Li Si

Li Si lived from about 280 to 208 BC and was a Chinese calligrapher, philosopher and official who served as Chancellor of the Qin state from 246 to 208 BC, first under King Zheng, who became Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty, and then under Qin Er Shi, Qin Shi Huang's eighteenth son and second emperor. According to the Shiji, Li Si admired and used the administrative ideas of Shen Buhai and referred often to the legal technique of Shen Buhai and Han Fei, but on matters of law he followed Shang Yang. He assisted the emperor in unifying laws, governmental ordinances and weights and measures, and in standardizing chariots, carts and the characters used in writing, helping bring about the cultural unification of China. He built a government based on merit rather than birth, so that meritorious ministers were ennobled rather than sons and younger brothers of the imperial clan, and he helped pacify the frontier regions by subduing peoples to the north and south. He had the metal weapons of the former feudal states melted down and cast into bells and statues, lowered taxes, and eased the harsh punishments for criminals that had been instituted by the statesman Shang Yang.