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"Speaking of Qin Shihuang, Li Si is naturally inseparable."

"The prime minister of the Great Qin Dynasty has been a bystander and a participant in the rise and fall of the entire dynasty very stably."

"So, what kind of person is Li Si?"

As the prime minister of the Qin Dynasty, Li Si personally witnessed the rise and decline of the Qin Dynasty. His life trajectory is a history of the rise and fall of the Qin Dynasty.

Li Si was born in Shangcai, Chu State. When he was young, he worked as a small official in the county.

In the political system of Chu State, petty officials are the lowest civil servants.

Judging from Li Si's life plan, he obviously intends to be in politics. Fortunately, in troubled times, he has a decent job with no worries about food and clothing.

But for a poor kid like Li Si who doesn't have a mine in his family and doesn't have a big boss to support him, it is obviously not easy to achieve something.

After Li Si stayed in the position of petty official for a period of time, he became bored with this kind of stable but hopeless job.

Once, when Li Si was counting the grain production data of the year in the granary, he found that some mice were not afraid of people coming, and they were still swaggeringly eating the hoarded chestnut rice.At that moment, he thought of the rats eating dirt that he had seen in the toilet near the office before, and whenever they saw people and dogs coming, they were frightened and fled around.

"Historical Records Biography of Li Si": So Li Si Nai sighed and said: "The virtuous and unworthy people are like mice, and they are in their ears!"

In other words, whether a person becomes a sage or a worthless ordinary person is determined by his environment, just like a mouse!
This "mouse philosophy" that Li Si regarded as the truth prompted Li Si, who was unwilling to be mediocre, to decide to get rid of the current stable life and turn to seek the big stage of the times that could take him to a higher level.

Therefore, after Li Si quit his job, he traveled among the princes as a commoner.Later, he heard that Xunzi, a master of Confucianism, was opening a private school in Lanling County of Chu State to recruit students.

After Li Si heard about it, he went happily to learn the art of governing the country from the famous master "Xun Qing".

Xunzi believed that human beings are "evil in nature", and only by relying on sages to educate the world can "make the world come out of order".Compared with other Confucian masters, Xunzi advocated governing foreign countries with "benevolence". On the basis of absorbing the theories of various schools of thought, he also emphasized that benevolence and the legal system should go hand in hand—"respect the law, love the people and rule."

It is Xunzi's teaching philosophy that is compatible with hundreds of schools of thought that "a famous teacher produces a good student", which enabled him to teach Li Si and Han Feizi, two outstanding legalists, as a master of Confucianism.

After Li Si Xuecheng graduated, his original first choice was to rely on Xunzi's introduction to let him worship under Chu Xiangchun Shenjun Huang Xie.

But when Xunzi wanted to satisfy Li Si's ideal, Li Si refused: "Si heard that there is no slack in the time. Today, when Wan Chengfang is fighting, the wanderer is in charge. Today, the king of Qin wants to swallow the world and rule as emperor, and the common people are rushing. The time is the autumn of the lobbyists."

In fact, it was Li Si who disliked in his heart that "the king of Chu is not enough to do anything, and the six countries are weak, so there is no one to make meritorious deeds."

Xunzi could see Li Si's ambition clearly, and he couldn't force it. After all, he, a member of Zhao State, had already served in Chu State, so why should he worry about whether his disciples served Chu State or Qin State?
When Li Si came to Qin State, King Zhuangxiang of Qin had just passed away. At this time, 13-year-old Ying Zheng inherited his father's position, but the power was in the hands of Lu Buwei, Wenxinhou of Qin Xiangguo.

Li Si gave full play to his mouse spirit of "judging the situation". As soon as he arrived in Qin State, he, as a student of Xunzi, "seeked to be the minister of Qin, Wenxin Hou Lv Buwei".

Lu Buwei looked at this young man with a famous teacher and a lot of talent himself, who respected him so much, and did not have the characteristics of some slightly famous scholars who are proud of their talents. He was very happy, so he asked Li Si to come to Qin Shihuang to do a The famous attendant Lang Guan.

As for whether Lu Buwei had Li Si's "confidant" as his vision, Li Si didn't care. From Li Si's point of view, this was his ticket to Qin's political arena.

After Li Si came to Qin Shihuang's side, he faced a lot of pressure: how should he stand in line?
From his point of view, it is impossible not to fail to see that Qin Shihuang was very dissatisfied with Lu Buwei, and only tolerated Lu Buwei's control of the government and being his "stepfather" for the time being due to his lack of strength.

"Historical Records: Biography of Lu Buwei": Three years after King Zhuang Xiang ascended the throne, the crown prince was established as king.The King of Qin was young, and the Empress Dowager secretly communicated with Lu Buwei from time to time.

Li Si walked on thin ice. On the one hand, he made friends with Lu Buwei, and on the other hand, he also flattered Qin Wangzheng. This kind of two-way approach made his promotion road dangerous at every step.

But Li Si is not afraid, he knows that Lu Buwei and Qin Wangzheng use him because he is really talented!

As long as he doesn't do too much to one side, he can use his own credit to pay off.

Persuade Qin Shihuang to take advantage of the weakness of the six Shandong countries to annex the six countries and realize the great cause of unifying the world.

"Historical Records Biography of Li Si": Li Si said that the king of Qin said: "Those who are Xu people, let go of them. Those who achieve great success endure it because of flaws and provocations. In the past, Qin Mugong's hegemony never merged with the six kingdoms in the east. Why? The feudal lords are still numerous, and Zhou’s morality has not declined, so the five uncles have flourished and respected the Zhou family more. Since Qin Xiaogong, the Zhou family has been humble, and the vassals have coexisted. The Guandong is the Six Kingdoms. The end of the world. Today, the feudal lords obey Qin, like counties and counties. The husband regards the strength of Qin, and the virtuous king, who can be eradicated from the stove, is enough to destroy the feudal lords, become an emperor, and become the unification of the world. Hurry up, the feudal lords will be strong again, and they will meet together, even though they have the sages of the Yellow Emperor, they cannot join forces."

Qin Shihuang listened to Li Si's strategy and made him a long history.

Li Si asked the state of Qin to use money to buy the favored officials of the kings of the six countries, and asked them to drive a wedge between the king and his loyal ministers. If anyone was unwilling to be bought, he would take the opportunity to assassinate them.

With this method, Qin State saved a lot of effort in the process of attacking the Six Kingdoms. For example, Li Mu, Sima Shang and others were brutally killed by the king because they were alienated by villains.

"Historical Records Biography of Li Si": The king of Qin worshiped Si as the chief historian, listened to his plan, and sent counselors to hold gold and jade to lobby the princes.The princes and celebrities who can give money to them will make a generous legacy; those who refuse to do so will be stabbed with a sharp sword.

Qin Shihuang was determined to expel the guest ministers from the six countries because South Korea sent Zheng Guolai to be a spy. Li Si successfully persuaded Qin Shihuang to abolish the "Expelling Guest Order" based on the argument that the talents of the six countries would do more good to Qin than harm.

Li Si's strategy moved Qin Shihuang, which enabled him to escape liquidation after Lu Buwei's downfall as a disciple of Lu Buwei, and was promoted to the inner circle of Qin Shihuang's camp.

After Li Si became the prime minister, Qin Shihuang, in order to show his favor to him, "Si's eldest son is guarded by Sanchuan, all men are courted by the princess of Qin, and women are married to the princes of Qin."

Sanchuan refers to the area of ​​Luoyang, Henan. During the Qin Dynasty, Sanchuan County roughly included the Yi and Luo River basins and the upper reaches of the Beiru River south of the Yellow River in Henan and east of Lingbao.

During the Warring States Period, Sanchuan County was once the strategic target of the Qin State and the six kingdoms of Shandong. Zhang Yi once said to King Wu of Qin: "Qin's army occupying Sanchuan County can coerce the emperor of Zhou and achieve the king's career."

From this honor, it can be seen that Qin Shihuang seemed to bind Li Si to his own empire.

When Li Si's son Li You asked for leave to go home to visit his family, Li Si hosted a banquet to welcome him.

Seeing this grand occasion, Li Si sighed: "My husband is Shang Caibuyi, the head of Guizhou in Luxiang. I don't know who I am, so I am promoted here. Today, there is no one who is a minister. It can be said that he is extremely rich."

As a commoner of the Chu state, Li Si traveled among the princes. He served Qin Shihuang and assisted him in completing the great cause of unifying the six countries.

After the Qin State unified the six kingdoms, Li Si respected Qin Shihuang as emperor, insisted on abolishing enfeoffment, implemented the system of prefectures and counties, and assisted Qin Shihuang to establish the first centralized feudal dynasty in Chinese history that unified the system of writing, weights and measures, currency, and train tracks. , "Si's merits are listed with Zhou and Zhao."

Qin Shihuang was grateful for his dedication and named him the prime minister of the empire.At this time, Li Si's status was already below one person and above ten thousand people.