight. Scattered in mind, they are not easily employed; honest, they can be used to defend and to fight. Single, they are less given to deceit and they value their holdings; single, they can be moved by rewards and punishments; single, they can be used abroad. (Our text has a miswritten character for “deceit,” corrected from the Siku edition.)

That the people cleave to their ruler and die for his ordinances is because they are at their farming morning and evening. That the people become unusable is because they see that talkers and travelling scholars who serve rulers can raise their own standing, that traders can enrich their households, and that craftsmen can make a living. Seeing these three convenient and profitable, they will certainly dodge farming; dodging farming, they hold their homes cheap; holding their homes cheap, they will certainly not defend or fight for the ruler.

What every ruler fears is that his people should be scattered and impossible to ball up; and so the sage does one thing and balls them up with it. Let a state do one thing for a year and it is strong for ten; for ten years and it is strong for a hundred; for a hundred years and it is strong for a thousand; and what is strong for a thousand years rules as king. The ruler orders his rewards and punishments to support that single instruction, and so his teaching has constancy and his government has results.

A true king has hold of the one thing that matters in governing men, and so without giving presents his people cleave to him, without ranks and salaries they set to work, without punishments they will die for him. When the state is in danger and the ruler anxious, the counsellors stand in rows and are of no use to its safety. What makes a state dangerous and a ruler anxious is a strong enemy and a great state. If the ruler cannot subdue the strong enemy and break the great state, then let him put his defences in order, take advantage of the ground and ball up the people’s strength to await what comes from outside; then the danger can be got rid of and the kingly estate attained.

Therefore an enlightened ruler puts his government in order and does one thing, gets rid of the useless, stops those who store up learning and follow dissolute trades, and drives them all into agriculture; and then the state can be enriched and the people’s strength balled up.

Now the rulers of the age are all anxious that their states are in danger and their armies weak, and yet they force themselves to listen to the counsellors. The counsellors stand in rows with their elaborate and ornamented phrases and nothing of practical use. The ruler is charmed by their eloquence and does not ask for results. The counsellors have their way, and the roads are full of twisted argument, in troop after troop. The people see that this is how one gets at kings and great men, and they all study it.

Men gather into factions and argue in the state, chattering away; the small people enjoy it and the great men are delighted with it. So farmers grow few and idle mouths many; being many, the farmers grow slack; the farmers slack, the land goes to waste. Learning becomes a fashion, and the people leave off farming for talk, lofty speech and false argument, leaving the land and living by their wits, outdoing one another in words. So those who desert their ruler and will not be his subjects come in droves. This is the instruction that impoverishes a state and weakens an army.

If a state hires its people for words, they will not stick to agriculture. Therefore only an enlightened ruler knows that a fondness for words cannot strengthen an army or open up land. Only the sage, in governing a state, does one thing and balls the people up upon agriculture, and nothing more.

4. Getting Rid of Strength去彊第四

A chapter of entries rather than argument, its sentences clipped short like the abstract of a longer book. At its centre is a piece of counter-intuitive arithmetic: use the strong to weed out the weak and the state grows weak; use the weak to weed out the strong and it grows strong. “Strength” here means the unruly vigour of the populace, not national power. Three things recur: the lice — six parasites that breed on the three honest occupations; the ratio of punishment to reward (“a true king punishes nine and rewards one”); and the thirteen figures a strong state must know. The last eight words are the whole warrant of a Shang Yang state: rank by military merit, rank by grain — the only two ways to be somebody.

Use the strong to get rid of the weak, and you grow weak; use the weak to get rid of the strong, and you grow strong. Where a state does good, there is sure to be much crookedness. A state already rich that is governed as though poor is called doubly rich, and the doubly rich is strong; a state already poor that is governed as though rich is called doubly poor, and the doubly poor is weak. (“Strong” here is the unruly vigour of the populace. The punctuation of this entry differs in every edition.)

An army that does what the enemy dare not do is strong; an enterprise taken up that the enemy would be ashamed of is profitable. A ruler is to be valued for having many changes, a state for having few. A state with few concerns is dismembered; with many, it is strong — yet a state of a thousand chariots that guards a thousand concerns is dismembered. When war comes and the troops are usable, that is called strength; when war is a muddle and the troops sit idle, the state is dismembered. (This entry is the most corrupt in the chapter; the old commentaries contradict one another.)

Farming, trade and office are the three standing occupations of a state; and on these three breed six lice: the year, food, finery, pleasure, ambition, reputation. Let these six get a footing, and the state is surely dismembered. The three honest occupations each have their own men; the six lice all grow on one man. To use law until law is no longer needed is strength; to use law and generate more law is dismemberment. (“Lice” is this book’s own word for parasites growing on honest work; “footing” is literally the stock or root they grow from.)

Where the standing occupations have law and superfluous law is gone, there is good government. Govern a great state as if it were small; govern a small state as if it were great. Strengthen the people and the state is the more dismembered; weaken them and it is the more strong. To attack the weak with the strong is to perish; to attack the strong with the weak is to rule as king. A state strong and not at war pours its poison inward, the lice of rites and music breed, and it is surely dismembered; a state that goes on to war pours its poison into the enemy, has no lice of rites and music, and is surely strong. To appoint by labour and merit is strength; where the lice breed, there is surely dismemberment. Few farmers and many traders; the noble poor, the merchants poor, the farmers poor — all three occupations poor, and the state is surely dismembered.

Where a state has rites and music, Odes and Documents, goodness and cultivation, filial piety and brotherliness, integrity and disputation — where a state has these ten, the ruler cannot get anyone to fight, and it is surely dismembered and comes to ruin; where a state has none of the ten, the ruler can get men to fight, and it surely rises and rules as king. A state that uses the good to govern the crooked is surely thrown into disorder and dismembered; a state that uses the crooked to govern the good is surely well governed and strong. (The last pair is the most notorious sentence in the book and recurs in chapter five. “The crooked” are men who go by the law and not by private feeling.)

A state governed with the Odes, the Documents, rites, music, filial piety, brotherliness, goodness and cultivation will surely be dismembered when the enemy comes, and surely poor if he does not. Govern without these eight, and the enemy dare not come; if he comes he is surely driven off; raise an army and attack, and you surely take the place and surely hold it; hold your hand and do not attack, and you surely grow rich. A state fond of strength is said to attack with what is hard; a state fond of words is said to attack with what is easy. Attacking with what is hard, you spend one and get ten; attacking with what is easy, you spend ten and lose a hundred.

Heavy punishments and light rewards mean that the ruler loves his people, and the people will die for him; heavy rewards and light punishments mean that he does not love them, and they will not. In a rising state, when punishments are carried out the people find profit in it and are afraid; when rewards are given they find profit in it and feel affection. In carrying out punishment, be heavy on the light offences: then the light offences do not arise and the heavy ones do not come. A state without strength that practises clever contrivance will surely perish. (“Heavy punishment for light offences” is the core of Shang Yang’s penal doctrine.)

Use punishment on the timid and they turn brave; use reward on the brave and they will die for you. The timid grown brave and the brave ready to die — and a state without a match is strong, and being strong it surely rules as king. Use punishment on the poor and they grow rich; use reward on the rich and they grow poor. When in governing a state you can make the poor rich and the rich poor, the state has much strength, and much strength rules as king. A true king punishes nine and rewards one; a strong state punishes seven and rewards three; a state in decline punishes five and rewards five.

Let a state do one thing for a year and it is strong for ten; for ten years and it is strong for a hundred; for a hundred years and it is strong for a thousand; and what is strong for a thousand years rules as king. Authority takes ten by one and takes substance by reputation; therefore he who can make himself feared rules as king. Able to nourish strength but not to spend it — that is called a state that attacks itself, and it is surely dismembered; able both to nourish and to spend it — that is called a state that attacks the enemy, and it is surely strong. So of the three attacks — on the lice, on the people’s strength, on the enemy — a state that makes two of them and leaves one is surely strong; make all three, and its authority surely rules as king.

Where a case must travel ten li to be decided, the state is weak; where five li, it is strong. Settle business the same day and you rule as king; by night, and you are strong; leave it overnight, and you are dismembered. Register the people by heads: enter the newborn and strike off the dead. When the people do not evade the grain tax and no waste grass is left in the fields, the state is rich, and a rich state is strong. (Compare the first measure of The Order for Breaking Ground: “let no business be held over till the next day.”)

Use punishment until punishment is no longer needed, and the state is well governed; use punishment and generate more punishment, and the state is disordered. Hence it is said: be heavy on the light offences, and punishment falls away while business succeeds, and the state is strong; be heavy on the heavy and light on the light, and punishment goes on and trouble breeds, and the state is dismembered. Punishment breeds strength, strength breeds power, power breeds authority, authority breeds kindness — and kindness is born of strength. Muster strength to make men brave in battle, and battle makes them skilled in stratagem.

When money is born grain dies; when grain is born money dies. If the staple is cheap, the producers many and the buyers few, the farmer is in straits and the crooked man prospers; the army is weak and the state surely dismembered to ruin. One ounce of gold born within the borders means twelve piculs of grain dead beyond them; twelve piculs of grain born within the borders means one ounce of gold dead beyond them. A state that likes to breed gold within its borders has gold and grain both dead, granary and treasury both empty, and is weak; a state that likes to breed grain within its borders has gold and grain both alive, granary and treasury both full, and is strong.

A strong state knows thirteen figures: the granaries and the population within the borders; the number of able-bodied men and women; the number of the old and the weak; the number of officials and gentlemen; the number of those who live by talk; the number of those who live by profit; the number of horses, oxen, fodder and straw. To wish to strengthen a state without knowing its thirteen figures — though the land be good and the people many, the state will only grow weaker until it is dismembered. (Only seven items are listed though thirteen are promised; there is a lacuna here that has never been repaired. “Those who live by profit” are traders and craftsmen.)

A state with no resentful subjects is called a strong state. Raise an army and attack, and give rank and appointment for military merit, and you surely win; hold your hand and farm, and give rank and appointment for grain, and the state grows rich. To conquer the enemy when the army moves and to enrich the state when it rests — that is to rule as king. (Rank by military merit, rank by grain: in this system there are only two ways to earn a title — a severed head or a measure of grain.)

Scroll Two

Three chapters. On the People unfolds the entries of the preceding chapter into argument, and it is here that “govern with the crooked” gets its full derivation. Reckoning the Land is the most technical thing in the book — how land is to be apportioned, how many soldiers a hundred square li should yield. Opening What Is Blocked is a philosophy of history: mankind in three ages, and the conclusion that punishment is the root of right, while what the world calls right leads to violence.

5. On the People說民第五

The title means: getting the people clear. The chapter has one shape throughout — government and populace rise and fall against each other. Where the people prevail over the government the state is weak; where the government prevails over the people the army is strong. From this come two famous sentences: “govern with good men and there will surely be disorder and dismemberment; govern with crooked men and there will surely be order and strength”; and “in carrying out punishment, be heavy on the light offences” — deal with the small crime hard enough and the large one never arrives. The last section is about settling: where a matter gets decided — in the household, in the office, or by the ruler himself — determines how fast a state moves.

Disputation and cleverness are an aid to disorder; rites and music are a sign of dissipation; kindness and humanity are the mother of faults; appointment by connection and repute is the burrow of crookedness. Disorder with an aid to it spreads; dissipation with a sign of it takes hold; faults with a mother breed; crookedness with a burrow cannot be stopped. Where these eight flock together, the people prevail over the government; where a state has none of the eight, the government prevails over the people. The people prevailing, the state is weak; the government prevailing, the army is strong. Therefore where a state has the eight, the ruler can get no one to defend or fight and is surely dismembered to ruin; where it has none, the ruler can get men to defend and fight and surely rises to rule as king.

Employ the good, and the people love their own kin; employ the crooked, and the people love the system. To close over a man’s fault and cover it is what passes for goodness; to separate men and measure them by a rule is what passes for crookedness. Make a display of goodness and faults are hidden; employ the crooked and offences are punished. Faults hidden, the people prevail over the law; offences punished, the law prevails over the people. The people prevailing over the law, the state is disordered; the law prevailing over the people, the army is strong. Hence it is said: govern with good men and there will surely be disorder and dismemberment; govern with crooked men and there will surely be order and strength. (The “crooked” here are not wicked men but men who will not oblige a friend — who go by the law. This is the most misread sentence in the book.)

A state that attacks with what is hard spends one and takes ten; a state that attacks with what is easy spends ten and loses a hundred. A state fond of strength attacks with what is hard; a state fond of words attacks with what is easy. The people find words easy and being useful hard. Where the law of the state works upon what the people find hard, and the army employs what they find easy, and the attack is made with strength, one is spent and ten gained. Where the law works upon what they find easy and the army employs what they find hard, and the attack is made with words, ten are spent and a hundred lost.

Make punishment heavy and rank becomes honourable; make reward light and punishment keeps its terror. Rank honourable means the ruler loves his people; punishment terrible means the people will die for him. Therefore in a rising state the people find profit in punishment and the ruler gains weight from reward. Minute laws mean many punishments; concise laws mean few. People ungoverned fall into disorder, and to govern them after the disorder is disorder again. Therefore to govern while there is still order is order; to govern only when there is disorder is disorder. (The Siku edition reads “many laws mean few punishments,” which makes no sense; our text is kept.)

The people’s inclination is towards order, but what they do produces disorder. Therefore in carrying out punishment be heavy on the light offences: the light offences do not arise, and then the heavy ones have no way of arriving. This is what is meant by governing while there is still order. To be heavy on the heavy and light on the light — the light offences are not stopped, and then the heavy ones cannot be stopped. This is what is meant by governing only when there is disorder. Therefore heaviness on the light means that punishment falls away and business succeeds and the state is strong; heaviness on the heavy and lightness on the light means that punishment goes on and trouble breeds and the state is dismembered.

If the people are brave, reward them with what they want; if they are timid, punish them with what they hate. Therefore the timid, driven by punishment, turn brave; the brave, driven by reward, will die for you. The timid grown brave and the brave ready to die — a state without a match surely rules as king. (The Siku edition reads “put the timid to death with what they hate.”)

Poor, the people are weak; rich, the state grows dissolute; dissolute, it has lice; having lice, it is weak. Therefore add punishment to the poor and they grow rich; take reward from the rich and they grow poor. The business of governing a state lies in making the poor rich and the rich poor. The poor made rich and the rich poor, the state is strong. The three occupations free of lice, the state is strong; and long free of them, it surely rules as king.

Punishment breeds strength, strength breeds power, power breeds authority, authority breeds virtue — and virtue is born of punishment. Therefore where punishments are many, rewards weigh heavy; where rewards are few, punishments weigh heavy. The people have their desires and their aversions: the desires run to six kinds of dissipation, the aversions to four hard things. Follow the six and the state is weak; carry out the four and the army is strong. Therefore a true king puts nine parts into punishment and lets one part out in reward. Nine parts punishment, and the six dissipations are stopped; one part reward, and the four hard things are done. The six stopped, the state has no crookedness; the four done, the army has no match. (Neither the six nor the four are specified anywhere in the present book; the old commentaries only guess at them.)

The people want ten thousand things and profit issues from one place only. Unless they go to that one place they cannot get what they want, and so they do one thing. Doing one thing, their strength is balled up; balled up, they are strong; strong and then used, doubly strong. Therefore he who can both breed strength and spend it is said to hold a state that attacks the enemy, and is surely strong. (Our text has a miswritten character here, corrected.)

Block the private roads and their ambitions are brought to a dead end; open one gate and their desires are let through it; make the people pass first through what they hate and only then reach what they want, and there will be strength in plenty. Strength in plenty and not spent, and ambition is choked; choked, it turns private; turned private, there is weakness. Therefore he who can breed strength but cannot spend it is said to hold a state that attacks itself, and is surely dismembered. Hence it is said: in the state of a true king, the state does not hoard strength and the household does not hoard grain. The state does not hoard strength because it is spent below; the household does not hoard grain because it is stored above.

On order in a state: where matters are settled in the household, one rules as king; where in the office, one is strong; where by the ruler, one is weak. Heaviness on the light and punishment fallen away, and the occupations regular — that is order. With punishments few, mutual surety is the thing; rewards are not to be doubled. Where crookedness must be reported, the people settle it in their own hearts. The ruler issues an order and the people know how to answer it; the rule takes shape in the household and holds good in the office; and so business is settled in the household. (“Mutual surety” is the system of grouping households in fives and tens, each answerable for the rest.)

Therefore under a true king reward and punishment are settled in the people’s own hearts, and the use of things is settled in the household. Where government is clear, judgements agree; where it is dark, they differ. Agreeing, things go forward; differing, they stop. Going forward, there is order; stopping, disorder. In order, the household settles; in disorder, the ruler settles. In governing a state it is best that things be settled low down; hence where a case must travel ten li to be decided, the state is weak, and where five li, it is strong. Settled in the household, there is time to spare, and so it is said that he who settles business the same day rules as king; settled in the office, there is not time enough, and so it is said that he who settles it by night is strong; settled by the ruler, there is disorder, and so it is said that he who leaves it overnight is dismembered. Therefore in a state that has the way, government does not wait on the ruler and the people do not depend on the officials.

6. Reckoning the Land算地第六

Reckoning means measuring. The opening is the one piece of planning in the book that carries figures: hills a tenth, marshes a tenth, valleys and running water a tenth, towns and roads a tenth, poor fields two tenths, good fields four tenths; a hundred square li should put ten thousand soldiers in the field. Then it turns to human nature — men are hungry and seek food, tired and seek rest — and concludes that they can be driven only by two handles, name and profit: let profit come out of the soil and name out of war. The chapter ends with five kinds of men — talkers, recluses, bravoes, craftsmen, merchants — whose capital is carried about on their persons and can leave the country at any moment, and who must therefore be suppressed.

The trouble with the rulers of this age is that in using armies they do not measure their strength, and in opening up waste land they do not measure the ground. So there are states with narrow land and many people, where the people outrun the land, and states with broad land and few people, where the land outruns the people. Where the people outrun the land, the business is to open up ground; where the land outruns the people, the business is to bring men in. Open up ground, and the yield is doubled. People in excess of land, and the state’s achievements are few and its military strength small; land in excess of people, and the goods of hills and marshes are not put to use.

To throw away what nature gives and let the people run loose is a failure of duty in the rulers of this age, practised by high and low alike; and so the people are many and the army weak, the land great and the strength small. Therefore in apportioning land for a state: hills take a tenth, marshes a tenth, valleys and running water a tenth, towns and roads a tenth, poor fields two tenths, good fields four tenths. This was the rule of the former kings. (The Siku edition reads “woods” for “hills.”)

So in apportioning fields for a state the quotas are set low. Five hundred mu to furnish one man’s service leaves the land’s capacity unused. A hundred square li putting ten thousand soldiers into the field is still a low figure. On such a reckoning the ploughed fields suffice to feed the people, the towns and roads to house them, the hills, marshes and valleys to furnish their needs, and the marsh embankments to hold water. So when the army marches, the grain is there and there is money over; when it rests, the people work and the stores grow to be enough. This is what is called the rule of matching land to service.

Now a ruler of this age has land several thousand li square, and his food is not enough to support his levies and fill his granaries, and his army is vassal to his neighbours; and so I am anxious on his behalf. Land large and unploughed is the same as no land; people many and unused, the same as no people. Therefore the reckoning of a state lies in breaking new ground, and the way of using armies lies in a single reward. (“A single reward” is the subject of chapter seventeen.)

Block private profit from abroad, and the people’s efforts go to farming; going to farming they are plain; plain, they fear the law. Forbid private rewards below, and the people’s strength is balled up against the enemy; balled up against the enemy, they conquer. How do we know this? By the nature of men: plain, they take pains and hold their labour cheap; pinched, they grow shrewd and weigh their advantage. Holding labour cheap, they think little of death and are glad to be used; weighing advantage, they fear punishment and take hardship easily. Taking hardship easily, the strength of the soil is used up; glad to be used, the strength of the army is used up.

He who in governing a state can exhaust the strength of the soil and make his people die for him gets name and profit both. Men living in the world are hungry and seek food, tired and seek rest, in misery and look for pleasure, disgraced and look for honour: such is their nature. In seeking profit they lose the rule of propriety; in seeking a name they lose the constancy of their nature. How is this to be shown? (The Siku edition reads “the nature of men” for “men living in the world.”)

The robber breaks what his ruler above has forbidden and loses the propriety of a subject below; his name is disgraced and his person in danger, and still he does not stop — it is for profit. And those gentlemen of high antiquity whose clothes did not warm their skin and whose food did not fill their belly, who wearied their minds and wore out their four limbs and injured their five organs, and were the more at ease and expansive for it — this is not the constancy of nature, and they did it for a name. Hence it is said: where name and profit gather, thither the people take their road.

That a ruler should hold the two handles of name and profit and yet actually achieve merit and fame is a matter of method. The sage examines the weights in order to grasp the handles, and examines the method in order to employ the people. Method is the art of ruler and minister and the essential of a state. Never yet has a state of ten thousand chariots lost its method and escaped danger, or ruler and minister lost their art and escaped disorder.

Now rulers wish to open land and govern people without examining the method, and ministers wish to discharge their office without establishing an art; and so the state has subjects who will not submit and the ruler has ministers who will not obey. Therefore the sage in governing a state makes the people attach themselves to agriculture at home and reckon on war abroad. Farming is what the people find bitter, and war is what they find dangerous. That they will take on the bitter and do the dangerous is a matter of calculation.

So the people in life reckon on profit and in death consider their name. Where name and profit come from is a thing that must be examined. Let profit come out of the soil, and the people will use all their strength; let name come out of war, and they will go to their deaths. Use all their strength at home, and no land lies waste; send them to their deaths abroad, and the enemy is beaten. Beat the enemy and leave no land waste, and the work of wealth and power is done sitting still.

It is not so now. What the rulers of this age take special pains over is never what the state urgently needs. To have the conduct of Yao and Shun in one’s person and yet fall short of the achievements of Tang and Wu is a fault in the way the handles are held. Let me speak of the error. To govern a state by letting go of positional power and relying on talk is to weary oneself for small result. (“Positional power” is the compelling force that belongs to a position, one of the three handles of this school.)

Therefore if the Odes-and-Documents men and the talkers are employed, the people wander and hold their ruler cheap; if recluse scholars are employed, the people keep their distance and criticise their ruler; if bravoes are employed, the people are contentious and hold the prohibitions cheap; if craftsmen are employed, the people are flighty and move about easily; if merchants are comfortable and profitable, the people attach themselves to them and gossip about their ruler. So once these five have been taken into the state’s service, the fields go to waste and the army is weak. (For “recluse scholars” our text has a miswritten character; corrected from the Siku edition.)

The talker’s capital is in his mouth; the recluse’s in his notions; the bravo’s in his temper; the craftsman’s in his hands; the merchant’s in his own person. So the whole world is one lodging to them, and their capital is coiled about their own bodies. With their capital worth more than their household, they lean for support on powers abroad. Men carrying so heavy a capital and caring only for their own house were more than Yao and Shun could manage; therefore Tang and Wu forbade them, and their work stood and their names were made. (This is the ground of the whole prohibition: land cannot be carried away, men can.)

The sage does not use what his age finds easy to overcome what it finds hard; he uses what it finds hard to overcome what it finds easy. So where the people are simple, wit can overcome them; where the age is clever, force must. Where the people are simple, they find exertion easy and contrivance hard; where the age is clever, it finds wit easy and exertion hard. Therefore Shen Nong taught ploughing and ruled the world, taking his stand on wit; Tang and Wu built up strength and subdued the lords, taking their stand on force.

Now the age is clever and the people dissolute; it is the moment to imitate Tang and Wu, and instead they do what Shen Nong did, setting up prohibitions in step with the vulgar; and so states of a thousand chariots are in confusion. Here is the error in what they take pains over. (The Siku edition reads “imitate” with a different character.)

It is human nature to measure and take the longer, to weigh and take the heavier, to reckon and look for the profit. Let an enlightened ruler observe these three carefully, and order in the state can be established and the capacity of the people got at. What the state asks of its people is little, and the ways the people have of dodging the demand are many. At home make them attach themselves to agriculture; abroad make them single-minded in war.

Therefore in the sage’s government there are many prohibitions to stop up their abilities, and reliance on labour service to exhaust their deceits; and with both used single-mindedly the people within the borders become single. Single, they farm; farming, they are plain; plain, they settle down and dislike leaving home. Therefore the sage in governing a state has the people’s capital stored in the soil, so that to put their fortunes abroad is only dangerous. Capital in the soil makes them plain; fortunes abroad make them confused. (Our text has a miswritten character for “deceit,” here and below; corrected from the Siku edition.)

The people at home are plain and abroad are confused, and so they work hard at farming and stand firm in war. Working hard at farming, their capital is heavy; standing firm in war, their neighbours are endangered. Capital heavy, they cannot shoulder it and run; neighbours endangered, no one will go over to a place with no capital. To go into danger and place one’s fortunes abroad is what not even a madman would do.

Therefore the sage in governing a state looks at the customs before he makes the law, and so he governs; he examines the state and grasps its root, and so what he does is fitting. Not to look at the customs of the time, not to examine the root of the state, and his law stands while the people are disordered, his business grows heavy while his results are few. This is what I call error.

Punishment is the means of prohibiting wickedness; reward is the means of supporting the prohibition. Shame and hardship are what the people hate; distinction and ease are what they strive for. So if a state’s punishments are not to be feared and its ranks and salaries not worth striving for, that is the mark of a state on the way to ruin.

When men who have been punished slip through the net again, the mean sort run loose and make light of punishment, and take their chances between the people and the ruler above. Taking their chances in the hope of gain, and there being more than one road to distinction, the gentleman attaches himself to the powerful to make his name. The mean sort not avoiding prohibitions, punishments multiply; the gentleman not keeping the ordinances, penalties are always in use. Punishments many and penalties always in use, and the state has much crookedness.

Much crookedness, and the rich cannot keep their property and the poor cannot follow their calling; the fields go to waste and the state grows poor. The fields waste, the people grow deceitful; the state poor, the ruler runs short of rewards. Therefore in the sage’s government a man who has been punished gets no place in the state and a man who has been mutilated gets no office. If the punished still stand in the ranks, the gentleman lowers his own station; if the mutilated wear silk and eat meat, the mean sort look greedily for the same.

The gentleman lowering his station, he comes to be ashamed of merit; the mean sort looking for the same, they boast of their crookedness. Punishment and mutilation are the means of stopping crookedness; office and rank are the means of encouraging merit. Now a state sets up ranks and the people are ashamed of them, institutes punishments and the people make light of them: this is a disease of law and method. Therefore the gentleman grasps the handle of power and unifies the government in order to establish his method, sets up offices and honours ranks so that they match, and appoints men by their labour and merit; and so the scales of high and low are level. The scales level, the minister can use all his strength and the ruler can hold the handle to himself.

7. Opening What Is Blocked開塞第七

Sima Qian names this chapter: “I have read Lord Shang’s books Opening What Is Blocked and Farming and War.” It begins with a three-stage history — high antiquity loved kin and self, middle antiquity honoured the worthy and delighted in humanity, the recent age honours the noble and respects office — each stage arriving because the one before had run itself out. From this comes the central claim of the whole book: “what I call punishment is the root of right; what the world calls right is the road to violence.” Its slogan is the last four words: use punishment to do away with punishment.

Heaven and earth were set up and mankind was born into them. In that time men knew their mothers and not their fathers, and their way was to love their kin and to love what was their own. Loving kin means making distinctions; loving one’s own means crookedness. With men grown numerous and all bent on distinctions and crookedness, there was disorder. In that time men strove to overcome and used force upon one another. Striving to overcome, they quarrelled; using force, they went to law; and going to law with no one to set things straight, none of them could live as they should. Therefore the worthy set up impartiality and instituted the absence of private interest, and the people delighted in humanity.

In that time the love of kin fell away and the honouring of the worthy was established. Now men of humanity make loving and benefiting their business, and the worthy make outdoing one another their road. With men grown numerous and no regulation, and outdoing one another the road for a long time, there was disorder again. So the sage took it in hand and made divisions of land, goods and women. Divisions made with no regulation would not do, and so prohibitions were set up. Prohibitions set up with no one in charge would not do, and so officials were set up. Officials set up with no one to unify them would not do, and so a ruler was set up. Once the ruler was set up, the honouring of the worthy fell away and the honouring of the noble was established.

So high antiquity loved kin and loved its own; middle antiquity honoured the worthy and delighted in humanity; the recent age honours the noble and respects office. Honouring the worthy means outdoing one another by one’s surplus; setting up a ruler means making worth of no use. Loving kin means taking private interest as one’s road; setting up impartiality means making private interest impracticable. These three are not opposed as policies: it is that the people’s road had worn out and what they valued changed; the affairs of the age altered and the road men walked was different. Hence it is said: the kingly way has a measuring line. (The “line” is the carpenter’s inked string, a standard that does not move. This sentence is the hinge of the chapter and the point where the book’s view of history comes to rest.)

The kingly way is one thing and the ministerial way another; the roads differ but the measuring line is one. Hence it is said: where the people are simple, wit can make one king; where the age is clever, force can. Where the people are simple, there is strength to spare and wit lacking; where the age is clever, there is contrivance to spare and strength lacking. It is the nature of men to learn when they do not know, and to submit when their strength is spent. Therefore Shen Nong taught ploughing and ruled the world, taking his stand on wit; Tang and Wu built up strength and subdued the lords, taking their stand on force.

Where the people are simple, it is because they carry no knowledge within them that they ask; where the age is clever, it is because they have no strength left that they submit. Therefore he who rules the world by love sets punishment aside, and he who subdues the lords by force puts virtue in the second place. The sage neither copies antiquity nor keeps to the present. Copy antiquity, and you fall behind the times; keep to the present, and you are blocked by the situation. Zhou did not copy Shang, nor Xia copy Yu; the three dynasties had different situations and all could rule as kings. (“Sets punishment aside” — literally puts it away.)

So there is a way of rising to kingship and another principle for holding it. King Wu took the throne by rebellion and then honoured obedience; he fought for the empire and then exalted yielding. He took it by force and held it by right. Now the strong states are busy with annexation and the weak with defending themselves by force; above, they fall short of the age of Yu and Xia, and below, they will not walk the road of Tang and Wu. The road of Tang and Wu being blocked, every state of ten thousand chariots is at war and every state of a thousand chariots on the defensive. This road has been blocked a long time and no ruler of the age has been able to open it; and so the three dynasties have had no fourth. Only an enlightened ruler can listen to this, and today I would open it up with an argument from results. (The title of the chapter comes from here.)

The men of old were simple and honest; the men of today are clever and false. Therefore to take antiquity as the model is to govern by putting virtue first; to take the present as the model is to put punishment first and use law. It is just here that the world is confused.

What the world today calls right is to set up what the people like and to abolish what they hate; what it calls wrong is to set up what they hate and to abolish what they enjoy. In these two, name and reality have changed places, and the thing must be looked into. Set up what the people enjoy, and they will suffer from what they hate; set up what they hate, and they will rest in what they enjoy.

How do we know it? When the people have trouble they think; thinking, they come out with a measured judgement. When they are merry they run loose; running loose, they grow idle. Therefore govern by punishment and the people stand in awe; standing in awe, there is no crookedness; no crookedness, and the people rest in what they enjoy. Instruct them by right and they grow unrestrained; unrestrained, there is disorder; and in disorder the people suffer from what they hate. What I call punishment is the root of right; what the world calls right is the road to violence. In setting men straight: begin from what they hate, and you will end in what they like; begin from what they like, and you will wreck them upon what they hate.

A well-governed state has many punishments and few rewards; a disordered state has many rewards and few punishments. Therefore a true king punishes nine and rewards one; a state in decline rewards nine and punishes one. Faults are heavy or slight, and so punishments are heavy or light; good deeds are large or small, and so rewards are many or few. These two are in common use in the world.

Where punishment is applied only after the offence is complete, crookedness is not got rid of; where reward is bestowed on those the people call righteous, faults are not stopped. Punishment that cannot get rid of crookedness and reward that cannot stop faults mean certain disorder. Therefore a true king applies punishment to the fault that is about to be committed, and great wickedness does not arise; he bestows reward on the reporting of crookedness, and the least fault does not escape. To govern the people so that great wickedness does not arise and the least fault does not escape is to have the state in order, and a state in order is surely strong.

Let one state practise it, and it alone is well governed within its borders; let two states practise it, and war will be a little stilled; let the whole world practise it, and the highest virtue is restored. This is my proof that punishment reverts to virtue, and that what is called right consorts with violence.

In antiquity men lived crowded together and in disorderly herds, and therefore asked for someone above them. The world’s pleasure in having someone above it was for the sake of order. Now to have a ruler and no law is as harmful as having no ruler; to have law that cannot master disorder is the same as having none. The world is not content to be without a ruler and yet delights in getting the better of his law: at this the whole age is confused.

Of all the ways of benefiting the people of the world, none is greater than order; and for order nothing is safer than setting up a ruler; and for setting up a ruler no road is broader than giving the law the mastery; and for giving the law the mastery nothing is more urgent than getting rid of crookedness; and for getting rid of crookedness nothing goes deeper than severe punishment. Therefore a true king prohibits by reward and encourages by punishment; he looks for faults and not for virtues, and uses punishment to do away with punishment.

Scroll Three

Seven chapters, the shortest and densest scroll in the book. One Thing Only and Setting the Law in Place carry on with institutions and with ranks and salaries; The Method of War, Establishing the Root and Holding a City are military — and the last of these is remarkable, dividing a besieged town into three armies of able-bodied men, able-bodied women, and the old and weak. Tightening the Orders and Keeping the Handle come back to law itself: law, good faith and positional power, of which the first two belong to ruler and minister together and the third to the ruler alone. This scroll is the most damaged in transmission; Establishing the Root in particular is barely readable, and the old commentators leave much of it open.

8. One Thing Only壹言第八

“One” is this book’s key word, and here is the chapter about it. It opens with four things that must not be neglected: institutions must suit the time, the method of government must be careful, the state’s business must be single, and the root of things must be balled up. Its middle section gives a pair of terms — balling up strength and spending strength: strength is hoarded in order to enrich the state and strengthen the army, and spent in order to fight the enemy and encourage farming. Able to hoard but not to spend, and there is surely disorder; able to spend but not to hoard, and there is surely ruin.

Whenever a state is to be founded, its institutions must suit the time, its method of government must be careful, its business must be attended to, and the root of things must be balled up. Institutions suiting the time, the customs of the state can be changed and the people follow the system; the method of government clear, the officials are not crooked; the state’s business single, the people can be put to use; the root balled up, the people take pleasure in farming and delight in war.

That the sage makes law and changes custom so as to keep the people at their farming from morning to night is a thing that must be understood. That the people set to work and die for the ordinances is because the ruler has established honour and fame and made rewards and punishments plain. With no need of disputation or of private patrons, merit is achieved; and so the people take pleasure in farming and delight in war.

Seeing that the ruler honours the men of farming and war and puts down the disputers and the craftsmen and holds the travelling students cheap, the people attend to one occupation; and their households are certain to grow rich and they themselves to be distinguished in the state. The ruler opens the channels of public profit and blocks the private doors, and so draws in the people’s strength; private services win no distinction in the state, and the private houses make no requests of the ruler. In such a case merit and fame are a spur, the ruler’s orders are carried out and the waste land opened, the dissolute are stopped and crookedness does not sprout. A state that can ball up the people’s strength and make their business single is strong; one that can attend to the root and forbid the branches is rich.

The sage in governing a state can ball up strength and can spend it. Institutions being scrutinised, the people’s strength is balled up; balled up and not set flowing, it does not move; moving without bringing wealth, it breeds disorder. Therefore he who governs balls up strength in order to enrich the state and strengthen the army, and spends it in order to deal with the enemy and encourage agriculture. (“Spend” here is to expend or draw down, not to kill.)

Open and do not block, and length turns to shortness; grown long and not used in attack, there is crookedness; block and do not open, and the people are in a fog; in a fog and not used, their strength is excessive; strength excessive and not used in attack, there are lice. Therefore strength is balled up in order to make the business single, and spent in order to attack the enemy. (This passage is defective in all editions and the old commentaries leave it open.)

In governing a state it is best that the people be single; single, they are plain; plain, they farm; farming, they are easily made diligent; diligent, they grow rich. Let the rich spend their wealth on rank and they are not dissolute; let the dissolute spend theirs on punishment and they attend to farming. Therefore he who can ball up strength but cannot use it will surely have disorder; he who can spend strength but cannot ball it up will surely come to ruin. So the enlightened ruler who knows how to balance the two has a strong state, and he who does not has a state that is dismembered. (“Spend their wealth on rank” means buying rank with grain — the system of Getting Rid of Strength.)

That the people are not governed is because the ruler’s way is low; that the law is not clear is because the ruler himself fosters disorder. Therefore the enlightened ruler does not walk a low road nor foster disorder: he takes his stand holding the handle of power, hands down the law and governs by it, detects crookedness from above so that no office falls short, settles reward and punishment, and keeps measures for the use of things. In such a case the state’s institutions are clear, the people’s strength is used to the full, ranks above are honourable, and the right sort of men are brought forward. (There is a lacuna after “no office falls short”; “the right sort of men” renders a term old commentators explain as “men of one’s own kind.”)

Now the rulers of this age all wish to govern the people and end by helping the disorder along — not that they enjoy disorder, but that they rest in the old ways and never glance at the times. So above they copy antiquity and get nothing but a blockage; below they keep to the present and do not move with the times; not understanding that the customs of the age have changed and not examining the real state of the people, they give many rewards and so bring on punishments, and lighten punishments and so make rewards useless.

The ruler sets up punishments and the people do not submit; his rewards run out and crookedness increases. Therefore the ruler’s dealing with the people puts punishment first and reward after. So the sage in governing a state neither copies antiquity nor keeps to the present: he frames his government according to the age and makes his law by measuring the customs. Law made without examining the real state of the people does not succeed; government suited to the time and then carried out meets no resistance. Therefore the sage-king’s government is nothing but careful attention to what matters, and turning the heart to the one thing.

9. Setting the Law in Place錯法第九

The title word means to put down, to install. The chapter argues one thing: ranks and salaries are the substance of an army, and therefore the road by which they are issued is the mechanism of survival or ruin. It closes with a comparison — Li Zhu’s eyesight and Wu Huo’s strength: neither man could hand his gift to anyone else. Only law can be handed on. This is where the school parts company with the doctrine of promoting the worthy.

I have heard that under the enlightened rulers of old the law was set in place and the people were not crooked; enterprises were taken in hand and men of ability sorted themselves out; rewards were given and the army was strong. These three are the root of good government. That the law was set in place and the people were not crooked is because the law was clear and the people found their profit in it. That enterprises were taken in hand and men of ability sorted themselves out is because the shares of merit were clear; the shares clear, the people use all their strength; using all their strength, the able sort themselves out. That rewards were given and the army was strong refers to ranks and salaries; and ranks and salaries are the substance of an army.

Therefore when a ruler issues ranks and salaries, let the road be clear; the road clear, and the state grows stronger by the day; the road obscure, and it grows weaker by the day. So the road by which ranks and salaries are issued is the mechanism of survival and ruin. States that are dismembered and rulers who perish are not without ranks and salaries: the road by which they issue them is wrong. The Three Kings and the Five Hegemons had nothing to issue but ranks and salaries, and their achievements differ by ten thousand times, because their road was clear.

Therefore when an enlightened ruler employs his ministers, appointment always issues from their labour and reward is always attached to their merit. Merit and reward being clear, the people compete in merit. In governing a state, if you can make the people use all their strength in competing for merit, the army is bound to be strong.

That men of the same standing become the servants of one another is a matter of rich and poor; that states of equal substance swallow one another is a matter of strong and weak; that rulers with land are some strong and some weak is a matter of order and disorder. Given roads and distances and land enough to stand on, gentlemen and commoners can be attracted; given room for a market, goods and money can be gathered. He who has land cannot be called poor; he who has people cannot be called weak. If the land is really used, there is no fear of poverty; if the people are really employed, there is no fear of violence.

Where virtue is clear and instruction carried out, one can make what the people have serve one’s own purpose. Therefore the enlightened ruler uses what is not his and employs men who are not his own. What he values is only this: that rank should have substance, and having substance should be made glorious. Not glorious, men are not eager for it; if the rank in the list is not conspicuous, the people will not serve for a rank. If rank is easily had, the people do not prize the rank the ruler gives. If ranks, salaries and rewards do not issue from that one door, the people will not fight to the death for a place. (“Rank with substance” means the fields, dependants and remission of penalties attached to each grade — see Within the Borders.)

Human nature has its likes and dislikes, and so the people can be governed. The ruler must examine likes and dislikes, for they are the root of reward and punishment. It is human nature to like ranks and salaries and to hate punishment; the ruler sets up the two in order to drive the people’s will, and so establishes what he wants. When a man has used all his strength, rank follows; when he has done a deed, reward follows; and when a ruler can make his people believe in this as they believe in sun and moon, his army is without a match.

There are rulers whose ranks are issued and whose armies are weak, whose salaries are issued and whose states are poor, whose law is established and whose government is disordered: these three are the afflictions of a state. If a ruler puts private requests first and labour and strength second, ranks are issued and the army is weak; if the people can get salary and profit without facing death and danger, salaries are issued and the state is poor; if the law has no measured standard and business grows daily more vexatious, the law is established and government is disordered. (“Private requests” are backstairs solicitations.)

Therefore when an enlightened ruler employs his people he makes them use all their strength to seek their own merit, and when merit stands, wealth and honour follow, with no private favour in the matter; and so the work of instruction is accomplished. In such a case ministers are loyal, the ruler enlightened, government conspicuous and the army strong.

So the government of every enlightened ruler relies on men’s strength and not on their virtue, and therefore without worry or toil his achievements stand. Measures being established, the law can be maintained. Therefore a ruler cannot but be careful of himself. Li Zhu could see the tip of an autumn hair a hundred paces off and could not give his eyes to another; Wu Huo could lift a thousand jun and could not give his strength to another. What the sage has by nature he cannot hand on to another; and yet achievement can be got, and that is what law means. (Li Zhu, also called Li Lou, is the proverbially sharp-eyed man of the Mencius; Wu Huo was a strong man at the court of King Wu of Qin. Our text has a miswritten character for “paces,” here corrected.)

10. The Method of War戰法第十

A short piece on war. The first sentence sets the key: every method of war rests on winning first in government. In the middle it quotes an “art of war” to the effect that after a great victory one pursues no more than ten li, after a small one no more than five — restraint in pursuit was standard doctrine. It ends with the road to defeat: a deep thrust with no support, ravines at your back and the passes cut, men tired and thirsty, and sickness on top of that. The last line likens commanding troops to driving a good horse: it must be done evenly.

Every method of war rests on winning first in government, and then the people do not quarrel among themselves; not quarrelling, they have no notions of their own but take the ruler’s mind for their own. Therefore the government of a true king makes the people timid about brawling in their villages and bold in fighting the enemy. The people, used to attacking hard things with their strength, hold death cheap; they see the enemy as a bursting dyke and do not stop, and so they come off safe. Hence the art of war: after a great victory pursue the beaten no more than ten li; after a small victory no more than five. (The “art of war” quoted here is not found in any surviving military book.)

When the army moves, take the measure of the enemy. If his government is better than yours, do not fight him; if his food is better than yours, do not let it drag on; if his numbers are greater, do not be the invader; if he is inferior in everything, attack him without hesitation. Hence it is said: the great rule of war is caution. Assess the enemy and examine the numbers, and victory or defeat can be known beforehand.

The army of a true king does not grow proud when it wins nor resentful when it loses. It is not proud because its method is clear; it is not resentful because it knows where it went wrong. If the two forces are evenly matched, a good general wins and a poor one loses. But if the policy comes out of the reckonings made in the ancestral temple, a good general wins and a poor one wins too. Government that holds fast to the method of victory for a long time is surely strong and comes to kingship. (“The reckonings made in the ancestral temple” is a phrase from the Sunzi.)

If the people submit and obey their superiors, the state is rich and the army wins; do this and you will surely be king for long. Its faults are these: to push deep in the belief that there is no enemy, with ravines at your back and the passes cut, the men tired, hungry and thirsty, and sickness besides — that is the road to defeat. Therefore a general handling troops is like a man driving a good horse: it cannot be done unevenly.

11. Establishing the Root立本第十一

The shortest chapter in the book and the hardest to read; the text is badly damaged. Its point is that victory has three grades: set the law in place before the army moves; let custom form out of the law; let supply follow from the custom. All three must be done inside the borders before the army can go out. Conversely, to trust in numbers, in fine equipment, or in reputation is to trust in nothing. The close winds order, strength and wealth into a ring: the strong must be well governed, the well governed must be rich, the rich must be strong.

In using an army, victory has three grades: before the army moves, set the law in place; the law set in place, custom forms; custom formed, supply is complete. These three must be carried out inside the borders, and only then may the army go out. To carry out the three there are two kinds of positional advantage: first, that something supports the law so that the law is carried out; second, that measures are certain to be apt so that the law stands.

Therefore to trust in numbers is called thatching over; to trust in fine equipment is called contrivance; to trust in reputation is called deceit. Trust in any one of the three and your army can be taken captive. Hence it is said: the strong are sure to harden their men’s will to fight; fighting, they use all their strength; using all their strength, they are complete. And so they are without a match in the world. (“Thatching over” is old commentary for covering a thing on the outside; some read it as “gathering.” Our text has a miswritten character for “deceit,” here corrected.)

Government carried out, and goods accumulate; goods accumulated, and rewards can be made heavy. Reward issuing from one place, and rank is honourable; rank honourable, and reward is really worth having. Hence it is said: an army arises out of good government and yet takes many forms; custom arises out of law and yet turns a thousand ways; the mastery of a situation has its root in men’s hearts and its outward dress in a completed array. These three have each their own account, and so strength can be established. (This passage is the most corrupt in the book; from “the mastery of a situation” onward the old commentaries give no settled reading, and none is forced here.)

Therefore the strong are surely well governed and the well governed surely strong; the rich are surely well governed and the well governed surely rich; the strong are surely rich and the rich surely strong. Hence it is said: the way of order and strength is three, and all three speak of one root.

12. Holding a City兵守第十二

The only chapter in the book given wholly to defence, and one of the few passages on siege defence anywhere in early Chinese writing. It divides a besieged town into three armies: the able-bodied men drawn up to meet the attack; the able-bodied women carrying earth for ramparts, cutting timber for palisades, digging pits, pulling down bridges and houses; the old and weak herding the cattle and gathering whatever grass and water can be eaten. The last provision is the striking one: the three armies are on no account to meet. Men who see women lose their edge; the strong who see the old and weak are moved to pity, and pity makes the brave think twice and the timid refuse to fight.

A state with enemies on four sides must prize defensive war; a state with the sea at its back may prize offensive war. A state with enemies on four sides that is fond of raising armies to fend off its four neighbours is in danger: let the four neighbours each start something once, and it must put four armies in the field. A state with enemies on four sides that cannot quarter an army of a hundred thousand in a town of ten thousand households is in danger. Hence it is said: a state with enemies on four sides must make defence its business.

In holding a walled town it is better to use the strength of the dead against the living strength of the besieger. What makes the wall hard to take is the strength of the dead: unless the besieger levels the wall he has no way in — this is using the strength of the dead against his living strength. Once the wall is levelled and the besieger does get in, he is bound to be exhausted and the men inside still fresh. To meet exhausted strength with fresh is what is meant by using the strength of the living against the besieger’s dead strength. Men all say that the trouble with a siege is that not everyone will die for the town. But in none of these three cases is the trouble insufficient strength: it is the general’s fault. (“The strength of the dead” is the wall and ditch — the labour of men now gone, set hard in the ground.)

The way of defending a city is to make one’s strength abundant. Hence it is said: when the enemy arrives, put the registers and the orders in order and divide the whole town into three armies, apportioned against the number of the enemy’s scouting chariots. The three armies are these: the able-bodied men one army, the able-bodied women one army, and the old and weak of both sexes one army. That is what is meant by three armies. (The wording of this passage varies in every edition.)

The army of able-bodied men is to be well fed and its weapons sharpened, and it is to be drawn up to await the enemy. The army of able-bodied women is to be well fed and to carry earth for the ramparts and be drawn up to await orders; when the enemy comes they are to throw up earthworks for obstacles, set timber palisades and dig pitfalls, take down the bridges and pull down the houses, carrying off what can be carried and burning what cannot, so that the enemy gets nothing to help him in the attack. The army of the old and weak is to herd the oxen, horses, sheep and pigs, and to gather and use whatever in grass and water is fit to eat, so as to save the food of the able-bodied men and women.

And great care must be taken that the three armies do not visit one another. If the able-bodied men go over to the women’s army, the men will set store by the women and the lawless will have their chance to conspire, and the state will be lost; gladness and fear spread, news gets abroad early, and the brave will not fight. If the able-bodied men and women go over to the army of the old and weak, the old make the strong sorrowful and the weak make the strong pitiful; and with sorrow and pity in their hearts the brave will think again and the timid will not fight. Hence it is said: take care that the three armies do not visit one another. This is the way to make one’s strength abundant. (This passage too is defective; the clause about gladness and fear has never been satisfactorily explained.)

13. Tightening the Orders靳令第十三

To tighten is to draw the rein. The chapter gathers several of the book’s most quoted sentences: “where profit issues from one hole the state has no match; from two holes, it gets half the benefit; from ten holes, it cannot hold itself together”; “govern by punishment, drive to war by reward, look for faults and not for virtues”; and the roster of the six lice — rites and music, Odes and Documents, cultivation and goodness, filial piety and brotherliness, sincerity and good faith, chastity and integrity, humanity and right, opposition to war, shame at fighting. The text then calls them “the twelve,” and the count does not fit what is listed: an old corruption that has never been mended.

Tighten the orders and government does not lag; keep the law level and the officials are not crooked. Once the law is fixed, do not let fine words damage it. Appoint by merit and the people say little; appoint by “goodness” and the people say much. The carrying out of law turns on deciding: where a case is decided within five li one rules as king; within ten li one is strong; left overnight, one is dismembered. Govern by punishment, drive to war by reward. Look for faults, not for virtues. (The title word is properly the strap that holds a horse in harness; hence restraint.)

Therefore where the law stands and is not altered, the people’s tricks come to light and their schemes are stopped; schemes stopped, ranks are orderly and duties distinct, and the high ranks and fat salaries of the hundred officials must be earned. A state with no crooked people has no crooked market in its capital. Where goods are many and the branch occupations crowded, farming slackens and crookedness prevails, and the state is surely dismembered. When the people have grain to spare, let them buy office and rank with grain. Office and rank being had by a man’s own exertion, farming does not slacken. (This passage is the most corrupt in the chapter and the old commentaries disagree throughout.)

A tube four inches long with no bottom to it can never be filled. To give office, rank and salary otherwise than for merit is to have no bottom. A state poor but bent on war pours its poison into the enemy, has none of the six lice, and is surely strong; a state rich but not at war lives softly at home, has the six lice, and is surely weak.

Where a state gives office and rank for merit, that is called using the full measure of wit in planning and the full measure of courage in war; and a state that uses the full measure of both is bound to be without a match. Where a state gives office and rank for merit, government is spare and words are few — that is called using law to do away with law and words to do away with words. Where a state gives office and rank for the six lice, government is vexatious and words breed — that is called using law to generate law and words to generate words. Then the ruler busies himself with fine speeches, the officials are in confusion over crooked business, crooked ministers get their way and men of merit are pushed out day by day; and this is called losing one’s hold. Hold to the ten and there is disorder; hold to the one and there is order. Once the law is fixed, a man who is still fond of the six lice comes to ruin.

When all the people farm, the state is rich; when the six lice are not employed, soldiers and people alike vie in diligence and are glad to be used by the ruler, and the people within the borders compete for the honour of it and none thinks it a disgrace. Next best is that they be spurred by reward and checked by punishment; worst, that they detest it, worry over it and are ashamed of it. To dress oneself up and live by talking, to be ashamed of poverty and cultivate foreign connections, and so to dodge farming and war — and to hold foreign connections in reserve — is the danger of a state. To have men starve and freeze and die rather than fight for the sake of profit and salary is the custom of a state on the way to ruin.

The six lice are: rites and music; the Odes and the Documents; cultivation and goodness; filial piety and brotherliness; sincerity and good faith; chastity and integrity; humanity and right; opposition to war; shame at fighting. Where a state has these twelve, the ruler cannot get men to farm and fight, and it will surely be impoverished and dismembered. When the twelve flock together, it means that the ruler’s government cannot master his ministers and the officials’ government cannot master the people; this is what is meant by the six lice mastering the government. When the twelve have taken root, dismemberment is certain. (Nine items are listed and the text speaks of six lice and of twelve; the numbers have never been reconciled — one old suggestion is to count each of the paired words separately, which gives sixteen and still does not fit. This is the most famous corruption in the book.)

Therefore a rising state does not use the twelve, and so it has much strength and nothing in the world can trespass upon it. When its army goes out it surely takes what it attacks, and holds what it takes; when it holds its hand and does not attack, it surely grows rich. The officials at court do not tear one another down when they are few nor thin their own ranks when they are many. Office and rank are got by producing results, and though a man have a fine tongue he cannot interfere with it. This is what is meant by governing by measure.

He who attacks with strength spends one and takes ten; he who attacks with words spends ten and loses a hundred. A state fond of strength attacks with what is hard; a state fond of words attacks with what is easy. Heavy punishment and little reward mean that the ruler loves his people, and they will die for him; heavy reward and light punishment mean that he does not, and they will not. Where profit issues from one hole, the state has no match; from two holes, it gets half the benefit; from ten holes, it cannot hold itself together. (“Profit from one hole” is the most quoted sentence in the book.)

Use heavy punishment to make the great institutions plain; what is not plain is the six lice. When the six lice flock together, the people cannot be used. Therefore in a rising state, when punishment is carried out the people feel close to the ruler, and when reward is carried out they find their profit in it. In carrying out punishment be heavy on the light offences: the light do not come and the heavy do not come either — this is called using punishment to do away with punishment, and punishment falls away while business succeeds. Where the offence is heavy and the punishment light, punishment goes on and trouble breeds — this is called using punishment to generate punishment, and such a state is surely dismembered.

The sage ruler knows what matters in things, and so in governing the people he holds to the one thing that matters. Therefore to grasp reward and punishment and with them support humanity single-mindedly is the way to keep hold of men’s hearts. The sage ruler in governing men must win their hearts, and so he can use their strength. Strength breeds power, power breeds authority, authority breeds virtue — and virtue is born of strength. This the sage ruler has to himself, and so he can set out humanity and right before the world. (The last sentence seems to contradict “look for faults, not for virtues,” but it is the doctrine of Opening What Is Blocked: humanity is a result, not a means.)

14. Keeping the Handle修權第十四

Three pillars: law, good faith, and positional power. Law and good faith are held by ruler and minister together; power is the ruler’s alone. The best passage compares law to the balance and the foot-rule: the former kings hung up scales and laid down measures, and we use them to this day because they are definite; a man who throws away the scales and judges weight by eye, however sharp his eye, will not be trusted by a shopkeeper, because he is not certain. It ends with a proverb — where the borers are many the timber snaps, where the crack is wide the wall falls — and calls ministers who scheme for themselves the crack, and officials who fleece the people the borers.

There are three things by which a state is governed: the first is law, the second is good faith, the third is power. Law is what ruler and minister hold in common; good faith is what ruler and minister establish together; power is what the ruler alone controls. If the ruler loses what he should keep, there is danger; if ruler and minister let go of law and act on private motives, there is bound to be disorder. Therefore where the law is established and the divisions are clear, and private interest is not allowed to injure the law, there is order; where the control of power is decided by the ruler alone, there is authority; when the people believe in his rewards, deeds are accomplished; when they believe in his punishments, crookedness has nowhere to begin.

Only an enlightened ruler cherishes power and values good faith and does not let private interest injure the law. If the ruler makes many kind speeches and is stingy with the reward, those below will not serve him; if he issues stern orders again and again and never carries the punishment through, the people will treat crime lightly. Reward is the civil side and punishment the martial; and the civil and the martial together are the essentials of law. Therefore the enlightened ruler is careful of the law. Not to be blinded is what is called enlightenment; not to be deceived is what is called discernment. So rewards are generous and really profitable, punishments are heavy and certain; the distant are not overlooked and the near are not favoured; and so ministers do not blind their ruler and those below do not deceive those above. (Our text writes “profit is the martial side”; corrected to “punishment,” as the following clause requires.)

Those who govern in this age mostly let go of law and act on private opinion, and that is why states fall into disorder. The former kings hung up the scales and laid down the foot and the inch, and they are the standard to this day, because they are definite. To throw away the scales and decide weight, to discard the foot and the inch and guess at length — however sharp a man’s eye, a merchant will not employ him, because he is not certain. So law is the scales of a state; and to turn one’s back on law and measure and act on private opinion is to fail to reason by likeness. (“Certain” — a thing being fixed and not to be moved — is this school’s central demand upon law.)

There was only one man, Yao, who could judge wit and ability, worth and unworthiness without the law; and not everyone in the world is a Yao. Therefore the former kings, knowing that private judgement and private praise were not to be relied on, established the law and made the divisions clear, rewarding those who came up to the standard and punishing those who damaged the public interest. The rules of reward and punishment not losing their measure, the people do not quarrel. Where office and rank are given without regard to a man’s labour, loyal ministers do not come forward; where rewards and salaries do not match a man’s merit, soldiers cannot be used.

In serving a ruler, ministers mostly serve him with what he likes. If the ruler likes law, they serve him with law; if he likes words, they serve him with words. If he likes law, upright men stand before him; if he likes words, men who deal in praise and blame stand at his side. Where public and private are clearly divided, small men do not envy the worthy and the unworthy do not grudge another man’s merit.

When Yao and Shun occupied the throne of the world it was not that they took the profit of the world for their own: they held the throne for the sake of the world. They discussed the worthy, raised up the able and handed it on — not because they were cold to their own sons and warm to a man from Yue, but because they understood the way of order and disorder. Therefore the Three Kings drew the world to them by right and the Five Hegemons set the lords straight by law, and none of them took the profit of the world for his own: they governed the world for the world’s sake. And so they had the name to themselves and the achievement with it, and the world was glad of their rule and no one could do them harm. (Yue stood for the most distant stranger; the point is that Yao and Shun passed over their own sons without disliking them.)

Now the rulers and ministers of a disordered age, each on his own small scale, would monopolise the profit of a whole state and hold the weight of a whole office in order to serve his private ends; and this is why the state is in danger. Therefore the meeting-place of public and private is the root of survival and ruin.

Throw away the law and measure and be fond of private opinion, and crooked ministers sell power to buy salary, and officials in post hide things from above and fish the people below. The proverb says: where the borers are many the timber snaps; where the crack is wide the wall falls. So when great ministers scramble for their own and take no thought for the people, those below are estranged from those above; and estrangement below is the crack in a state. Officials in post who hide from above and fish the people are the borers in the people. A state with both crack and borers that does not perish is a rare thing in the world. Therefore the enlightened ruler trusts to law and puts private interest away, and his state has neither crack nor borers.

Scroll Four

Four titles, one of them — Bond of Punishment — with nothing under it. Bringing the People In reads more like an actual memorial than anything else in the book, and it is the key to the book’s date: it mentions the battle of Changping, fought in 260 BC, whereas Shang Yang died in 338 BC, nearly eighty years earlier. Internal evidence of this kind is the main support for the Qing catalogue’s verdict that later legalists “gathered up what Yang had left behind.” Reward and Punishment sets out the three unities and contains the phrase “punishment knows no degree.” Drawing Up Plans runs from high antiquity to the present and is the book’s summing-up.

15. Bringing the People In徠民第十五

A scheme for attracting immigrants, argued on very practical grounds: Qin has broad land and few people, while the Three Jin — Han, Zhao and Wei — have crowded land and a populace with no fields or houses. Give them fields and houses and exempt them from service for three generations, and the people east of the mountains will come west. Then the old Qin population can do the fighting and the newcomers the farming, and “wealth and strength are both achieved.” The phrases “the Three Jin have not beaten Qin for four generations” and “the victory at Changping” place the composition some eighty years after Shang Yang’s death — the hardest piece of evidence about the authorship of this book.

In a hundred square li of land: hills take a tenth, marshes a tenth, valleys and running water a tenth, towns and roads a tenth, poor fields two tenths, good fields four tenths; on this reckoning it will feed fifty thousand working men. Its hills, marshes and valleys supply its timber, and its towns and roads house its people. This was the rule by which the former kings regulated land and apportioned people. (The same figures stand at the head of Reckoning the Land.)

Now the land of Qin is five blocks of a thousand li square, and land fit for grain is less than two tenths of it; the number of fields does not reach a million; and the timber, goods and treasures of its marshes, valleys, famous mountains and great rivers are not fully used. Here the population does not match the land. Qin’s neighbours are the Three Jin, and those it wishes to make war on are Han and Wei.

Their land is narrow and their people many; their dwellings are crowded three together and packed side by side; their resident aliens and merchants live off them. The people have no registered standing above and no fields or houses below, and get along by crooked trades and the branch occupations. More than half of them live in caves on the sunny and shady slopes and by the waters. Their land is not enough to support their people — and the case is worse, it would seem, than Qin’s having too few people to fill its land. (“Resident aliens” are unregistered incomers; the word rendered “live in caves” is explained variously in the old commentaries.)

Guessing at what the people want, it is fields and houses; that Jin has none is certain, and that Qin has a surplus is certain too. That in spite of this the people do not come west is because Qin’s gentlemen are worn out and its common people have a hard life. I venture to think the clear-sighted men about the king have seen this wrong, and it is why Qin is not stronger. What keeps us from taking the people of the Three Jin is grudging the ranks and setting too much store by exemption from service.

Their argument runs: the Three Jin are weak because their people are bent on pleasure and their exemptions and ranks are cheaply given; Qin is strong because its people are bent on hardship and its exemptions and ranks are dearly given. To give many ranks and long exemptions now is to abandon what makes Qin strong and to do what makes the Three Jin weak. That is the argument of the king’s people who value ranks and grudge exemptions, and I venture to think it wrong.

The reason for making the people suffer and the army strong is to attack the enemy and get what one wants. The art of war says: when the enemy grows weak, the army grows strong. That is to say, we do not lose what we attack with while the enemy loses what he defends with. Now the Three Jin have not beaten Qin for four generations. Since King Xiang of Wei they have not won a battle in the field and have never held a city under siege; in engagements great and small the Three Jin have lost to Qin more than can be counted. And still they do not submit — because Qin can take their land but cannot take away their people. (King Xiang of Wei reigned 318–296 BC; the sentence is already long after Shang Yang’s death.)

Let the king now issue a plain and generous edict: that gentlemen of the other lords who come over and give in their allegiance shall be exempt from service for three generations and shall have nothing to do with military affairs; and that within the four borders of Qin, slopes, hills and low wet ground shall pay no tax for ten years — let this be entered in the statutes. Such land is enough to feed a million working men.

I said before: guessing at what the people want, it is fields and houses; that Jin has none is certain and that Qin has a surplus is certain; and that in spite of this they do not come west is because Qin’s gentlemen are worn out and its people have a hard life. Now give them the benefit of fields and houses and exempt them for three generations: this is certainly to give them what they want and not to make them do what they hate. Then there is not a man east of the mountains who will not come west. And this is only to state the case plainly; more than that — to fill the empty land, to bring out the treasures of the soil and set a million men to the root occupation — the gain is very great, and far more than merely “not losing what we attack with.” (“East of the mountains” means the six states east of Mount Xiao.)

What Qin suffers from is this: raise an army and attack, and the state grows poor; sit still and farm, and the enemy gets his breath back. The king cannot have both. That is why four generations of victories have not made the world submit. Now let the old Qin men deal with the enemy and the new people work the root occupation; then though the army camp a hundred nights abroad, not a moment of the farming season is lost within the borders. This is what it is to achieve wealth and strength together. (“Old Qin” is the original population as against the “new people.” This is the whole of the proposal.)

By “the army” I do not mean a general levy. Reckon what soldiers, chariots and cavalry the borders can furnish; let the old Qin men be the soldiers and the new people furnish the fodder and the food. If any state in the world will not submit, then with this army the king may in spring spoil his ploughing, in summer eat his grain, in autumn take his harvest, and in winter freeze his stores. Shake his foundations with the great arm of war and settle his posterity with the broad arm of civil rule. Let the king do this for ten years and the other lords will have no people of their own left; and why then should he grudge a rank or set store by an exemption?

At the victory in the Zhou country and the victory at Huayang, Qin cut off heads and sent the rest back east. That sending back was plainly of no use, and yet the officials counted it a great achievement because it reduced the enemy. Now to bring the people of the Three Jin in with land that is still under grass and set them to the root occupation reduces the enemy just as effectually as a victory in the field, and Qin gets grain out of it besides: this is a plan that works backwards and brings in two harvests. (Huayang was fought in 273 BC.)

Moreover, at the victory in the Zhou country, the victory at Huayang and the victory at Changping, how many people did Qin lose? How many of its own men and resident troops were kept from the root occupation? I venture to think it beyond counting. Suppose some minister of the king could, at half this cost, weaken Jin and strengthen Qin as much as those three victories did: the king would certainly reward him richly. What I propose costs the people not a single day’s service and the treasury not a few coppers, and it weakens Jin and strengthens Qin more than those three victories did; and if the king still thinks it will not do, then I am too dull to understand. (Changping was fought in 260 BC, when Bai Qi buried four hundred thousand Zhao soldiers alive. This sentence is the hardest evidence for the book’s date.)

There was a man of Qi called Dongguo Chang who was full of wishes and wished for ten thousand pieces of gold. His followers asked him for relief and he would not give it: “I am going to use it to buy a fief.” His followers went off in anger to Song, saying: this is of no use to what he loves; better to have given us something real. Now Jin has people and Qin grudges its exemptions: this is to cherish what is not yet yours and so to lose what might be. How does it differ from Dongguo Chang cherishing what was not his and losing his followers?

Besides, antiquity had Yao and Shun, who were praised in their own time; the middle age had Tang and Wu, whom the people obeyed while they reigned. These four are called sage-kings by ten thousand generations, and yet their ways cannot simply be taken up and used by later ages. Now grant exemption for three generations and the people of the Three Jin can be drained away. Is this not the king exerting himself in the present so that later ages may serve him? It is not telling the sage from the rest that is hard; it is listening to him. (This last sentence is defective in the old texts and is punctuated differently by different editors.)

16. Bond of Punishment刑約第十六

Lost. The old editions carry the title with no text under it.

Only the title survives. The Han bibliography lists Lord Shang in twenty-nine chapters; Chen Zhensun in the thirteenth century says “the Han list has twenty-nine, today there are twenty-eight, one has been lost,” while Chao Gongwu, writing earlier, says three had gone. The present book has twenty-six titles from Changing the Law to Fixing the Titles, of which number sixteen and number twenty-one are titles without text; the Qing catalogue points out that this is no longer the Song arrangement either. The title has been read as “the bond, or covenant, of punishment,” but with not a word of the chapter left, nothing can be settled.

17. Reward and Punishment賞刑第十七

Three unities: one reward, one punishment, one teaching. Reward issues from military merit only; punishment knows no degree; teaching has a single subject. The famous passage is the second: from chief ministers and generals down to grandees and commoners, whoever disobeys the king’s command, breaks the state’s prohibitions or disturbs the ruler’s institutions dies without pardon; an official who fails to enforce the law dies without pardon and the punishment reaches his kin to the third degree. The three historical examples are all savage: Duke Wen of Jin had Dian Jie cut in two and exposed; the Duke of Zhou put Guan Shu to death and banished Huo Shu; Tang and Wu, having broken Jie and Zhou, stacked their weapons away. The chapter closes on three parallel sentences: reward made clear comes to no reward, punishment made clear comes to no punishment, teaching made clear comes to no teaching.

The sage in governing a state has one reward, one punishment, one teaching. With one reward the army has no match; with one punishment orders are carried out; with one teaching those below obey those above. Reward made clear costs nothing, punishment made clear kills no one, teaching made clear changes nothing; the people know what their business is and the state has no divergent customs. Reward made clear to the utmost comes to no reward; punishment made clear to the utmost comes to no punishment; teaching made clear to the utmost comes to no teaching.

By one reward I mean that profit, salary, office and rank all issue from war alone, and there is no other way of conferring them. Then the wise and the foolish, the noble and the base, the brave and the timid, the worthy and the unworthy will all use to the full the wit in their breasts and the strength of their limbs, and go out to die in the ruler’s service. And the heroes and good men of the world will follow him like flowing water. So the army is without a match and the ruler’s orders are carried out throughout the world.

A state of ten thousand chariots will not dare to rest its army on the open plain; a state of a thousand chariots will not dare to defend its walls. Should a state of ten thousand chariots rest its army on the plain, the battle will overturn its host; should a state of a thousand chariots defend its walls, the assault will scale them. Overturning men’s hosts in every battle and scaling men’s walls in every assault, taking all the cities and drawing in all their inhabitants — then however generous the rewards, where is the exhaustion in it?

Of old, Tang was enfeoffed at Zanmao and King Wen at Qizhou, each a hundred li square. Tang fought Jie in the wilds of Mingtiao and King Wu fought Zhou in the plain of Muye, and they broke the nine armies and in the end divided the land and enfeoffed the lords. Every soldier who had held his place in the ranks was given the households of a village registry; the chariots were rested and no longer driven, the horses turned loose on the south slope of Mount Hua and the oxen in the marsh of Nongze, and left there to grow old and never gathered in again. Such was the reward of Tang and Wu. (A “village registry” was a group of twenty-five households whose names were written on a tablet; to be given one was to be given its people. The passage about horses and oxen is drawn from the Record of Music.)

Hence it is said: the grain of Zanmao and Qizhou, used to reward the people of the world, would not have given each man a pint; their money, used to reward the world, would not have given each man a coin. Hence it is said: a lord of a hundred li enfeoffed his ministers as feudal lords with domains larger than his own, and every soldier who had held his place in the ranks got a village registry. Why were their rewards more liberal than a turning-out of horses and oxen? Because they were good at using the goods of the world to reward the people of the world. Hence: “reward made clear costs nothing.”

When Tang and Wu had broken Jie and Zhou and there was no harm within the four seas and the world was at peace, they built the five storehouses and put away the five weapons, laid the business of war aside and set civil instruction going, carried their shields and spears reversed, tucked the tablets in their girdles and made music to set forth their virtue. At that time rewards and salaries were not handed out and the people were orderly of themselves. Hence: “reward made clear to the utmost comes to no reward.” (The five weapons are the dagger-axe, mace, halberd and the two kinds of spear; carrying arms reversed, from the Record of Music, signifies that they will not be used again.)

By one punishment I mean that punishment knows no degree. From chief ministers and generals down to grandees and common men, whoever does not obey the king’s commands, breaks the state’s prohibitions or disturbs the institutions of his ruler shall die and not be pardoned. Merit before does not lessen the punishment after; goodness before does not weaken the law after. Even loyal ministers and filial sons, if they commit a fault, must be judged according to the measure of the law. (“Punishment knows no degree” is the sentence most often quoted from this book; it stands directly against the ritual maxim that punishments do not reach up to the grandees.)

Officials whose business is to keep the law and hold their office, if they fail to carry out the king’s law, shall die and not be pardoned, and the punishment shall reach their kin to the third degree. Colleagues in the same office who know of it and report it to the ruler shall themselves go free, and, whether high or low, shall succeed to the office, rank, lands and salary of their superior. Hence it is said: make the punishment heavy and bind kinsmen into the offence, and the people dare not try it. The people not daring to try it, there is no punishment.

That the former kings forbade assassination and cut off men’s feet and branded men’s faces was not because they wished to injure the people, but in order to prohibit crookedness and stop faults. And for prohibiting crookedness and stopping faults nothing equals heavy punishment. Punishment heavy and certain to fall, and the people dare not try it; and so the state has no punished men. The state having no punished men, it is said: “punishment made clear kills no one.”

Duke Wen of Jin, wishing to make punishment plain in order to draw the people to him, assembled the lords and grandees at the palace of Shiqian. Dian Jie came late, and the officer asked what his punishment should be. The ruler said: apply the law. So the officer had Dian Jie cut through the spine and exposed. The gentlemen of Jin looked on and were all afraid, saying: Dian Jie was a favourite, and he was cut in two and exposed — what then of us? (Dian Jie had followed Duke Wen through nineteen years of exile. The Zuo Commentary gives a different reason for his death.)

Then the duke raised an army, attacked Cao and took Wulu, threw down the low walls of Zheng, turned the field-paths of Wei to the east, and beat the men of Chu at Chengpu. The soldiers of the three armies halted as though their feet had been cut off and advanced like flowing water, and not one of them dared break a prohibition. So by weighing light against heavy once upon Dian Jie’s back, the state of Jin was brought to order. (Chengpu was fought in 632 BC; turning the field-paths east made it easier for Jin chariots to enter Wei.)

Of old the Duke of Zhou put Guan Shu to death and banished Huo Shu, saying: they broke the prohibitions. And the whole world said: if he does not spare his own brothers when they offend, what of men further off? So the world learned that knife and saw were used in the halls of Zhou, and all within the seas was in order. Hence: “punishment made clear to the utmost comes to no punishment.” (Guan Shu Xian and Huo Shu Chu were King Wu’s brothers, who rebelled with Cai Shu; the usual account has Guan Shu put to death, Cai Shu banished and Huo Shu reduced in rank.)

By one teaching I mean that wide learning and cleverness, good faith and integrity, rites and music, self-cultivation, factions, appointment by connection and repute, purity and vileness — none of these may be made a road to wealth and honour, nor a ground for discussing punishments, nor may a man set up a private doctrine of his own and lay it before his superiors. The hard are broken, the sharp are blunted. Even the sage and the wise, the crafty and the glib, the thick and the simple, cannot cheat their superiors of benefits without merit. (Our text has a corrupt character for “vileness”; the reading adopted here is that of the old collations.)

Then the gate of wealth and honour lies in war and nowhere else. He who can fight steps through that gate; the violent and unruly have a fixed punishment and no pardon. So fathers and elder brothers, brothers and acquaintances, connections by marriage and partners will all say: what we should put our effort into is war and nothing else. Therefore the able-bodied put their effort into war and the old and weak into defence; the dead have no regrets and the living press on. This is what I call one teaching.

The people’s desire for wealth and honour does not stop until the coffin lid is shut, and the gate of wealth and honour must open upon war. Therefore when the people hear that there is to be a war they congratulate one another; sitting or standing, eating or drinking, the song they sing is of war. This is what I mean by “teaching made clear to the utmost comes to no teaching.”

This is what I call the three teachings. The sage alone knows what matters in all things, and so in governing a state he raises up what matters and all things follow; and so he teaches little and achieves much. The sage in governing a state is easy to understand and hard to imitate. Therefore the sage need add nothing and the ordinary ruler need abolish nothing. That killing a man is not cruelty and rewarding a man is not kindness is because the state’s law is clear. The sage gives office and rank for merit, and so the worthy have nothing to fret about; the sage does not pardon a fault or remit a punishment, and so crookedness does not arise. The sage in governing a state does nothing but get the one thing clear.

18. Drawing Up Plans畫策第十八

The opening historical sketch is the best-known part: in the age of Hao Ying men lived by felling trees and killing beasts, because men were few and trees and beasts many; in the age of the Yellow Emperor there came rules and rites and “knife and saw within, armour and weapons without.” Shen Nong was not superior to the Yellow Emperor; he suited his time. From this come the three parallel sentences: use war to do away with war and war is permissible; use killing to do away with killing and killing is permissible; use punishment to do away with punishment and heavy punishment is permissible. The middle of the chapter contains the sentence most often cited by later historians of institutions: “every state has laws, but no law that makes the laws certain to be carried out.” The close declares that the humane man can be humane towards others but cannot make others humane; therefore the sage-king prizes not right but law.

Of old, in the age of Hao Ying, men lived by felling trees and killing beasts, for the people were few and trees and beasts many. In the age of the Yellow Emperor fawns were not taken nor eggs gathered, the officials had no dependants kept for service, and the dead might not be buried in an outer coffin. What they did was not the same, and both ruled as kings, because the times were different. (Hao Ying is one of the legendary rulers of high antiquity.)

In the age of Shen Nong men ploughed and ate, women wove and were clothed; there was order without punishment or government, and kingship without armour or weapons. When Shen Nong was gone, the strong overcame the weak and the many bullied the few. So the Yellow Emperor made the duties of ruler and subject, high and low, the rites of father and son and elder and younger brother, the union of husband and wife and of mates; within he used knife and saw, and without armour and weapons — because the times had changed.

Seen in this light, Shen Nong was not superior to the Yellow Emperor; that his name is the more honoured is because he fitted his own age. Therefore: use war to do away with war, and war is permissible; use killing to do away with killing, and killing is permissible; use punishment to do away with punishment, and heavy punishment is permissible. (These three sentences are the most quoted, and the most held against this book, of anything in it.)

Those of old who could control the world always controlled their own people first; those who could overcome a strong enemy always overcame their own people first. So the root of overcoming the people lies in controlling them, as a smith controls metal and a potter clay. Where the root is not firm, the people are like flying birds and running beasts — who could control them? The root of the people is law. Therefore he who governs well stops the people up with law, and reputation and territory follow.

Why is it that a state grows honoured in name and broad in land until it rules as king? Because it wins its wars. Why is it that a state sinks in name and is pared away until it perishes? Because it loses them. That a state should rule as king without winning, or perish without losing — from antiquity until now it has never happened. When the people are brave, wars are won; when they are not, wars are lost. He who can make his people single-minded in war has brave people; he who cannot, has not.

The sage-kings saw that kingship is got from arms, and so they laid the whole state under obligation to arms. Enter a state and look at its government: where the people are usable, it is strong. How is one to know that the people are usable? When the people look on war as a starving wolf looks on meat, then they are usable. War is what the people hate; he who can make them delight in war rules as king.

Among the people of a strong state, the father sending off his son, the elder brother his younger, the wife her husband, all say: do not come back without it. And they say: break the law or disobey an order and you die, and so do I — the village will see to us. In the ranks there is no escape, and in flight nowhere to settle. The ranks are ordered thus: five men bound together, distinguished by badges, tied down by orders; the clumsy have nowhere to hide and the faint-hearted no way to live. And so the host of the three armies follows orders like water flowing and dies without turning on its heel.

A state’s disorder is not that its laws are disordered, nor that its laws are not applied. Every state has laws, but no law that makes the laws certain to be carried out. Every state has laws forbidding wickedness and punishing robbery, but no law that makes wicked men and robbers certain to be caught. The wicked and the robbers are put to death, and yet wickedness and robbery do not stop, because capture is not certain; where capture is certain and there is still wickedness and robbery, the punishment is too light; where it is too light, there is no execution; where capture is certain, many are punished. (The sentence about a law to make laws certain is the most cited line in the book among later writers on institutions.)

Therefore he who governs well punishes the bad and does not reward the good, and so without punishing he has a good people. That without punishing he has a good people is because punishment is heavy. Punishment heavy, the people dare not break the law, and so there is no punishment; and no one daring to do wrong, the whole state is good. So without rewarding the good he has a good people. Rewarding the good will not do, any more than rewarding a man for not stealing.

Therefore he who governs well can make even Robber Zhi trustworthy — how much more a Bo Yi? He who governs badly can make even a Bo Yi doubtful — how much more a Robber Zhi? Where the situation makes wrongdoing impossible, even Robber Zhi is trustworthy; where it makes wrongdoing possible, even Bo Yi is doubtful. (Robber Zhi is the proverbial brigand of early Chinese writing, Bo Yi the man who starved rather than eat the grain of Zhou; in the philosophers they stand for the two extremes.)

A state may be doubly ordered or doubly disordered. Where an enlightened ruler is above and the men he raises up are certain to be worthy, the law can be entrusted to the worthy; entrusted to the worthy, it reaches down below, and the unworthy dare not do wrong: this is called double order. Where an unenlightened ruler is above and the men he raises up are certain to be unworthy, and the state has no clear law, the unworthy dare do wrong: this is called double disorder.

An army may be doubly strong or doubly weak. Where the people wish to fight and must fight, that is double strength; where they do not wish to fight and need not, that is double weakness.

An enlightened ruler does not enrich and ennoble his ministers at random. By wealth I do not mean grain and pearls and jade; by honour I do not mean ranks and offices: I mean the wealth and honour got by setting the law aside and making private grants of rank and salary. A ruler’s virtue does not exceed other men’s, nor his wisdom, nor his strength. And yet though there be sages among his people they dare not plot against him, and men of strength dare not kill him; though they be many they dare not overcome their ruler; though the people number hundreds of millions, he hangs up a heavy reward and they dare not scramble for it, and carries out a punishment and they dare not resent it — because of law.

A state is disordered when the people have many private notions of right; an army is weak when the people have much private courage, and then the state is dismembered. Where there are many roads by which to get rank and salary, the state is lost. When men wish to hold ranks cheap and salaries light, to eat without working, to be honoured without fighting, esteemed without rank, rich without salary, and chiefs without office — these are what I call crooked people.

It is said: a ruler who governs well has no “loyal ministers,” and a kind father has no “filial sons” — for the wish is to have no fine words at all, but to have men watch one another by law and set one another right by ordinance, so that no one can do wrong by himself and no one will join with another in wrongdoing. By wealth is meant that more comes in than goes out: clothing and food regulated and eating and drinking moderate, and little goes out; the women’s work done to the full indoors and the men’s out of doors, and much comes in.

By enlightenment is meant that nothing escapes him, and so the ministers dare not be crooked and the people dare not do wrong; and so the ruler may lie on his square couch and listen to strings and pipes, and the world is in order. By enlightenment is meant making the many do what they must. By strength is meant overcoming the world; and overcoming the world comes of joining strength together. And so the brave and strong dare not be violent and the wise and clever dare not deceive, and his thought reaching round takes in the whole world’s multitude, and not one of them dares not to do what he likes and avoid what he dislikes. (Our text has a miswritten character for “deceive,” here corrected.)

By strength is meant making the brave and strong serve one whether they will or not. When his will is satisfied the world adds to him; when it is not, the world seeks to please him. He who leans on the world is deserted by it; he who leans on himself gets it. He who gets the world is the man who has first got himself; he who can overcome a strong enemy is the man who has first overcome himself.

The sage knows the principle of what must be and the circumstances in which a thing must be done, and so his government must bring order, his soldiers must be brave, his orders must be obeyed. So his army goes out and has no match, and his orders are carried out and the world submits. The yellow swan flies a thousand li at a stretch because it has what makes flight certain; the unicorn and the courser Lu’er run a thousand li a day because they have what makes running certain; tiger, leopard, bear and grizzly are fierce and without a match because they have what makes victory certain. (Lu’er was one of King Mu of Zhou’s eight famous horses.)

The sage sees how government stands of itself and knows the principle of what must be, and so he controls the people as water is controlled by high and low ground, or fire by wet and dry. Hence it is said: a humane man can be humane towards others, but cannot make others humane; a righteous man can love others, but cannot make others loving. From this we know that humanity and right are not enough to govern the world.

The sage has a nature that must keep faith, and he has besides a law that makes the world keep faith whether it will or not. What is called right is that a subject be loyal, a son filial, that young and old observe the proprieties and men and women be distinguished; and that where a thing is not right a man will not eat though starving nor live though dying. This is exactly what things are like when there is law. The sage-king does not prize right but prizes law: let the law be clear and the orders be carried out, and that is enough.

Scroll Five

Eight titles, one of them — Curbing Robbers — with nothing under it. Within the Borders is unlike anything else in the book: not argument but regulation — how the twenty grades of rank are climbed, how many heads make up a full account, that eighteen men take each face of a wall in the storming party, that a man who will not die in the breach is branded and has his nose cut off in front of a thousand onlookers. Weakening the People pushes “a weak people means a strong state” to its limit and ends with the best piece of narrative in the book, on the fall of Chu. Fixing the Titles closes the work with a dialogue on how the statutes are to be kept, published and expounded; the hare running with a hundred men after it is here.

19. Within the Borders境內第十九

The one chapter of regulations rather than argument. It sets out the twenty grades of Qin rank and how they are climbed, the counting of heads, the apportioning of a wall among the assault parties, the reporting of crookedness and the mutual liability of a file of five, and the fields, houses, dependants and even the number of trees on a man’s grave that go with each grade. The text is the most damaged in the book, and the figures and titles are full of holes; phrases such as “six, plus five thousand six hundred” have never been explained. Precisely because it is a schedule and not an essay, it is one of the most important surviving sources for the Qin rank system, to be read beside the Shuihudi and Zhangjiashan legal manuscripts.

Within the four borders, every man and woman is entered by name with the authorities: the living are registered and the dead struck off. Those who hold rank may apply for men without rank as their dependants, one man for each grade. When there is no military service, the dependant serves his master six days a month; when there is service, he goes with him and keeps him. (“Dependant” here is a man of no rank attached to a rank-holder, not a younger son. The arrangement agrees with what is known of Qin practice from the Shuihudi manuscripts.)

Military rank from the first grade down to the “lesser fellow” is styled inspector, footman and bearer of arms; public rank from the second grade up to “exempt from corvée” is styled soldier. In battle five men are bound together on one roll as a file; if one dies, the other four are dealt with under the law. If each of them can take a head, they are absolved. Five men have a squad leader, a hundred men a commander. In battle the commander and the squad leader must themselves take heads; if the unit takes thirty-three heads or more, that is a full account, and the commander and squad leader each receive one grade of rank. (“A full account” is the legally fixed quota; the word rendered “dealt with under the law” is literally “beheaded,” used here of legal liability.)

An officer over five hundred has fifty men of the close guard; an officer over two such units, commanding them, has a hundred. A prefect of a thousand piculs has a hundred men of the close guard; one of eight hundred, eighty; of seven hundred, seventy; of six hundred, sixty. The national commandant has a thousand; the great general four thousand. If in battle the commander is killed, his close guard are dealt with under the law; if each of them can take a head, they are absolved. (“Close guard” is literally “short weapons,” the men fighting at close quarters about their officer. Salaries reckoned in piculs are the usual Qin and Han practice.)

If in storming a city or besieging a town eight thousand heads or more are taken, that is a full account; in a battle in the open, two thousand heads. From the inspectors and officers up to the great general, all the officers of the ranks are rewarded.

A man whose rank was “gentleman of the ranks” becomes “builder of the upper class”; one who was “builder of the upper class” becomes “keeper of the bridled horse”; one who was “keeper of the bridled horse” becomes “exempt from corvée”; one who was “exempt from corvée” becomes “grandee.” An officer with rank who becomes a district commandant receives six captives and five thousand six hundred in addition. A grandee who becomes national commandant becomes “grandee of office”; one who was “grandee of office” becomes “ducal grandee”; one who was “ducal grandee” becomes “rider in the ducal train”; one who was “rider in the ducal train” becomes “grandee of the fifth rank,” with the taxes of three hundred households. (These are the first nine of the twenty Qin grades. The phrase about captives and the figure are corrupt and no commentator has explained them.)

One who was “grandee of the fifth rank” becomes “chief of the multitude”; one who was “chief of the multitude” becomes “left inspector”; one who held one of the three inspectorships becomes “grand counsellor of merit” — all with a grant of three hundred households in fief, or the taxes of three hundred households. A “grandee of the fifth rank” who has the taxes of six hundred households may keep retainers. The great general, his charioteer and his lance-bearer all receive three grades of rank. A guest minister whose account is made full becomes a full minister. (The three inspectorships are left, middle and right; “grand counsellor of merit” is the sixteenth grade, the one Shang Yang himself held.)

On account of a battle, the heads taken are exposed for three days and then checked for three, after which the general, being satisfied, delivers the merit and rank to the gentlemen and grandees. If the county holds these back more than three days and fails to deliver the merit and rank to the gentlemen and grandees, the county assistant and commandant may be called to account. A man who takes one head of an armoured enemy is rewarded with one grade of rank, an addition of one qing of land and nine mu of house-plot; for each grade he may claim one dependant, and he becomes eligible to hold office in the army. (This is the plainest statement anywhere of the “merit of heads”: one head, one grade, with land and house following.)

As to the law of trials: a man of higher rank may call one of lower rank to account. A man of higher rank may not take men who hold rank as his household servants. From the second grade upwards, a man who commits a punishable offence is degraded; from the first grade downwards, he is dealt with under the law. From the death of a “lesser fellow” up to that of a grandee, for each degree of office there is one more tree planted on the grave. (The last provision fixes the grades even in burial: rank decides how many trees stand over a man.)

In storming a city or besieging a town, the national director of works measures the breadth and thickness of the wall; the national commandant apportions the ground and divides the measured feet among the units of footmen and inspectors for the assault, setting a term and saying: he who finishes first shall be reckoned foremost; he who finishes last shall be marked down as hindmost; twice marked down and he is dismissed. When the tunnel is through, faggots are stacked; the faggots stacked, the props are fired. (A tunnel driven under the wall and shored with timber, then burnt so that the wall collapses, was the standard method.)

Of the storming party, eighteen men to each face. The men of the storming party must know how to fight hard; if a party takes five heads, each man of it is rewarded with one grade of rank. If a man dies, one heir succeeds him; if a man will not die in the breach, he is branded and his nose cut off below the wall before a thousand onlookers. The national commandant apportions the ground and sends the men of the centre after them.

The general has a timber tower built, and with the national inspector and the king’s censor the three of them watch from it. Those who get in first are reported as foremost; those who get in last as hindmost. In making up the storming party, every man who qualifies is used; if there are not enough who qualify, the number is made up from the next grades down. (Two censors watch beside the general so that the three check one another and no one can claim merit falsely.)

20. Weakening the People弱民第二十

The arithmetic of Getting Rid of Strength carried to its limit: “a weak people means a strong state, a strong people a weak state; therefore a state that has the way makes it its business to weaken the people.” Weak here does not mean feeble; it means tractable, without private aims and without alternative openings, as against strong in the sense of headstrong. The first half is a set of entries, much of it repeated from earlier chapters. What is worth the reading is the last section on Chu: its people quick and even in movement, swift as a whirlwind; the steel pikes of Wan sharp as a hornet’s sting; armour of shark-hide and rhinoceros hard as metal and stone; the Yangtze and the Han for a moat, the Ru and the Ying for a boundary, the forest of Deng for a screen and the Fang wall along the edge. And then the Qin army reached Yan and Ying and took them as one shakes down dry leaves.

A weak people means a strong state; a strong people means a weak state. Therefore a state that has the way makes it its business to weaken the people. Plain, they are strong; dissolute, they are weak; weak, they keep to the track; dissolute, their ambitions run over; weak, they are useful; ambitions running over, they are headstrong. Hence it is said: use the strong to get rid of the strong and you are weak; use the weak to get rid of the strong and you are strong. (“Weak” throughout this chapter means tractable and without private aims.)

If the people think a thing good, they are harmonious; if they find profit in it, they can be used; used, they take responsibility; merely harmonious, they come to nothing. Taking responsibility, there is abundance in government. If the ruler lets go of the law and trusts to what the people think good, there is much crookedness. Poor, the people exert themselves to grow rich; rich, they grow dissolute; dissolute, there are lice. Therefore when the people are rich and not employed, let them buy rank with grain; and rank being had by a man’s own exertion, farmers do not shirk. Farmers not shirking, the six lice do not sprout. So a state rich and a people governed is doubly strong.

An army is easily weakened and hard to strengthen: the people delight in life and are comfortable in ease, and are hard to set straight in the face of death and danger; make death an easy matter to them and the army is strong. Where affairs are attended with shame, crookedness is much and the useful few; where rewards do not miss their mark, even where crookedness is much men grow suspicious of one another. Let the enemy make a mistake and profit follows; an army at its strongest has awe of itself. Where affairs are unattended by shame, it is convenient to use the army; hold the advantageous position long enough, and you will surely be king. Therefore an army that does what the enemy dare not do is strong, and an enterprise taken up that the enemy would be ashamed of is profitable. (This passage is defective in all editions and the punctuation varies; the last two sentences recur in Getting Rid of Strength.)

Where there is law, the people rest in their stations; where the ruler can shift, affairs can be brought into line; where the state is securely held, the ruler grasps both power and profit. Therefore a ruler is to be valued for having many changes, a state for having few. Where profit issues from one hole, the state has many goods; from ten holes, few. Hold to one and there is order; hold to ten and there is disorder; order is strength and disorder weakness; strong, things come to you; weak, things go away. So a state that draws things in is strong and one that drives them off is weak.

People humbled prize rank; weak, they respect office; poor, they set store by reward. Govern them by punishment and they are glad to be used; drive them to war by reward and they hold death cheap. So when war comes and the troops are usable, that is called strength. If the people have an honour of their own, they despise the ranks and think little of office; rich, they hold rewards cheap. Govern the people with shame and punishment, and when it is time to fight they fight. When the people fear death and are driven to fight in the midst of confusion, soldiers and farmers both grow slack and the state is weak.

Farming, trade and office are the three standing occupations of a state: the farmer opens the land, the merchant brings goods, the official governs the people. On these three breed six lice: the year, food, finery, pleasure, ambition, reputation. Let these six get a footing and the state is surely dismembered. When farmers have grain to spare they feast on a good year; when merchants have excessive profits, fine and pretty things spoil honest wares; when offices are established and not used, men who live by their reputation fill them up. Let the six lice become the custom and the army will surely suffer a great defeat. (Compare the third entry of Getting Rid of Strength, which gives the same list in slightly different words.)

Where law is crooked, government is disordered; appoint by “goodness” and words multiply; government overloaded, the state is disordered; words many, the army is weak. Where law is clear, government is spare; appoint by strength and words cease; government spare, the state is orderly; words ceasing, the army is strong. Therefore govern a great state as if it were small and a small state as if it were great.

Where government does what the people dislike, the people are weak; where it does what they enjoy, the people are strong. A weak people means a strong state; a strong people a weak state. Government doing what they enjoy, the people are strong; strong already and further strengthened, the army is doubly weak. Government doing what they dislike, the people are weak; weak already and further weakened, the army is doubly strong. Therefore to add weakness by way of strength is dismemberment; to add strength by way of weakness is kingship.

Attack the strong with the strong and you are weak, for the strong element remains; attack the weak with the weak and you are strong, for the strong element is gone. The strong element remaining, you are dismembered; gone, you are king. Therefore to attack with a strong people is dismemberment; to attack with a weak people is kingship.

When an enlightened ruler employs his ministers, appointment is always laid upon merit and reward always matches the labour. Let a ruler make his people believe in him as they believe in sun and moon, and he is without a match. Li Lou could see the tip of an autumn hair and could not give his eyes to another; Wu Huo could lift a thousand jun and could not give his strength to another; what the sage has by nature cannot be exchanged. And those who manage affairs in the present age all wish to be sages of the first rank — which is only to say, to take up law. (This passage repeats the close of Setting the Law in Place, with the eagle-eyed man’s name in its other form.)

To govern with one’s back to the law is like carrying a heavy load a long way without ox or horse, or crossing a great river without boat or oar. A numerous people and a strong army are a great capital for an emperor or a king; but unless a clear law is used to keep it, it borders on danger and ruin. Therefore an enlightened ruler examines the law.

The people within the borders have no dissolute intentions; wandering and idle gentlemen are pressed into the ranks; the whole people are urgent at their ploughing — and there is evidence that this is so. The people of Chu were quick and even in movement, swift as a whirlwind; the steel pikes of Wan were sharp as a hornet’s sting; their armour of shark-hide and rhinoceros was hard as metal and stone. They had the Yangtze and the Han for a moat, the Ru and the Ying for a boundary, the forest of Deng for a screen and the Fang wall along their edge. (Wan, in modern Nanyang, was the great iron-working town of the Warring States; the Fang wall was Chu’s northern frontier wall.)

And the Qin army reached Yan and Ying, and took them as one shakes down dry leaves. Tang Mie died at Chuisha, Zhuang Qiao rose within, and Chu was split into five. Its land was not small, its army not few, its armour and money and stores not scanty; and it could not win a battle or hold a defence — all this because it had no law. (Yan and Ying were the old capitals of Chu; Bai Qi took Ying in 278 BC. Chuisha was fought in 301 BC, when the Chu general Tang Mie was defeated and killed; Zhuang Qiao’s rising belongs to the same years. All of this falls long after Shang Yang’s death — more evidence that he did not write this book.)

21. Curbing Robbers御盜第二十一

Lost. The old editions carry the title with no text under it.

Like Bond of Punishment, this chapter has left only its name. Drawing Up Plans has “every state has laws forbidding wickedness and punishing robbery, but no law that makes wicked men and robbers certain to be caught”; The Order for Breaking Ground forbids pleading for a convict or sending him food; Reward and Punishment gives immunity to a colleague who reports an offence. What the lost chapter contained probably lay somewhere in that range, but with not a word of it surviving, that is guesswork.

22. Outside and Inside外內第二十二

Outside is war, inside is farming; one chapter on what makes each hard and how men are to be driven to it. Abroad: war is the hardest thing, and “light law” will not serve — rewards must be many, authority stern, and the side roads closed; to drive men to war with light law is “to set a trap for mice and bait it with a cat.” At home: farming is the bitterest thing, and “light government” will not serve; the remedy is dear grain, heavy taxes on those who do not farm and heavy dues on market profits, until a man cannot help tilling. The last three sentences reduce the whole to two lines: let all the profit of the frontier go to the soldier and all the profit of the market to the farmer.

Of the people’s outside affairs, none is harder than war, and therefore light law will not drive them to it. What is meant by light law? Rewards few, authority slight, and the side roads not closed. And what is meant by side roads? That the disputer and the clever man is honoured, the seeker of office employed, and the man of letters with a private reputation distinguished. If these three are not shut off, the people will not fight and the business is lost. (“Light law” is law without weight, as “light government” below. Our text has a miswritten character here and in the parallel sentence below; both are corrected from the Siku edition.)

Where rewards are few, there is no profit for those who obey; where authority is slight, there is no harm for those who transgress. To open the side roads and entice them, and then drive them to war with light law, is to set a trap for mice and bait it with a cat — the thing is absurd. (The same figure appears in Farming and War the other way round.)

So whoever would drive his people to war must use heavy law: rewards must be many and authority stern; and the side roads must be shut — the disputer and the clever man not honoured, the seeker of office not employed, the man of letters with a private reputation not distinguished. Rewards many and authority stern, the people see how great the reward of war is and forget death, and see the disgrace of not fighting and find life bitter. Reward makes them forget death, authority makes life bitter to them, and the side roads are shut besides; and to meet the enemy with such a people is to shoot a floating leaf with a hundred-stone crossbow: how should it not be pierced?

Of the people’s inside affairs, none is bitterer than farming, and therefore light government will not drive them to it. What is meant by light government? That the farmer is poor and the merchant rich; that grain is cheap and money dear; that the branch occupations are not forbidden, so that craftsmen profit and the idle are many.

So the farmer works hardest and comes off worse than merchants and craftsmen. If merchants and craftsmen could be kept from multiplying, then even if one wished the state not to be rich it could not be helped. (“Multiplying” is read by some commentators as “breeding.”)

Hence it is said: he who would enrich his state through farming must see that grain within his borders is dear, that taxes on those who do not farm are many, and that the dues on market profits are heavy; then the people cannot help having fields. Having no fields, they must barter for their food; grain dear, the tiller profits; the tiller profiting, more men take it up. Grain dear and buying food unprofitable, with heavy taxes besides, and the people cannot help leaving trade and craft and turning to the profit of the soil. And so all the profit of the people lies in the soil.

Therefore he who governs a state makes all the profit of the frontier go to the soldier and all the profit of the market go to the farmer. Where the frontier’s profit goes wholly to the soldier, the state is strong; where the market’s profit goes wholly to the farmer, it is rich. To be strong when the army goes out and rich when it rests — that is to rule as king.

23. Ruler and Minister君臣第二十三

Starting from a time before there were rulers and subjects, the chapter treats titles, offices and law as successive remedies laid one on top of another. Its hinge is a single sentence: “I have heard that the gate by which the people are led lies in what the ruler puts first.” Give for merit and the people go to war; give for the Odes and Documents and they go to their books. The comparison is one of the best in the book: the people go after profit as water goes downhill, without preferring one side to another.

In antiquity, before there were ruler and subject, high and low, the people were disordered and ungoverned. So the sage made distinctions of noble and base, instituted ranks and offices, and set up titles, in order to mark the duties of ruler and subject, high and low. The land being broad, the people many and things numerous, he divided the five offices to take charge of them. The people being many, crookedness arose, and so he established laws and made weights and measures to forbid it. Therefore the duties of ruler and subject, the division of the five offices and the prohibitions of law cannot be treated carelessly. (The “five offices” are the great officers of state; the phrase is used generally for the division of government.)

To occupy the ruler’s place and have one’s orders disobeyed is dangerous; to have the five offices divided and no regular procedure is disorder; to have laws established and private favours still effective means the people do not fear punishment. The ruler honoured, orders are carried out; the offices in good order, business has its regular course; the law clear, the people fear punishment. To have the law unclear and still expect the people to obey orders is impossible; and with the people disobeying orders, to expect the ruler to be honoured — not even the wisdom of Yao and Shun could govern so.

An enlightened king in governing the world governs according to law and rewards according to merit. That the people fight hard and do not shrink from death is to get rank and salary. An enlightened ruler in governing his state sees to it that a soldier who has the merit of a head taken or a captive brought in has rank enough to make him glorious and salary enough to feed him; and that the farmer who does not leave his own plot and dwelling has enough to keep his two parents and to supply the army. So soldiers die at their posts and farmers do not shirk.

The rulers of this age are not so: they let go of law and use their wits, turn their backs on merit and go by reputation; and so soldiers do not fight and farmers drift away. I have heard that the gate by which the people are led lies in what the ruler puts first. So the people may be made to farm and fight, or made to seek office, or made to study, according to what the ruler gives. Let him give for merit and labour, and the people fight; let him give for the Odes and Documents, and the people study.

The people go after profit as water goes downhill, without preferring one of the four quarters to another. The people do a thing merely because profit can be got by it, and it is the ruler who gives the profit. The man who glares and grips his wrist and talks of bravery gets it; the man in flowing robes who talks philosophy gets it; the man who has hung about a great house long enough to build up a claim gets it. Honour these three, and since all of them can get something without merit, the people leave farming and war for them: some seek it by argument, some by cultivating the ruler’s favourites, some by fighting for it. (“The ruler’s favourites” are the intimates about his person.)

So those who farm and fight grow fewer by the day and the idle more numerous; the state is disordered and its land pared away, the army weak and the ruler humbled. And the reason is that law was let go of and reputation relied on.

Therefore an enlightened ruler is careful of the law. Words that do not accord with the law he does not listen to; conduct that does not accord with the law he does not praise; business that does not accord with the law he does not undertake. Words that accord with it he listens to; conduct that accords with it he praises; business that accords with it he undertakes. So the state is well governed and its land broad, its army strong and its ruler honoured. This is the summit of good government, and he who rules over men cannot but look into it.

24. Restraint and Employment禁使第二十四

The coolest chapter in the book, on why supervision usually fails. Its two terms are positional power and method: the former kings relied not on their own strength but on position, not on men’s honesty but on procedure. A tumbleweed travels a thousand li on a whirlwind because it rides the wind; a man knows the depth of an abyss because he has let down a line. Hence the famous judgement: appointing an assistant and an inspector is meant to keep men from private profit, but assistants and inspectors want private profit too, so with what do they check one another? Only one thing really works — “different interests and unlike harms.” The chapter ends with the grooms: men cannot supervise men because their business and their interest are the same; if only horses could talk, no groom could hide his misdeeds.

What a ruler restrains and employs men with is reward and punishment. Reward follows merit, punishment follows offence; and so the assessment of merit and the investigation of offence cannot but be searching. To reward the high and punish the low while the ruler above has no sure way of knowing the truth is as good as having no way at all. Whoever knows the truth knows it by positional power and by method. Therefore the former kings relied not on their own strength but on position, not on men’s good faith but on procedure. (These two terms — the compelling force of a position, and a countable, checkable procedure — are the keys to the chapter.)

A tumbleweed meeting a whirlwind travels a thousand li, because it rides the force of the wind; a man sounding an abyss knows it to be a thousand fathoms deep, because he has let down a measured line. So he who commits himself to the force of a thing arrives however far off it is; he who keeps to the measure finds the bottom however deep. Now in the dark of night, great as the hills are, even Li Lou cannot see them; in the clear morning with the sun shining he can tell the birds above and the autumn hair below. So the eye’s seeing is committed to the force of the sun.

Where the force of position is at its height, there is no need to pile office on office and things stay clean; set out the procedure, and things fall into place. Now men rely on many offices and a crowd of officials, and every office has its assistant and its inspector. The purpose of appointing assistants and inspectors is to keep men from private profit; but assistants and inspectors want private profit too, and with what then are they to check one another? So to govern by relying on assistants and inspectors is government that barely holds together. He who understands procedure does otherwise: he separates their positions and makes the road hard for them. Hence it is said: where the position makes concealment hard, even Robber Zhi does no wrong. Therefore the former kings prized position.

Some say: let the ruler hold himself empty and respond after the event, and things will answer to the check, and checking will expose crookedness. I think not. An official decides matters on his own authority a thousand li away; in the twelfth month the account book is settled; business is reckoned once a year; and the ruler hears it once. Even if he sees something he doubts, he cannot cover the gap — there are not hands enough. (The doctrine here set up to be knocked down is the Huang-Lao teaching of ruling by emptiness and non-action.)

When a thing comes before the eye the eye cannot help seeing it; when a word presses on the ear the ear cannot help hearing it. So a thing that comes is distinguished and a word that comes is judged. Therefore the institutions of a well-governed state should be such that the people cannot evade an offence, as the eye cannot hide from the mind what it has seen. But a disordered state is not so: it relies on many offices and a crowd of officials. Officials may be many, but their business is the same and they are one body; and men whose business is the same and who are of one body cannot supervise one another.

It is men whose interests differ and whose harms are unlike that the former kings used as a mutual guarantee. So in the best government, husband and wife and friends cannot cast off one another’s faults or cover one another’s wrongs, and yet their affection is not damaged; and the people cannot conceal for one another. The ruler and the officials are parties whose business is bound together and whose interests are opposed.

Now the groom and the forester cannot supervise each other, because their business is the same and their interest the same. If horses could talk, the groom would have nowhere to hide his misdeeds, because the horse’s interest differs from his. Where interests run together and dislikes are shared, a father cannot get the truth from his son nor a ruler from his minister; and official with official is a case of interests running together and dislikes shared. Whereas parties whose business is bound together and whose interests are opposed are what the former kings used as their starting point. (The groom and the forester are the officers of horses and of parks. The fancy of a talking horse is a rare thing in early Chinese writing — a thought experiment.)

If the people try to blind their ruler, they cannot cover anything over; the worthy can add nothing and the unworthy take nothing away. Therefore to let go of the worthy and set aside the clever is the true procedure of government. (The last sentence is where this book parts company both with the Confucian doctrine of promoting the worthy and with the reliance of the rhetoricians upon cleverness. The passage is defective and not wholly coherent; it is left as it stands.)

25. Taking the Law Seriously慎法第二十五

The opening sentence reads like a maxim: there is no one in the world who does not govern by the very thing that disorders him. Promoting the worthy, which the world takes for the means of order, is precisely the source of disorder: the world calls a man worthy because his speech is sound, and calls his speech sound because his faction says so. And so he is honoured before he has any merit and condemned before he has any guilt. The chapter’s remedy is to “break up factions and appointments by connection, cut away talk, and govern by trusting the law.” It ends on farming and war: what the people find bitterest is ploughing and what they find most dangerous is fighting, and these are things a filial son could hardly do for his parents or a loyal minister for his ruler — so there is nothing for it but to compel by punishment and drive by reward.

There is no one in the world who does not govern by the very thing that disorders him; and so a little government brings a little disorder and a great deal of government a great deal of disorder. No ruler can keep his people in order generation after generation, and there is no state in the world without disorder. What do I mean by governing with what disorders? Promoting the worthy and able is what the world takes for the means of order, and it is the reason why order turns into disorder.

What the world calls a worthy man is one whose speech is sound; and what makes his speech sound is his faction. Hear his words and you take him for able; ask his faction and they say he is. So he is honoured before he has any merit and condemned before he has any guilt. In such a situation the corrupt official gets the capital to bring off his crooked designs and the mean man the capital to practise his contrivances. Once you have lent officials and people the stock-in-trade of crookedness and contrivance at the outset and then look for uprightness at the end, not even Yu could manage ten men, and how should an ordinary ruler control a whole state? (Our text has a miswritten character for “contrivance” twice here; corrected from the Siku edition.)

Men who form factions get their business done without any help from me. If the ruler promotes one such man before the people, the people turn their backs on the ruler’s position and face towards private connections. Turning their backs on the ruler and facing private connections, the ruler is weak and the ministers strong. A ruler who does not see this will be encroached on by the other lords if he is not coerced by his own people.

Once the force of talk is established, the foolish and the clever alike study it. Gentlemen study under the talkers, and the people leave off real business to recite empty phrases. Leaving real business for empty phrases, their strength is little and their fault-finding much. A ruler who does not see this will lose his generals if he goes to war and have his cities sold if he stands on the defensive.

Therefore if an enlightened ruler and a loyal minister should be born into this age and wish to lead their state, they cannot forget the law for a moment. Break up factions and appointments by connection, cut away talk, and govern by trusting the law. Let officials have nothing but the law to stand on, and however clever they are they cannot be crooked; let the people have no way of showing their ability but war, and however devious they are they cannot deceive.

Where men are governed by law and appointed by procedure, praise cannot add to a man and slander cannot take from him. The people, seeing that praising one another gains nothing, take to watching one another and reporting what is wrong; and seeing that slandering one another loses nothing, they grow used to disliking one another without doing one another harm. To love a man without favouring him and to hate a man without injuring him, each according to what is right — that is the summit of government. Therefore I say: entrust things to the law and the state is in order. (This passage is defective; the clause about watching one another has no settled explanation.)

A state of a thousand chariots that can defend itself keeps itself in being; a state of ten thousand chariots that can fight keeps itself whole. Even with a Jie for ruler, it will not bend half a phrase to an enemy. But if it cannot fight abroad and cannot defend at home, then even with a Yao for ruler it cannot avoid coming to terms as a vassal with states it calls its inferiors. Seen thus, what gives a state weight and a ruler honour is strength.

Farming and war are the root of strength. And yet no ruler of this age can get strength together. Why? Because what the people find bitterest is ploughing and what they find most dangerous is fighting. These are two things a filial son can hardly do for his parents and a loyal minister hardly for his ruler. To drive a whole populace to do what filial sons and loyal ministers find hard is, I think, impossible except by compelling them with punishment and driving them with reward.

And now those who govern in the common fashion all let go of law and measure and trust to disputation and cleverness, put merit and strength behind and bring humanity and right forward; and so the people will not work at farming and war. If the people do not give their strength to agriculture, food runs short at home; if they do not give their steadiness to war, the army is weak abroad. Short of food within and weak in arms without — then though a man have ten thousand li of land and a million men under arms, he is no better off than a man standing alone on a plain.

The former kings could make their people tread on naked blades and face arrows and stones; and the people were willing, not because they liked learning to do it, but to escape a worse harm. So my teaching is that whoever wants profit shall get it only by ploughing, and whoever wants to escape harm shall escape it only by fighting. Then within the borders there will not be a man who does not first attend to farming and war, and so obtain what he enjoys. So the land will be small and the grain plentiful, the people few and the army strong. To do these two things within one’s borders is to have the whole way of hegemon and king.

26. Fixing the Titles定分第二十六

The book ends with a dialogue on an entirely practical question: the statutes are made today — how are all the officials and people of the empire to know them by tomorrow morning and apply them alike and without private bias? The answer is a paper system. Officers of the statutes are appointed; anyone who asks about a law must be told plainly, and given a tally a foot six inches long recording the day and hour and the name of the law asked about, the left half to the enquirer and the right half sealed in a wooden case by the officer; an officer who fails to answer is punished with the penalty of the very law that was asked about. Master copies are kept in a sealed chamber in the palace, and to break the seal, look at the statutes or alter a single character is death without pardon. The chapter’s images are the most famous in the book: one hare running and a hundred men after it, and a market full of hares for sale that no thief dares touch.

The duke asked Gongsun Yang: “The statutes are made to fit the present hour. By tomorrow morning I wish every official and every subject in the empire to know them clearly and to apply them alike and without private bias. How is it to be done?” (The duke is Duke Xiao of Qin; the dialogue answers to the opening chapter and closes the book.)

Gongsun Yang said: For the statutes appoint officers and officials — men plain enough to understand what the statutes mean — to be the standard for the empire, and memorialise the Son of Heaven. The Son of Heaven having confirmed their titles, the men in charge of the statutes all receive their commissions and are sent out to the several offices. If any man in charge of the statutes dares to forget the title of a statute he administers, he shall be punished according to the title of the statute he has forgotten. (This section is defective and the phrase about receiving commissions has no settled explanation.)

When an officer in charge of the statutes is transferred or dies, the man who takes over shall at once read out what the statutes mean; a term shall be fixed for him, so that within a set number of days he knows their meaning; and if he does not come up to the term, he shall be punished according to the statutes. Whoever dares to tamper with the statutes, adding or taking away so much as a single character, dies without pardon.

When officials or common people ask an officer in charge of the statutes what a statute means, he shall in every case tell them plainly about the statute they have asked about. And a tally shall be made a foot six inches long, with the year, month, day and hour and the title of the statute asked about written clearly upon it, and given to the official or subject. If an officer in charge of the statutes fails to tell an enquirer the meaning of the statute he asked about, then when that man commits the offence covered by the statute he asked about, the officer shall be punished with that same penalty. (Reverse liability of this kind is common in Qin and Han law; a foot six inches is one of the standard tablet lengths.)

The left half of the tally shall be given there and then to the official or subject who asked; and the officer in charge of the statutes shall carefully store the right half in a wooden case, keep it in a chamber, and seal it with the seal of the chief of the statutes. Should the man afterwards die, or a dispute arise, the matter shall be settled according to what is written on the tally. (Holding the left tally — the claimant’s half — became a common phrase for having the proof in one’s hand.)

Duplicates of the statutes shall be placed everywhere: one set in the palace of the Son of Heaven, for which a forbidden chamber shall be built for the statutes, with lock and key to close it and a seal upon it, and the statutes stored within; and one set sealed in the forbidden chamber with the forbidden seal. Whoever opens the seal of the forbidden chamber without authority, or enters it and looks at the forbidden statutes, or alters one character of them or more, dies without pardon. Once a year the statutes are received under the forbidden order.

The Son of Heaven shall appoint three officers of the law: one in the palace, one in the censorate with subordinate officials, and one with the chancellor. The feudal lords and the commanderies and counties shall likewise each appoint one officer of the law with subordinates, all on the model of the officers of Qin. When the commanderies, counties and feudal lords have once received the statutes of the forbidden chamber, they shall learn and enquire what they mean. Officials and people who wish to know the statutes shall all ask the officers of the law; and so there will be no official and no subject in the empire who does not know the law. (This is the fullest scheme for the publication of law anywhere in pre-imperial Chinese writing.)

The officials, knowing that the people know the statutes, dare not treat them otherwise than according to law, and the people dare not break the law and so offend against the officers of the law. If an official treats a man contrary to law, the man asks the officer of the law, who tells him the penalty the law lays down, and the man tells the official to his face what the officer of the law has said. The official, knowing this, dare not treat him contrary to law, and the people in turn dare not break the law.

In this way not one official or subject in the empire, however worthy, good, eloquent or clever, dare open his mouth to twist the law; and though a man have a thousand pieces of gold, he cannot spend a fraction of an ounce of it. So the shrewd and the able all set about doing good, all take pains to govern themselves and serve the public; and the people being simple are easily governed. All this arises from the law’s being clear, easy to know and certain to be carried out. (Our text has a miswritten character for “shrewd”; corrected.)

The statutes are the people’s life and the root of government; they are the means of providing against the people. To govern and do away with the statutes is like wanting not to be hungry and doing away with food, or not to be cold and doing away with clothes, or to go east and walking west: the absurdity of it is plain.

One hare runs and a hundred men chase it, not because the hare could be divided into a hundred, but because its title is not yet fixed. Sellers of hares fill the market and a thief dares not take one, because the titles are fixed. So while titles are unfixed, even Yao, Shun, Yu and Tang would all run after it like birds on the wing; once the titles are fixed, even a greedy thief does not take it. (Our text is defective here and the passage is completed from the Siku edition. The same figure appears in the Lüshi Chunqiu: “now one hare runs and a hundred men chase it — not that one hare is enough to divide among a hundred, but because it is unallotted.” It is the classical statement of the doctrine that fixing titles ends strife.)

Now the statutes are not clear and their titles not fixed, and so everybody in the empire may argue about them; and their arguments differ from man to man and settle nothing. The ruler makes law above and the people below argue about it; so the statutes are unfixed and the lower takes the place of the higher. This is what is meant by titles not being fixed. Titles unfixed, even Yao and Shun would bend aside and act crookedly — how much more ordinary men? This is the way to make wickedness break out on a great scale, to strip the ruler of his authority and power, and to lose the state and bring down the altars.

When the sages of old wrote books and handed them down to later ages, one had to receive them from a master to know what the words in them meant; without a master, and with every man arguing from his own notions, a man might die without knowing the words or their sense. Therefore the sage must appoint officers and officials for the statutes to be the teachers of the empire, and this is in order to fix the titles. Titles fixed, the greatest deceiver turns upright and trustworthy, the people are all honest and plain, and each governs himself. (Our text has a miswritten character for “deceiver”; corrected.)

So titles fixed is the way for the situation to run towards order, and titles unfixed the way for it to run towards disorder. What runs towards order cannot be disordered; what runs towards disorder cannot be ordered. Where the situation is disordered, to govern it is to make it more disordered; where the situation is orderly, to govern it is to have order. Therefore the sage-king governs order and does not govern disorder. (The same thought as “govern while there is still order” in On the People.)

Subtle and mysterious sayings about the will are hard even for the highest intelligence. The man who without law or measuring line is never anything but upright is one in a million. The sage governs the millions; therefore what only the wise can understand cannot be made into law, since not all the people are wise; and what only the worthy can understand cannot be made into law, since not all are worthy. So when the sage makes law he makes it clear and easy to know, with the titles correct, so that foolish and wise alike can understand it.

He appoints officers of the law and officials in charge of it to be the teachers of the empire, so that the whole people may not fall into danger. So when the sage takes his stand over the empire there is no one put to death by the law — not because he does not use capital punishment, but because the statutes are clear and easy to know, and officers and officials of the law are appointed to be teachers and guide men to know them; and all the people know what to avoid and what to seek — to avoid misfortune and seek good fortune — and all govern themselves. And so an enlightened ruler follows order and governs by it, and the empire is greatly ordered. (Here the book ends.)