5 pieces from Han Feizi, Mozi — each retold in modern English and traced to its source.
Six small stories from across the Han Feizi, gathered under one roof. A spear that pierces all and a shield nothing pierces. A pipe player who can't play. A box worth more than its pearl. Han Fei's coldest tool: the fable that leaves you no answer.
History does not stand still, so why govern by the dead kings? Han Fei's coldest, most famous chapter watches a farmer wait at a tree-stump for a second hare — then names the five parasites quietly eating the state from the inside.
Han Fei reads the throne like a coroner reads a body. The ruler who shows what he wants gets dressed to order by his ministers. The one who shows nothing makes them act first — and reveal themselves. A cold manual on how to hold power without being read.
A sage can double a state's wealth, Mozi says, and he never takes a foot of his neighbour's land to do it. The whole gain comes from one ruthless test, applied to clothes, to houses, to armies, to funerals, even to music: does this thing add use, or only cost?
Every ruler wants the same three things — a rich state, a full population, a country in good order. Most get the opposite. Mozi has a blunt diagnosis and a radical fix: stop handing power to your relatives and favorites, and give it to whoever can actually do the work, farmer or artisan included.