Shang Yang - Shang Yang's Death

Shang Yang's Death

Deeply despised by the Qin nobility, Yang could not survive Duke Xiao of Qin's death. The next ruler, King Huiwen, ordered the execution of Yang and his family, on the grounds of fomenting rebellion. Yang had previously humiliated the new Duke "by causing him to be punished for an offense as though he were an ordinary citizen." Yang went into hiding and tried to stay at a hotel. The hotel owner refused because it was against Yang's laws to admit a guest without proper identification, a law Yang himself had implemented.

Yang was executed by chelie (車裂, dismemberment, being fastened to five chariots or cattle and torn to pieces); his whole family was also executed. Despite his death, King Huiwen kept the reforms enacted by Yang. A number of alternate versions of Shang Yang's death have survived. According to Sima Qian in his Records of the Grand Historian, Shang Yang fled to his fiefdom, where he raised a rebel army but was killed in battle. After the battle, King Hui of Qin had Yang's corpse torn apart by chariots as a warning to others.

Confucian scholars were highly opposed to Shang Yang's legalist approach.