Li Kui studied under guiguzi?

First of all, it is clear that Li Kui is not a disciple of Guiguzi. If you agree that Li Kui is Li Ke, then he should be a disciple of Xia Zi.

Guiguzi

What is certain is that Guiguzi does exist. He is a Warring States person, also known as Mr. Guiguzi. His name is unknown, and he lives in seclusion, so he takes it as his name. Sima Zhen, Biography of Historical Records of Su Qin, said: "There are ghost valley markets in Fufeng Chiyang and Yingchuan Yangcheng, and the buildings are where people live." In some historical books from the Western Han Dynasty to later generations, besides Historical Records, there are records about Guiguzi, such as Liu Xiang's Shuo Yuan in Han Dynasty, Yang Xiong's Fa Yan, Ying Shao's Custom Yi Tong, Records of the Southern Dynasties, Tang Wuji's Introduction to Guiguzi and Song Dynasty's Brief Introduction to Guiguzi. There are so many records that it is enough to show that Guiguzi does exist, but his real surname was concealed by future generations. There are so many mysteries behind this unknown figure that later generations moved out to publicize their own theory: Guiguzi is a man, surnamed Wang, and famous. Because he lived in Guiguzi seclusion, he was called Guiguzi, and he was said to be a famous health family in the Warring States period (even related to the fortune-telling of Zhouyi gossip, which was really a bad debt). And the more orthodox point of view, because in the Warring States Policy, Zhang Yi and Su Qin are the proud disciples of Guiguzi, so later generations also attribute him to a strategist. In unofficial history, Sun Bin and Pang Juan were also listed as his disciples (see The Romance of Sun Pang). According to legend, his book Guiguzi was first recorded in the Annals of Sui Shu. The original is scattered, and the three volumes of Guiguzi are incomplete, which is suspected to be a forgery.

Li Kui

In the early Warring States period, Wei had a famous politician who lived in Wuhou. The most famous thing was that he helped reform as a prime minister. But there is not much ink in the almanac. His "Pinza" method is recorded in Records of Eating Goods in Hanshu. Li Kui believes that if food prices are too low, farmers can't make ends meet, and life is difficult, the country will be poor; Food prices are too high, urban residents can't afford it, and life is difficult, so they will emigrate. Therefore, food prices, whether expensive or cheap, are not conducive to consolidating state rule. To this end, he formulated a "leveling" method to balance food prices, and divided good years into upper, middle and lower grades, and bad years into upper, middle and lower grades. In good years, the government pays a certain amount of surplus grain according to the grade of good years, and in bad years, the government produces a certain amount of grain according to the grade parity of bad years. This is the beginning of the continuous liquidation of all previous dynasties. He also formulated a "Law Classics". According to legend, Shang Yang went to Qin State and took a copy of Fa Jing with him.

There is a question of overlapping characters here, that is, whether the names Li Kui and Li Ke are the same person. "Han Shugu Ren Jin Table" ranks Li Kui in the third place and Li Ke in the fourth place, treating them as two people. However, Mencius and Biographies of Xun Qing in Shiji and Hanshu Shihuo said that Li Kui tried his best to teach, while Shiji, Biography of Huo Zhi and PingZhun said that Li Ke tried his best to teach. Therefore, Cui Shi's Historical Records concluded that Li Ke was a synonym for Li Kui.

For us, there is no need to be too serious. Let's just assume that they are the same person. This Li Kui studied under the Confucian Xia Zi (a disciple of Confucius), and later he was a representative of Legalism. This experience is very similar to that of Han Feizi and Li Si. They all study Confucianism, and Han Fei is a student of Xunzi. It seems that Legalism and Confucianism are a little different. ) If you insist that he has anything to do with Guiguzi, then you may want to talk to Wu Qi: Li Kui and Wu Qi are both capable people of the same period (Li Kui also appointed Wu Qi as an official), so some people say that they are students of Guiguzi.