Born in the lower class, Reese worked as a small official in managing documents when she was young. Reese is aggressive and politically ambitious. Once, he saw the mice in the toilet eating feces, and they were often disturbed by people and dogs. The rats in the barn eat food and live in a spacious warehouse, and they will not be intimidated by people and dogs. "Hamster" and "toilet mouse" live in different environments, which reminds Li Si that human dignity is completely determined by different social status. So he worshipped Xunzi as a teacher and learned the art of emperors. After finishing his studies, Li Si assessed the situation and thought that at that time, except Qin, all six countries were weak and incompetent, which could not satisfy his desire to make contributions. He is going to the western state of Qin. What he said to Xunzi when he left was quite interesting. He said: "I heard that you can't let go of an opportunity." Nowadays, the world is in dispute, and it is time for people like us to make contributions. Now the king of Qin wants to annex the world and claim the rule of emperor, which is a good opportunity for ordinary people and people like me to get ahead. Being humble but not thinking about fame and fortune is as unreasonable as birds and deer are not interested in meat! People must strive to get ahead, so the biggest shame is humble status, and the biggest sorrow is poverty. It is not the wish of intellectuals to live a poor and humble life for a long time, not to admire the world of mortals, to be ashamed to talk about profits and to be willing to do nothing. So I'm going to the west to lobby the king of Qin. " It can be seen that Reese is a utilitarian person.
Reese arrived in Thailand, just in time for the death of King Xiang of Qin Zhuang, and Ying Zheng of Qin succeeded to the throne. He worked as a doorman under his command and was later appointed Lang. Lang is the king's bodyguard. Reese used his position to give King A Qin a book about unification. In his book, Lisi reviewed the history of Qin from small to large and from weak to strong, and profoundly pointed out that vassal States were forced to obey Qin, just as Qin counties obeyed the central government. With the strength of Qin and the talent of kings, it is a good opportunity to destroy the princes and claim to be emperors and realize "unification of the world". Li Si advised Ying Zheng, king of Qin, to seize this golden opportunity and bravely shoulder the heavy responsibility of history. Qin Shihuang accepted Lisi's suggestion, appointed Lisi as a long history, and soon worshipped Lisi as a guest of honor.
Just when Reese was promoted step by step in Qin State, an accident happened. At that time, a south Korean water conservancy engineer named helped Qin build irrigation canals (that is, irrigation canals). The purpose is to consume the national strength of Qin. It turned out that he was a spy sent by South Korea. Some imperial nobles and ministers took the opportunity to encourage Ying Zheng, king of Qin, to expel the lobbyists from various countries, saying that most of them were spies sent by their own countries and could not be trusted. Ying Zheng, the king of Qin, immediately issued a marching order, expelling all of them, and Reese was also among those expelled. Li Si wrote a famous "Book of Expulsion" to Ying Zheng, the king of Qin. Generally speaking, since Mu Gong, Qin has hired many foreigners to govern the country, such as Bai Xixi, Wang Jian, Shang Yang, Zhang Yi and so on. , all people are not Qin people. If the monarch at that time refused to use foreigners, Qin would not have today's powerful situation. If foreigners are expelled indiscriminately now, it is by no means a good way to annex the world and subdue the vassals, but it is precisely to help the enemy country. At this rate, the state of Qin will be in danger.
On the way to be deported, Reese wrote such a passage to Qin. After reading the admonition, the King of Qin hurriedly ordered the expulsion order to be cancelled, and sent someone to recover Reese, restore his official position, maintain his meritorious service as usual, and soon made him a Tingwei. As the fuse of "marching orders", Zheng Guoqu also started again. This project has added more than 40,000 hectares of fertile land to the north bank of Weihe River. After more than 20 years, Lisi actively advised the king of Qin and played a great role in unifying the six countries. After the reunification of Qin, Ying Zheng, the king of Qin, was honored as the emperor, namely Qin Shihuang. As a prime minister, Li Si actively assisted Qin Shihuang in establishing and strengthening centralized rule and consolidating Qin's unification. For example, tear down the walls of counties in the past, destroy all the weapons in the world, abolish the enfeoffment system and implement the county system, drive the Xiongnu north, and unify the laws, weights and measures, tracks and characters in the south. All these achievements have a great relationship with Li Si.
In 2 13 BC, Qin Shihuang called his ministers and held a grand banquet. At the meeting, Dr. Zhou praised Qin Shihuang for destroying princes, establishing counties, unifying China and eradicating the scourge of war, which was considered as an unprecedented cause. At this time, Qi Renyue took the opportunity to claim that the sons and daughters heroes should be the king to assist the emperor. Li Si is very angry. He refuted Chun Yuyue, pointing out that the five emperors were not attached to each other, and the three generations were not attached to each other, so they could not remain unchanged forever. Times have changed, and so has the political system. He said: "The old system of Xia, Shang and Zhou advocated by Yue in the spring is simply not worth emulating. Now that the world is stable, laws and regulations are unified, and the people are working hard to produce, scholars only need to learn government laws and regulations. However, those scholars do not study contemporary things, but specialize in praising ancient things. They flaunted their private studies and attacked government decrees. If you go in, you don't mean it, but if you go out, you will talk about it, slander state affairs and confuse people. If it is not prohibited, your majesty's prestige will be reduced, and they will form a private party and gather people to make trouble. "
Therefore, Reese put forward the famous book-burning instrument, suggesting burning the history books of various vassal countries and private collections of poems, books and hundreds of languages; Anyone who dares to talk about "poetry" and "books" in the future will be sentenced to death. Those who don't burn for 30 days after the order is issued and have tattoos on their faces sent to the frontier are fined four years of hard labor. However, it is clearly pointed out that the national library does not burn books, agricultural books and medical books. If someone wants to learn laws and regulations, they should learn from local officials.
Qin Shihuang adopted Lisi's suggestion and ordered the burning of books, and a large number of books were burned, which made "the missing of the classics unknown and the chapters scattered." It can be said that this is a major historical crime caused by Reese.
In 2 10 BC, when Reese followed Qin Shihuang to patrol the sand dunes (now northeast of Pingxiang, Hebei Province), Qin Shihuang suddenly became critically ill and ordered Zhao Gao to write down the imperial edict and let his eldest son Fu Su go back to Xianyang to handle the affairs. At this time, Fu Su was supervising Montaigne's motorcade in the county seat. But before the letter was sent, Qin Shihuang died. This letter fell into the hands of Master Zhao. Zhao Gao is an ambitious man. Seeing that it was a good opportunity to seize power, he wanted to go against the will of Qin Shihuang, abolish Fu Su, and set up Hu Hai for him. He persuaded Hu Hai first, and then Reese. Zhao Gao seized the weakness of Reese's covetousness for power, and used both hard and soft methods: if Fu Su succeeded to the throne, he would trust Meng Tian. When Hu Hai was in power, he could turn disaster into pleasure and seal Hou forever. After listening to Zhao Gao, Reese disagreed at first, then hesitated, and finally agreed. So Reese colluded with Hu Hai and Zhao Gao, forged letters, and made Hu Hai a prince. And forged the imperial edict of Qin Shihuang, sent messengers to Fu Su and Meng Tian to commit suicide, and then sent out obituaries in Xianyang, and Hu Hai acceded to the throne as the second emperor.
After Qin Ershi acceded to the throne, he trusted Zhao Gao, severely punished him, killed heroes and imperial clan brothers, and promoted corvee and extravagance, which greatly increased the burden on the people and caused boiling public resentment. Finally, a peasant uprising led by Chen Sheng and Guangwu broke out. Seeing this, Reese tried to remonstrate many times, but II refused to accept it and was very dissatisfied with Reese. In addition, Li You, the son of Reese, defended Sanchuan County and failed to stop the rebels from advancing westward, which was a crime against Reese. Reese was very afraid of losing his official position, so he turned to flatter Qin Ershi to get a good impression, and wrote a book "Strict Supervision and Responsibility" to cater to II's wishes and encourage him to enjoy himself. The minister and the people further used heavy punishment to "supervise the responsibility". After reading Reese's letter, II was really happy, so he severely "reprimanded", resulting in "criminals accompanying the road and the dead accumulating the city", and the rule was even more cruel.
However, Reese's position in Qin Ershi's mind has not changed. II still trusted Zhao Gao, while Zhao Gao wanted to get rid of Reese in order to gain more power. So he tried every means to frame Reese in front of II, saying that Reese and his son Li You were having an affair with a "thief" and wanted to rebel. Qin Ershi listened to Zhao Gao, arrested Reese, and ordered Zhao Gaolai to punish Reese.
In the early winter of 208 BC, Reese's family was taken to the execution ground. Reese looked back at his son and said, "I want to go out to Shangcai East Gate with you and Yellow Dog. Can you still do it? " Say that finish, father and son cry. On this day, Reese was beheaded in the streets of Xianyang, and all three families were killed.
Li Si assisted Qin Shihuang, ending the separatist regime and feudalism, and creating a unified centralized feudal country, which made great contributions. Among the historical achievements of Qin Shihuang I, Li Si's contribution is second only to Qin Shihuang. Li Zhi once said: "When Qin Shihuang was born, Lisi interacted with him, and the sky fell apart." However, Reese is a man with a heavy utilitarian heart, and he can do whatever it takes for his own prosperity. When Qin Shihuang issued the expulsion order, he saw that his fame and fortune would become the moon in the water. Even on the way to be deported, he had to write a book of exhortation and expulsion to make the final rescue. When Han Fei won the appreciation of Qin Shihuang because of his talent, it was Li Sijin who slandered and sent people to poison and eliminate potential competitors. Zhao Gao seized his weakness for fame and fortune and coerced him into a coup. The last bit of personal dignity of Reese was also lost under the flattery of the book Strict Conduct and Responsibility. If Reese can stand up and stop the coup in the dunes, his achievements will be no less than that of Duke Zhou. However, excessive utilitarianism led to the loss of Lisi's moral integrity, which also directly led to his tragic ending. It's a pity that Reese understood it too late and didn't realize the value of ordinary life until he went to the execution ground.