Mozi

Also known as Mo Di · Zi Mozi

Mozi, personal name Di, left few biographical traces: the Shiji mentions him only at the end of the biographies of Mencius and Xunzi, as a grandee of Song skilled in defence who urged frugality and lived in or after Confucius's time, while others make him a native of Lu. He founded the Mohist school, arguing for impartial care, against offensive war and for promoting the worthy, with a following drawn largely from craftsmen. The Gongshu chapter of the Mozi tells how, when Gongshu Ban built siege ladders for Chu to attack Song, Mozi walked ten days to Ying, beat Gongshu Ban nine times in a model siege laid out with his belt, and warned that three hundred disciples under Qin Guli already manned Song's walls, so Chu called off the attack. The History of the Han lists the Mozi in seventy-one chapters, of which fifty-three survive, including the Canons with passages on optics, mechanics and logic. Han Feizi named Confucians and Mohists the two prominent schools of his day.