Xunzi, name, word Qing. He and Mencius are the true successors of Confucius' theory. Mencius inherited Confucius' theory of benevolence and righteousness, while Xunzi inherited Confucius' theory of propriety and music. Mencius and Xunzi held their own views. Mencius specializes in inner benevolence and advocates good nature, while Xunzi advocates evil nature in external ceremony; Mencius values righteousness over profit, while Xunzi values righteousness over profit; Mencius was the first king of France and Xunzi was the second king of France. Mencius was good at king, while Xunzi was overbearing. While criticizing the theories of pre-Qin philosophers, Xunzi absorbed the essence of hundreds of academic schools and formed his own school. Xunzi's theory covers a wide range, including politics, philosophy, economy, literature and so on, which are closely related to his society. It can be said that Xunzi was a comprehensive thinker in the pre-Qin period of China. There are 32 existing articles in Xunzi, which is the concentrated embodiment of his theory. Most of these 32 articles are reasoning compositions. Xunzi also wrote a poem "Xiangcheng" and a poem "Fu", which had a direct impact on the emergence of Han Fu.
In Han Feizi's reasoning prose, the fable story is the most literary one, ranking first in the prose of pre-Qin Dynasty. Fables are only used occasionally in Warring States Policy and Mencius. Although it is full of articles from Zhuangzi, they are all aimed at clarifying a central idea. Fable is only a part of argumentative writing, not an independent literary genre. Han Fei began to collect, organize and create fables consciously and systematically, and classified them into various forms of fable stories. For example, stories about internal storage, stories about external storage, stories about forests, and stories about the old are all fables. The fable of Han Feizi is mainly based on historical deeds and reality, and there are few anthropomorphic animal stories and fairy tales, and there are no illusory realms and characters beyond reality. It is completely different from the absurd and mysterious fable in Zhuangzi. Han Fei's fables vividly reflect his legalist thoughts and his profound understanding of social life. Like Zhuangzi, he used historical materials to make historical figures speak, reinvent themselves and embody their own thoughts. Confucius, for example, turned his face in Zhuangzi and did everything wrong. Confucius, who talked about his heart and his forgetfulness in The Life of Zhuangzi and The Master, is an image obsessed with Taoism. Confucius, who advocated that the reward and punishment in Everything is done in Tibet, is a cold legalist image. Fables based on real society and folk stories are extracted from Han Fei's careful observation of social phenomena, such as the satirical power of "Honest People Buy Shoes", "Xi Yan Shu's Theory" ("Stories in the Left") and the philosophical wisdom of "Spear and Shield" ("Dilemma"), which all reflect the depth of Han Fei's fable thought.
The plain theme makes Han Fei's fables less complicated than Zhuangzi's. However, Han Fei's fables are not dull in art, but ingenious in conception, bold in description, humorous in language, plain and wonderful in reality, with intriguing and warning artistic effects. For example, "the foreign reserve says left" and "prickly female monkey":
The prince of Yan recruited skilled craftsmen. Guardian, please treat the end of the thorn as a female monkey. The prince said, raise it five times. The king said, "I try to observe that the guest is a thorny female monkey." The guest said, "I want to see it. I can't go to the palace, drink alcohol or eat meat for half a year. It will rain and the sun will rise, but the thorn monkey can see it." The prince can't see the mother monkey because he has been guarding people. Zheng had a master under the stage. He said to the prince, "I am also a swordsman. I have to cut everything, and the cut is bigger than the cut." Up to now, the thorn end is not sharpened, and it is difficult to cure it. Wang tries to observe the guest's eagerness, can you know it? "Qi Weiwang said," you speak very well! " ! " Wei said, "A guest is a thorn." Say, "chop it." The king said, "I want to see it." The guest said, "I ask you to give up." Because of running away.
The story is full of ups and downs. Each of the three characters focuses on one end of their own personality. The fatuity of the prince, the cunning of the guardian and the cleverness of the master are all simple and vivid. Many fables in Han Feizi have been circulated for thousands of years. Waiting for the Rabbit (Wu's Note), Spear and Shield (Difficult One), Complement (hidden inside), Shoe Buying by Zheng People, Most Easy to Draw Ghosts, and Bought a Gift to Return the Pearl (hidden outside)