Theoretically speaking, from Confucius' repeated mention of the ideal of "Yao Shunyu ruling the world" to Tao Yuanming's beautiful imagination of "Taoyuan World", it reflects China's constant admiration and development of the ancient thought of ruling by virtue.
In practice, after "a hundred schools of thought contend" in the Han Dynasty, the "Spring and Autumn Judgment Law" appeared, that is, it was based on the classic cases such as the Confucian Spring and Autumn Annals and the Confucian moral and ethical norms. The Confucian thought of "benevolence and righteousness" has also become the basic criterion of social behavior in ancient China.
Confucianism, as the mainstream of ancient China society, has always provided a continuous theoretical basis for the rule of virtue. These are the theoretical and practical manifestations of China's ancient thought of ruling by virtue.
Secondly, in terms of practical measures, "rule by virtue" takes Confucianism as the fundamental guidance of social external norms and Legalism as the concrete way to realize social governance.
"Confucianism outside and law inside" is the actual way of governance in ancient China, and "morality first, punishment second" has always been advocated; However, in practice, due to the inherent shortcomings of the feudal bureaucracy, it is often "punishment first, supplemented by morality", and there is even no moral participation; A concrete example is China's ancient history of several thousand years, and there are really only a handful of honest officials.
Finally, there were many theories of rule of virtue in ancient China, but they were basically not implemented in the end, that is, the theory was divorced from reality and the thought of rule of virtue became a mere formality.