Li's ancestors were a juren. His son Li is a scholar. Li and his wife gave birth to eight sons: the eldest son, the second son Li Jinhui, the third son, the fourth son, the fifth son Jin-Hyung Lee, the sixth son Li, the seventh son Li Jinguang and the eighth son Li Jinyang. They are called "Li Bama".
Li is an open-minded intellectual. In order to give these sons a good education, he quit his job and returned to his hometown to start a new school-Changtang Shanxi School. This school not only teaches the Four Books and Five Classics, but also teaches new courses such as arithmetic, geography, natural history, music, art and so on. In this new school, the eight Li brothers have accepted a lot of new knowledge and insight, and also cultivated their enterprising spirit of independent thinking. This laid a solid foundation for their fruitful future.