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CHAPTER 6 To Serve or Not to Serve We have seen that the increasing self-confidence of Zhanguo shi was intrinsically linked to their rise to the top of the government apparatus. But how much were the shi dependent on this apparatus? As a departure point for our discussion we may take two Mengzi’s statements.On the one hand,he claimed: “[F]or a shi to lose his position is like for the regional lord to lose his state,” and “[S]ervice (shi 仕) for a shi is like tilling for a peasant,”1 thus identifying a government career as the only appropriate mode of existence for the shi. On the other hand, Mengzi also stated: “The superior man has three joys, and ruling All under Heaven is not among them,”2 implying that even the best of careers—ruling the world—is not the true peak of a superior man’s aspirations. How are these statements related to each other?To what extent do they reflect shi attitudes toward government service? To answer these questions I shall first address the socioeconomic background of shi relations with the government and then survey various approaches toward that service, covering the entire spectrum of attitudes,from shameless career-seekers to proud recluses who disdained any involvement with filthy power-holders. I hope to show that behind the variety of conflicting approaches, we may discern a common thread of the imperative to political involvement, which decisively shaped the career patterns of the Zhanguo shi, and, to a significant extent, of their descendants—the imperial literati. Shi and the State: Socioeconomic Background For many scholars the linkage between the shi and government service seems axiomatic. Not only is it suggested by the semantic closeness of the terms shi 士 and “to serve” (shi 仕, which is frequently interchangeable with another shi 事, meaning [government] affairs), but it is supported also by the earliest textual references to shi careers. In the Chunqiu period, shi lacked independent sources of wealth, such as hereditary allotments, and had to support themselves by serving their superiors.The shi personages who are mentioned in the Zuo zhuan invariably appear as either petty officials or, more frequently, as the 136 “household servants” (jia chen 家臣) of major aristocratic lineages, for whom they performed administrative, ritual, and military tasks. If some early shi made their living in ways other than serving the regional lords and the nobles, they remain unknown to us. The employment patterns of the Zhanguo shi are more complex and heterogeneous than those of their Chunqiu predecessors. Especially in the late Zhanguo period, when several states, such as Qin, established new recruitment procedures in which military merit or cash payments could be traded for rank and even for positions in the administration, the social boundaries of the shi stratum became blurred. Contemporary texts mention shi both in a same compound with nobles (dafu 大夫) and with commoners (shu min 庶民), which clearly reflects the social fluidity of the shi. Inevitably, this expanding stratum comprised people who did not uniformly pursue official careers.While many shi were eventually incorporated into the expanding state administration,others were engaged in different activities, becoming, for instance, specialists in technical and occult matters (physicians, diviners, magicians). Some sources mention shi who were craftsmen, merchants, and even farmers. Other shi sought the patronage of rulers and powerful courtiers, becoming their retainers (literally , “guests,” binke 賓客); among this group we meet the “assassin-retainers” whose biographies were eventually collected by Sima Qian.3 Having observed the diverse employment patterns of the Zhanguo shi, we now turn to the intellectually active members of this stratum and ask whether new employment opportunities diminished the importance of service in determining their livelihoods.The clearest affirmative answer is proposed by Mark Lewis. In his seminal Writing and Authority in Early China, Lewis argues that Zhanguo “schoolmen” (he refrains from using the term shi) were economically independent of the state and could make their living not only as administrators but as teachers, technical/occult masters, or retainers of a powerful patron. This economic independence was, according to Lewis, essential to the ensuing intellectual autonomy of the shi Masters and their disciples, which allowed the emergence of a “permanent and inevitable opposition” between these Masters and the state.4 There are many laudable aspects in Lewis’s analysis, which is superior to earlier simplistic identifications of the shi as mere administrators, but Lewis goes too far in the opposite direction of dissociating the shi and the state. Probably my...

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