Han Feizi tells a story about the sage Shun. The farmers of Mount Li were encroaching on each other’s field boundaries. Shun went to farm among them, and after a year the boundaries were in order. The fishermen on the river bank fought over the shoals. Shun went to fish with them, and after a year they yielded to their elders.
Confucius sighed: “Farming, fishing and pottery were not Shun’s office. He went to do them to put right what was wrong. He took the hard work on himself, and the people followed him.” Han Feizi then questions the story. If Shun had to set things right, he asks, what had the ruler Yao done wrong?