Lǚ Bùwéi 呂不韋 (d. 235 BCE) was a wealthy merchant of Yángzhái 陽翟 in the state of Hán who, while trading at Hándān 邯鄲 in Zhào, recognized the political potential of the unfortunate Qín prince Yìrén 異人 (later King Zhuāngxiāng 莊襄王) — held there as a hostage — and engineered, through lavish gifts to the favoured but childless consort Huáyáng 華陽夫人, his designation as heir to the Qín throne. Yìrén’s accession in 250 BCE elevated Lǚ to the chancellorship of Qín (chéngxiàng 丞相), the title Marquis of Wénxìn 文信侯, and an enfeoffment of one hundred thousand households at Luòyáng. Under the boy-king who succeeded — the future First Emperor 始皇帝, whose paternity was rumoured (in the Shǐjì account) to be Lǚ’s own — he was honoured as xiàngguó 相國 and addressed as zhòngfù 仲父 (“second father”). It was during these years that he assembled the three thousand scholar-clients (賓客) at his court whose collective effort produced the Lǚshì chūnqiū 呂氏春秋 (KR3j0009), publicly displayed at the gate of the Xiányáng market with a thousand jīn of gold offered to anyone who could improve a single character. Following the scandal of the miùài 繆毐 affair (which implicated him through his earlier introduction of the miùài to the Queen Dowager) he was dismissed in 237, banished to his fief in Hénán, then ordered into deeper exile to Shǔ; he committed suicide by drinking poison in 235 BCE. His biography is Shǐjì 85 (Lǚ Bùwéi lièzhuàn).