Title

“The Tianzhou Incident Wasn't My Intention": Wang Shouren's Campaign in Guangxi 

Author

Tang, Kwok-leong

Genre

Article  

Pages

265-293   

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

Wang Shouren, Yao Mo, Guangxi, Yao Wars, scholar-general  

Abstract

    Wang Shouren, the most influential philosopher after Zhu Xi, was engaged in the Yao Wars in Guangxi during the early Jiajing reign. Scholarly literature on the Yao Wars tends to explain Wang's military decisions in terms of his thought, ethnicity, or the chieftain system, an approach which assumes that those military decisions were determined by an individual's thoughts. After investigating the interaction of political culture and military decision-making, however, this article argues that Wang's decisions in his last campaigns were in fact political compromises resulting from negotiations among different interest groups.