When powerful magnates control key state affairs, both inner‑palace attendants and outer officials become their tools. Hence neighboring states will not cooperate unless relying on them, so enemy states speak for them. Government officials cannot advance unless submitting to them, so ministers serve them. Palace attendants cannot approach the ruler unless clinging to them, so close aides conceal their crimes. Scholars receive low salaries and poor treatment unless currying favor with them, so scholars praise them. These four groups of supporters are how treacherous ministers disguise themselves.
Powerful magnates cannot be loyal to the ruler or recommend their rivals (law‑wise statesmen). Rulers cannot see through these four supporters to expose the magnates. Thus rulers grow increasingly deluded while powerful ministers grow stronger.
Powerful magnates are nearly always trusted and loved by rulers, bound by long‑term familiarity. They naturally advance by catering to the ruler’s likes and dislikes. With high ranks, numerous cliques, and nationwide praise, they dominate politics.
Law‑wise statesmen who seek an audience with the ruler lack intimate trust or long‑standing friendship. Moreover, their legal‑statecraft ideas correct the ruler’s biased and wrongful tendencies, opposing the ruler’s partiality. They are low‑ranking, isolated, and have no factional allies.
A distant outsider cannot win against the ruler’s trusted favorites; a newcomer cannot win against old acquaintances; one who opposes the ruler’s will cannot win against those who flatter his tastes; the humble cannot win against the noble and powerful; a single voice cannot win against nationwide cliques. These are five unavoidable disadvantages.
Law‑wise statesmen trapped in these five disadvantages may not see the ruler for years. Powerful magnates, with five decisive advantages, speak to the ruler day and night. How can law‑wise statesmen gain promotion? When can rulers awaken to the truth?
Faced with inevitable defeat and irreconcilable opposition, how can law‑wise statesmen avoid danger? Those who can be framed for crimes are executed by official law. Those who cannot be falsely accused are assassinated by private swords. Therefore, those who uphold law and statecraft and oppose powerful magnates are either killed by official punishment or slain by private assassins.
Note
This passage reveals a tragic Legalist political reality: reformist statesmen who uphold law face five inherent disadvantages against entrenched corrupt magnates, who use both legal persecution and secret assassination to eliminate rivals. Rulers are easily deceived by elite cliques.
The most prominent Legalist political thinker of the late Warring‑States Period. This passage is from Lonely Indignation (Gu Fen), his famous essay describing the tragic fate of reformist law‑upholding officials amid corrupt powerful ministerial cliques.
Four Supporters
Four social groups manipulated by powerful magnates: foreign states, government officials, palace attendants, and scholars. Together they shield corrupt ministers and isolate the ruler.
Five Disadvantages of Law‑wise Statesmen
Han Fei’s classic summary of reformers’ political weaknesses: estrangement, newness, opposing the ruler’s will, low status, and numerical inferiority against nationwide cliques.
Public Execution vs Private Assassination
Two fatal fates for reformers: framed and legally executed, or secretly murdered by private killers hired by corrupt magnates.
Lonely Indignation
The core theme of the whole essay: upright reformist statesmen suffer loneliness, danger and injustice under autocratic politics controlled by factional elites.
當塗之人擅事要，則外內為之用矣。是以諸侯不因則事不應，故敵國為之訟。百官不因則業不進，故群臣為之用。郎中不因則不得近主，故左右為之匿。學士不因則養祿薄禮卑，故學士為之談也。此四助者，邪臣之所以自飾也。重人不能忠主而進其仇，人主不能越四助而燭察其臣，故人主愈弊，而大臣愈重。凡當塗者之於人主也，希不信愛也，又且習故。若夫即主心同乎好惡，固其所自進也。官爵貴重，朋黨又眾，而一國為之訟。則法術之士欲干上者，非有所信愛之親，習故之澤也；又將以法術之言矯人主阿辟之心，是與人主相反也。處勢卑賤，無黨孤特。夫以疏遠與近愛信爭，其數不勝也；以新旅與習故爭，其數不勝也；以反主意與同好爭，其數不勝也；以輕賤與貴重爭，其數不勝也；以一口與一國爭，其數不勝也。法術之士，操五不勝之勢，以歲數而又不得見；當塗之人，乘五勝之資，而旦暮獨說於前；故法術之士，奚道得進，而人主奚時得悟乎？故資必不勝而勢不兩存，法術之士焉得不危？其可以罪過誣者，以公法而誅之；其不可被以罪過者，以私劍而窮之。是明法術而逆主上者，不僇於吏誅，必死於私劍矣。
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