The reformer Shang Yang asked the scholar Zhao Liang whether his rule of Qin was better than that of a famous earlier minister. Zhao answered: “The skins of a thousand sheep are not worth the fur under one fox’s leg. The yes, yes of a thousand men is not worth the frank objection of one gentleman.” (Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian)
The idiom 唯唯诺诺, to say yes to everything, goes back to the Han Feizi. It describes the people around a ruler who say “yes” before he has given an order and “certainly” before he has asked.