c. -390
An Outsider From Wei
Shang Yang was born into the fractured Warring States world, where old Zhou authority had faded and ambitious rulers searched for ways to make their states stronger. He first served in Wei, one of the leading powers of the age. That background mattered because reform ideas moved across borders with advisers, hostages, generals and defectors. Qin, on the western frontier, had long been treated by some rivals as rough and marginal, but it had land, military potential and rulers willing to experiment. Shang Yang's career began in that larger contest: not as an isolated thinker, but as a political technician in an age that rewarded states able to mobilise people and punish failure.
