This essay examines Shang Yang’s tragic fate analysed in Han Feizi. Though his Legalist reforms empowered Qin, he lacked political technique and got sacrificed, while his institutions persisted; Han Fei shared similar structural peril.
The deer is afraid of the wolf; the wolf of the tiger; and the tiger of the wild bear, the most ferocious and powerful of all animals, walking erect, with long hair hanging from its head.