著者

佐原 康夫

出版者

東洋史研究会

雑誌

東洋史研究 (ISSN:03869059)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.71, no.4, pp.619-645, 2013-03

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In the fourth century BCE, politic reform in various states, beginning with the reforms of Shang Yang, was carried out, and the formation of bureaucratic despotic states progressed. In this process, the social character of the shi 士, who were to become leading figures in the next historical period, changed greatly. The scholars of the Hundred Schools of Thought, who treated the Mengzi as a classic, assembled many disciples who sought official posts as shi and traveled through many states expounding their theories in order to become active reformers of state policy. However, the idealized government bureaucratic structures organized to systematically select and train high-level bureaucrats with advanced decision-making and governing skills did not yet exist. Powerful figures and rulers, who competed to attract shi, and the shi who struggled to overcome difficult realities to become government officials developed a mutually supportive relationship and triggered an unrealistic vogue for righteous shi, yishi 義士, chiefly in the cities. With this historical period as a backdrop, in regard to the question, posed under the rubric of "experiencing insult and not feeling shame" 見侮不辱, whether one should retaliate violently when shamed, personal retaliation was in fact recognized as a valid act for the shi. This signifies that there existed in the society of the time a private sphere of justice which the rule of law could not reach. In the society in which the rule of law was based on popular sentiment and overflowed with violent activity, the worlds of the shi and the chivalrous ruffians, renxia 任俠, often overlapped. In local society that was subdivided into prefectural units, influential figures, such as local despots, hao li 豪吏, and the chivalrous ruffians, were entangled in the most intimate level of local rule. It can be surmised that the warlords, qunxiong 群雄, of the late Qin and early Han also obtained power premised on the basis of this political structure.