of capable ministers, their performance, the monopolization of power, and the control of and power relations between ruler and minister which he characterized as Wu Wei. They can therefore easily be considered the most crucial element in controlling a bureaucracy. More specifically, Shen Buhai's methods (Fa) focused on "scrutinizing achievement and on that ground alone to give rewards, and to bestow office solely on the basis of ability". Liu Xiang wrote that Shen Buhai advised the ruler of men use technique (shu) rather than punishment, relying on persuasion to supervise and hold responsible, though very strictly. Liu considered Shen's "principal tenet" to be (Xing-Ming 刑名). Representing equally applied checks against the power of officials, Xing-Ming seeks the right person for the job through the examination of skill, achievement and (more rarely) seniority. Personnel selection Shen Buhai's personnel control, or rectification of names (such as titles) worked through "strict performance control"(Hansen), correlating performance and posts (Xing or Shih and Ming). It would become a central tenet of both "Legalist" statecraft and its Taoistic derivatives. The correlation between Wu-wei and Xing-ming may have informed the Taoist conception of the formless Tao that "gives rise to the ten thousand things." In the Han Dynasty secretaries of government who had charge of the records of decisions in criminal matters were called Xing-Ming, a term used by Han Fei, which Sima Qian (145 or 135 – 86 BC) and Liu Xiang (77 BC – 6 BC) attributed to the doctrine of Shen Buhai(400 BC – c. 337 BC). Liu Xiang goes as far as to define Shen Buhai's doctrine as Xing-Ming. Shen actually used an older, more philosophically common equivalent, ming-shih, linking the "Legalist doctrine of names" with the name and reality (ming shih) debates of the school of names. Such discussions are also prominent in the Han Feizi. Sima Qian and Liu Xiang define Xing-Ming as "holding actual outcome accountable to Ming". Ming sometimes has the sense of speech—so as to compare the statements of an aspiring officer with the reality of his actions—or reputation, again compared with real conduct (xing "form" or shih "reality"). Rather than having to look for "good" men, Xing-Ming (or ming-shih) can seek the right man for a particular post, though doing so implies a total organizational knowledge of the regime. More simply though, it can allow ministers to come forward with proposals of specific cost and time frame,