Li Kui was a Chinese hydraulic engineer, philosopher and politician who lived from 455 to 395 BCE and served as minister and court adviser to Marquess Wen of Wei, being appointed to administer Wei-controlled territory in 422 BCE. In 407 BCE he authored the Fajing, or Canon of Laws, a codified legal text organized into sections covering theft, banditry, arrest and imprisonment procedure, and other criminal matters. The Fajing became the direct institutional ancestor of the legal codes of the Qin and Han dynasties: when the Legalist statesman Shang Yang later carried a copy of it to the state of Qin, it was adapted into Qin's own legal code, and through that transmission Li Kui's work shaped the legal codes of the two dynasties that first unified and then consolidated imperial China. His Canon of Laws also profoundly influenced later Legalist thinkers, including Shang Yang and Han Fei, making Li Kui one of the founding figures of the Chinese Legalist school's approach to codified law.
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