‘齊伐燕之事’를 통해 본 『孟子』의 義戰

Abstract

Conquest[征] is a righteous war[義戰] in which powers in higher positionattack those in lower one[上伐下]. This war requires who to be conquered tohave committed extremely cruel crimes and the conqueror to be Cheonriwho is on behalf of the Heaven[天吏]. The war also should have its ultimatepurpose of comforting people in pain by punishing atrocious criminals. Meng-zi[孟子] was misunderstood as having incited the Qi[齊] nation toconquer the Yuan[燕] nation because he said to Shen-dong[沈同], a subjectof the Qi dynasty that 'it's possible to conquer Yuan', but he didn't saywhether the conqueror should be Cheonri. Chu-zi[朱子] criticized the misunderstandingfor being not true. And most Confucian classics researchers ofJoseon[朝鮮] agreed with him. By the way, Meng-zi didn't point out that the very conqueror of Yuanshould be Cheonri, causing him to be misunderstood. The reason why hedidn't do may be fundamentally attributed to the fact that what he desperatelysought is just politics under the rule of right[王道政治]. In the turbulentWarring States Period, Meng-zi thought, there's no Cheonri. For him, therefore,top priority was the purpose of the righteous war, not who would takethe lead of it. Thus, Meng-zi thought that though not Cheonri, Qi couldconquer Yuan only if it's possible to save people of the latter nation frompain. This may be seen that Meng-zi compromised ideals of his own withthe realities of the Warring States Period. If Qi had ruled Yuan with virtue after conquering the latter according toorder from the Son of Heaven, the conquest would have been a righteous war since which politics under the rule of right began. But all things that Qidid when conquering Yuan were just tyrant. For all, Meng-zi's expectationsthat the conquest would bring the start of politics under the rule of rightwere broken down.