information:extraction, linguistic:translation
The Fa School

Inasmuch as the term Legalism has been used modernly, Dingxin Zhao characterizes the Western Han as developing a Confucian-Legalist state.

Liu An, as traditional author of the Huang-Lao typified Huainanzi, would be suppressed together with the Huang-Lao faction by other potential Han Feizi students, the Shang Yangian Emperor Wu of Han (reign 141-87bce), Gongsun Hong and Zhang Tang. Under Confucian factional pressure, Emperor Wu dismisses the Yellow Emperor Daoists, xingming theoreticians, and those of other philosophies, and discriminates against scholars of Shang Yang, Shen Buhai and Han Fei. When older, those officials who praised Shang Yang and Li Si and denounced Confucius were upheld. Together with that of the Confucians, the imperial examination system would be instituted through the likely influence of Shen Buhai and Han Fei, who advocated appointment by methodologies of performance checking.

Undoubtedly associating Shang Yang primarily with penal law, no received Han text ever attempted to individually argue or obfuscate Shen Buhai a penal figure. Contrasting with Confucius and the Zhou dynasty, Dong Zhongshu (179–104 BC) simply associates Shen Buhai and Shang Yang with the Qin again as reportedly implementing the ideas of Han Fei. Asserting that the Qin, with high taxes and oppressive officials, had declined amidst a failure to punish criminals, he proceeds to associate laws, punishments and meritocratic appointment with the Zhou.

With Sima Qian's categories already popular by their time, Imperial Archivists Liu Xiang (77–6BCE) and Liu Xin (c.46bce–23ce) placed Han Fei's figures. They associate the schools with ancient departments, with the fa-school "probably originating in the department of prisons", whose descendants, then, failed to punish criminals. Fajia becomes a category of texts in the Han state's own Book of Han (111ce), with Dong Zhongshu's argument included in its Chapter 56 Biography.

The fajia are strict and have little kindness, but their divisions between lord and subject, superior and inferior, cannot be improved upon… Fajia do not distinguish between kin and stranger, or differentiate between noble and base; all are judged as one by their fa. Thus they sunder the kindnesses of treating one’s kin as kin and honoring the honorable. It is a policy that could be practiced for a time, but not applied for long. But for honoring rulers and derogating subjects, and clarifying social divisions and offices so that no one is able to overstep them—none of the Hundred Schools could improve upon this. Shiji 120:3291