Wey

The small state on the central plain where Shang Yang was born a minor prince before leaving to find a ruler who would let him rebuild a country from scratch.

Wey was a weak state surrounded by stronger ones, the kind of place an ambitious younger son leaves. Shang Yang went first to Wei, was ignored, and then to Qin, whose ruler was advertising for talent. There he got what almost no political thinker ever gets: an entire state to redesign, and twenty years to do it. The reforms made Qin powerful enough to conquer everything, and the aristocracy he had stripped of privilege executed him as soon as his protector died.