Abstract:
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Despite the exalted status of Southern Song (1127-1279) scholar Zhu Xi (1130-1200) in the
contemporary body of research, relatively little effort has been dedicated to understanding his
views on military affairs and policy. Furthermore, analyses of his military policy
recommendations and assessments of his participation in the debate on the Jin-Song conflict
have not yet benefited from a thorough comparison with his more “philosophical” works,
most importantly the Four Books and his later statements collected in the Thematic
Discourses. This paper seeks to both expand and nuance the current understanding of Zhu
Xi’s military thought by taking into account a broader array of historical sources, ranging
from the foundational Four Books to his private letters and assorted sayings.
The structure of the present paper is divided into two main parts. In the first part, I
shall examine several general discussions on topics of warfare as they occur in the Four
Books, basing myself primarily on Zhu Xi’s commentaries and his collected statements on its
topics. The aim of this section is to establish the importance of military policy within Zhu
Xi’s political thought, serving analogously to the institution of legal punishment as a
functional expression or “tip” of the “root” of moral government. “Barbarians”, as
physiologically and, by extension, morally deficient creatures, constituted a special object of
military action. Lastly, while military conduct should always depart from an understanding of
Principle as the determinant of “things as they should be”, practical and strategic
considerations remained a legitimate and indeed necessary topic of inquiry.
In the second part of the paper, based on the historical and philosophical framework
reconstructed previously, I aim to reexamine Zhu Xi’s public and private writings concerning
specifically the issue of Jin-Song relations. Three topics prove to be of particular relevance.
Firstly, addressing recent claims that Zhu Xi supposedly abandoned the revanchist cause later
in life, I will argue that his gradual reconceptualization of the state and its sovereign as the
primary foci of revanchist sentiment enabled him to maintain this cause unabatedly. Secondly,
through a reassessment of his early private and political writings I will address claims of
Zhu’s supposed “hawkish” attitude towards the conflict, instead arguing that his acute
perception of Song military weakness informed his consistently defensive and preparatory
stance. Lastly, building on recent suggestions that Zhu had argued chiefly for a process of
“moral rearmament” as the basis for military reconquest, I will examine his practical and
concrete policy suggestions. Throughout, I shall emphasize possible loci of interaction and
interdependence between Zhu’s political and philosophical writings, ultimately arguing that
the two are inextricably related. |