Ruanzi zhenglun 阮子政論

Ruanzi zhenglun 阮子政論 "Master Ruan on politics" was a legalist treatise written during the early 3rd century CE by Ruan Wu 阮武, courtesy name Wenye 文業, from the commandery of Chenliu 陳留 (today's Kaifeng 開封, Henan). He served as governor (taishou 太守) of the commandery of Qinghe 清河. The bibliographical chapter Jingji zhi 經籍志 in the official dynastic history Suishu 隋書 lists the book Ruanzi zhenglun 阮子正論 had a length of 5 juan, but the bibliographical chapters in the history books Jiutangshu 舊唐志 and Xintangshu 新唐志 use the character 政 instead of 正. All bibliographies say, the Ruanzi zhenglun was already lost. The book Yilin 意林 simply calls it Ruanzi 阮子 "Master Ruan".

Fragments of the text survive that are published in Ma Guohan's 馬國翰 (1794-1857) series Yuhan shanfang jiyi shu 玉函山房輯佚書. The fragments speak of how to control the populace with the help of laws, just live a river had to be tamed with the help of dams and dykes.