Han Fei's main "legalist" precursors included Shang Yang (c. 390–338 BCE), Shen Buhai (c. 400–337 BCE), and Shen Dao (fl. fourth century BCE), who, in the traditional, if overly neat, categorization of their main ideas, respectively proffered such notions as rulership through strict enforcement of clear laws (fa), management of officials through bureaucratic method (shu), and reliance on advantageous position (shi), all of which would, to one degree or another, find their way into Han Fei's thought. Han Fei was also loosely associated with the Huang-Lao tradition, and he was influenced by the book of Laozi (Dao de jing), from which he and his predecessors borrowed the term nonaction (wuwei) to describe the stance of the ideal ruler. Most directly, Han Fei was also ostensibly a student of the Confucian philosopher Xunzi, though if this is true he would end up radically departing from his teacher on many fronts.
If Han Fei inherited anything from Xunzi, it was certainly the idea that human nature, if left to its own devices, would only lead the people toward struggle and chaos, as humans tended to act out of their own self-interest (as demonstrated, for Han Fei, by the fact that people normally congratulated each other when a son was born, but sometimes killed the child if it was a "useless" daughter).
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