Mengzi’s Wisdom of Power: Rules of Rule (zhi 治) and the Question of ‘Well Fields’ (jingdi 井地)

Abstract

The misinterpretation of the conditions of ancient Chinese social history is to be found in the basic reinterpretation that, according to the standard sinologist-historian thesis, ancient China was feudal in the Zhou period, and then after the Qin unification it was a centralised state. The introduction of the study briefly clarifies why this is not the case and why it is not possible. In this context, the study presents the interpretation of the term fengjian 封建. This concept of ‘Chinese feudalism’ also has an impact on the reinterpretation of the situation of Chinese thought, because, among other things, it is related to the view that the teachings of the ancient Chinese sages cannot be examined and interpreted as philosophy. However, here too we run into a problem. Why do we have to consider the system of views of Chinese thought as the teachings of the wise? The study briefly discusses the relationship between philosophy and this teaching, and the difference between them, and shows why the teachings of the Chinese sages are not philosophy.

Mengzi addressed contemporaries and followers who might have been interested in state administration, the ‘building’ of relations between individual sub-states, military strategy, agrarian policy, and other issues related to governance. Mengzi, as befits a good Confucian, condemned talk of ‘profit’ (li 利). Although this condemnation is usually interpreted as demanding the complete rejection of the principle of utility, this is not the case. Later in the text, it is the practice of governance that is useful to ‘all under heaven’ as a whole that is recommended to rulers. Through examples of the ‘horizontal division of labour’ within village communities and the ‘vertical division of labour’ of the dominant role of the elite, the study aims to shed light on the function of these divisions of labour in the structure of society. A prominent place is given to the presentation of the historical role – in ancient China – of peasant production in village communal areas, within the framework of the so-called ‘well land system’ (jingtian zhi 井田制), which was a method of allocating fields, cultivation, and taxation based on this. Since Mengzi is one of the primary sources that describes the system, we will examine these passages in detail.