Editing Li Si (section)

== Early life ==
Li Si was originally from [[Cai (state)|Cai]] in the [[state of Chu]].<ref name="Goldin">''Li Si, Chancellor of the Universe in'' {{cite book|last=Hammond|first=Kenneth James|title=The Human Tradition in Pre-modern China|publisher=Scholarly Resources, Inc.|year=2002 | isbn = 978-0-8420-2959-9 }}</ref> As a young man he was a minor functionary in the local administration of Chu. According to the ''[[Records of the Great Historian]]'', one day Li Si observed that rats in the [[outhouse]] were dirty and hungry, but rats in the barn were well-fed. He suddenly realized that "there is no set standard for honour since everyone's life is different. The values of people are determined by their social status. And like rats, people's social status often depends purely on the random life events around them. And so instead of always being restricted by moral codes, people should do what they deemed best at the moment." He made up his mind to take up politics as a career, which was a common choice for scholars not from a noble family during the [[Warring States period]].

Li Si was unable to advance his career in Chu. He believed that achieving nothing in life while being so intelligent and educated would bring shame to not just himself but to all scholars. After having finished his education with the famous [[Confucian]] thinker [[Xun Kuang|Xunzi]], he moved to the [[state of Qin]], the most powerful state at that time, in an attempt to advance his political career.