 Although the term “Legalism” was coined only during the Han 漢dynasty (206/202 BCE-220 CE), its roots—or more precisely the idea of grouping together several thinkers who will be eventually dubbed “Legalists”—can be traced already to Han Fei 韓非 (d. 233 BCE), who is often considered the most significant representative of this intellectual current. In chapter 43, “Defining the Standards” (“Ding fa” 定法) of Han Feizi 韓非子, the thinker presents himself as a synthesizer and improver of the ideas of two of his predecessors, Shang Yang 商鞅 (d. 338 BCE) and Shen Buhai 申不害 (d. 337 BCE) (Han Feizi 43: 397–400). Pairing Shen Buhai and Shang Yang, and adding Han Fei himself to them became common from the early Han dynasty (see, e.g. Huainanzi 6: 230; 11:423; 20: 833). The historian Sima Qian 司馬遷 (ca. 145–90 BCE) identified these three thinkers as adherents of the teaching of “performance and title” (xing ming 刑名) (Shiji 62: 2146; 68: 2227; translation borrowed from Goldin 2013: 8). This term was synonymous to the later fa jia (Creel 1974: 140).