Translation
Mengzi called on King Hui of Liang. King Hui of Liang said, "Old man, you have come a thousand miles, you must have some high opinion that will benefit my country, right?"
Meng Zi replied, "Great King! Why bother talking about profit? Just speak of benevolence and righteousness. The great king said, 'How to make my country favorable?' The great physician says, 'How can I benefit my family?' The common man and the common people say, 'How can I benefit myself?' The result is that the upper and lower classes compete with each other for benefits, and the country is in danger!
In a country with 10,000 chariots, those who killed its ruler must have been the great physicians with 1,000 chariots; and in a country with 1,000 chariots, those who killed its ruler must have been the great physicians with 100 chariots. These dervishes possessed a thousand chariots in a country of ten thousand, and a hundred in a country of a thousand; and their possession was not inconsiderable.
But if they put righteousness before profit, they will never be satisfied until they have gained the position of king. On the other hand, those who have never spoken of benevolence have abandoned their parents, and those who have never spoken of righteousness have disregarded the king. Therefore, your majesty can just talk about benevolence and righteousness, why should you talk about profit?"
Meng Zi paid his respects to King Hui of Liang, who stood at the edge of the pond, looked back at the geese and reindeer, and asked, "A wise ruler likes this too, doesn't he?"
Meng Zi replied, "Sage monarchs don't make this kind of entertainment their primary pursuit, and unwise monarchs don't have the means to appreciate these even if they have them. In the Book of Songs, it is said that when the construction of a spiritual platform was intended, and the matter was planned and arranged, the people moved their hands, and no date was set for its completion; it was not intended to be done soon, and the people came to help like children. When King Wen came to the spiritual platform, the doe was quietly crouching, the doe was fat, and the white bird was white. King Wen came to Lingtai, and the pool was full of fish jumping."
When King Wen of Zhou used the power of the people to build the Spirit Terrace and dig the Spirit Marsh, but the people felt so happy that they called his Terrace the Spirit Terrace and his pond the Spirit Marsh. They were happy that there were elk and fish and turtles here. Ancient sage kings were happy with the people, so they could truly appreciate and enjoy their gardens and ponds.
The Tang Oath says, "Whenever you, the sun, perish, I and you will perish (Xia Jie had compared himself to the sun), and the people wanted to perish with Xia Jie; even if there were high platforms for the gods and chi and birds and beasts, could he enjoy them alone?"
King Hui of Liang said, "I have taken great pains to govern Liang. When there was a famine in Hanoi, I moved the people there to Hedong, and at the same time transported grain from Hedong to Hanoi. When famine struck Hedong, I did the same. I have examined the affairs of neighboring countries, and there is no one who is as devoted as I am. But the people of the neighboring countries did not decrease because of this, and my people did not increase because of this; what is the reason for this?"
Meng Zi replied, "The great king loves war, so let me use a war analogy. As soon as the war drums thumped and the spear tips and blades made contact, some soldiers threw off their armor and fled backwards, dragging their weapons with them. Some run a hundred paces and stop, some run fifty paces and stop. Is it okay for those soldiers who ran fifty paces to shame the soldiers who ran a hundred?"
King Hui said, "No, it is not allowed. It's just that they didn't run a hundred paces, but that's still running away."
Mengzi said, "If the king understands this, then do not hope that the people will be more numerous than their neighbors. If military service and labor do not interfere with the season of agricultural production, the grain will not be eaten up; and if fine nets do not go to the ponds and marshes to catch fish, the fish and turtles will not be eaten up.
If we take axes into the mountains to cut down trees in season, we will run out of wood. If the people have no regrets about their lives, their livelihoods, and their funerals, then they will have no regrets about their lives, their livelihoods, and their funerals. When the people have no regrets about life and death and burial, that is the beginning of the Way of the King.
Give the people five mu of land and plant mulberry trees, and everyone over fifty will be able to wear silk. Domestic animals such as chickens, dogs, and pigs, which the people could raise in due time, then anyone over seventy years old could eat meat. Each family has a hundred mu of arable land, and the government does not go to hinder their production season, then a family of a few people can be free from hunger.
Organize schools carefully and teach the people repeatedly with the great principles of filial piety to parents and respect to brothers and sisters, then old people with gray hair will not walk on the road by themselves with heavy loads on their backs or against their backs. It has never happened before that people over seventy years of age have silk to wear and meat to eat, and that the common people cannot starve or freeze, so that the way of the king cannot be practiced.
Now in Liang, the pigs and dogs of the rich and powerful ate the grain of the people, but they were not restrained to stop them; there were starving people on the road, but they did not open the granary to save them. When the people died, they went so far as to say, 'It was not my sin, but due to a bad year.' How is this argument different from killing someone with a sword and saying, 'It was not my killing but the weapon's'? If the Great King does not blame it on Niancheng, then the common people of the world will defect to Liang."
King Hui of Liang said, "I will gladly listen to your instruction!"
Meng Zi said, "Is there any difference between killing a man with a club and a knife?"
(King Hui) said, "There is no difference."
(Mencius asked again) "Is there any difference between killing someone with a knife and killing someone with political maneuvering?"
(King Hui) said, "There is no difference either."
(Mencius added:) "When there is tender meat in the kitchen and sturdy horses in the pen, and (when) the people look hungry, and when there are starving corpses lying in the countryside, this is (tantamount to) leading the wild beasts to join in the eating of the people! The beasts are killing and devouring each other, and the people are still disgusted by them. As the parents of the people, who manage the government affairs, you can't help but lead the beasts to eat the people together, so how do you deserve to be the parents of the people?
Kong Zhongni said: 'the first to make clay figurines to martyrdom, I'm afraid that should be cut off from their children and grandchildren?' It is precisely because of the coolness of the terracotta figurines that they were used for burial, (imagine even the use of terracotta figurines for burial is not allowed), how can these people be allowed to starve to death?"
King Hui of Liang said, "(In those years, we) Wei, there was no stronger country in the world, which you know well. But now that I am in power, I have been defeated by Qi in the east, and even my eldest son has been killed in battle; and in the west, I have lost seven hundred miles of the land west of the river, and ceded it to the state of Qin; and in the south, I have been bullied by the state of Chu (by the loss of eight towns and cities). I am ashamed of this, and wish to avenge the shame of all the dead; what do you think I should do?"
Meng Zi replied, "In any small country with a radius of a hundred miles, one can promote the way of kingship in one's own land. If the great king is willing to carry out a benevolent policy towards the people, reduce or waive the penalties and taxes, advocate intensive cultivation and timely hoeing, and make able-bodied young people make use of their leisure time to strengthen their moral cultivation of filial piety, respect for one's elder brother, faithfulness, and keeping one's word, so as to serve their fathers and brothers at home and honor their elders and superiors outside, then, in this way, the king can be a good man and a good man, and he will be a good man. In this way, even with wooden sticks in their hands, they can fight against the Qin and Chu armies, which have solid armor and sharp weapons.
(For) they (meaning Qin and Chu) have usurped the people's farm time, so that they are unable to farm to support their parents. Their parents are freezing and starving, and their brothers and wives have fled, and they have caused so much suffering to the people, that if the king sends his army to crush it, who can compete with the king? As the saying goes, 'He who practises benevolence has no enemy in the world.' Please don't hesitate to wander, Great King!"
King Xuan of Qi asked, "Can you tell me about Duke Huan of Qi and Duke Wen of Jin's hegemony in the Spring and Autumn Period?"
Meng Zi replied, "There were no students of Confucius who talked about the hegemony of Duke Huan of Qi and Duke Wen of Jin, so it has not been passed on to future generations, and I have never heard of it. If the great king must ask me to speak. Then how about I talk about the Way of the King that uses morality to unify the world?"
King Xuan asked, "How about morality to unify the world?"
Meng Zi said, "Everything is done to make the people live in peace and work in contentment. When you go to unify the world in this way, no one will be able to stand in the way."
King Xuan said, "Can a man like me make the common people live in peace and work in contentment?"
Mengzi said, "Yes." King Xuan said, "What makes you know that I am able?"
Mengzi said, "I once heard Hu Gnaw tell me a story about you, my lord, sitting in the great hall one day, and someone was leading an ox past the hall, and when you saw it, you asked, 'Where are you leading the ox?' The man with the ox replied, 'To be killed and sacrificed to the bell.' You then said, 'Release it. You then said, 'Let it go! I cannot bear to see it trembling with fear, as if it were being sentenced to death everywhere for no crime at all.' The man with the ox asked, 'Then there will be no bell offering?' You say, 'How can we not sacrifice the bell? Replace the ox with a sheep!' ----- I wonder if there is such a thing?"
King Xuan said, "There is such a thing."
Meng Zi said, "With such a benevolent heart you can unify the world, Great King. When the common people heard of this matter, they thought you were mean, but I know that you are not mean, but because you are intolerant."
King Xuan said, "Yes, indeed some of the common people think so. However, although our state of Qi is not large, how could I be so miserly as to be unable to spare a single ox? I really cannot bear to see it trembling with fear, as if it had committed no crime but had been sentenced to death, so I have replaced it with a sheep."
Meng Zi said, "The great king should not blame the people for thinking you stingy. They only saw that you used a small sheep to replace a big ox, how could they know the deeper meaning? Besides, if the Great King pities it for being slaughtered without any sin, what difference is there between an ox and a sheep?"
King Xuan smiled and said, "Yes, this is something that even I don't know what kind of mentality I have anymore. It's true that I didn't skimp on money to use sheep to replace oxen, but the people do have their reasons for thinking so."
Mengzi said, "No matter. Such intolerance on the part of the great king is precisely a sign of benevolence, simply because you saw the ox but not the sheep with your own eyes at that time. When a gentleman is concerned about birds and beasts, when he sees them alive, he cannot bear to see them dead; when he hears them wailing, he cannot bear to eat their flesh. Therefore, a gentleman always stays away from the kitchen."
Meng Zi said, "Ask a man to jump across the North Sea with Tai Shan under his arm, and the man tells the people, 'I can't do it.' It is true that he cannot do it. Ask a man to rub the arms of an old man, and the man tells the people, 'I can't do it.' This is unwillingness to do it, not inability to do it. Your failure to unify the world with morality, Great King, does not fall into the category of jumping across the North Sea with Taishan under your arm, but into the category of rubbing the arms of the elderly for them. "
Honor your own old people and extend from there to honor the old people of others; love your own children and extend from there to love the children of others. When this is done, the whole world will be as easy to govern as if it were running in the palm of one's hand.
The Book of Songs says, 'First set an example for your wife, then extend it to your brothers, then to your family and country.' It says to promote one's heart to others. Therefore, promoting beneficence is enough to stabilize the world, and not promoting beneficence cannot even protect one's wife and children.
The reason why the ancient sages were so far above the common people was nothing else but that they were good at promoting their good deeds. Now your favor, my lord, is able to reach the animals, but not the common people; why is that on the contrary?
"Weighing is the only way to know how heavy or light it is, and measuring is the only way to know how long it is; this is true of everything, and even more so of the human heart. Please consider this, my lord! Do you really want to mobilize the whole country's army, are the generals risking their lives to make a grudge against another country, so that your heart will be happy?"
King Xuan said, "No, why should my heart be happy by doing so? I just want to realize the greatest wish of my heart."
Personal Information
Meng Zi (孟子), name Ke (轲), character Zi Ji (子舆) (c. 372 BC-289 BC), was a native of Zou (邹國) (southeast of present-day Zoucheng, Shandong). He was a philosopher, thinker, statesman, and educator during the Warring States period. He was a representative of the Confucian school of thought after Confucius and before Xunzi, and was known as "Kong and Meng" together with Confucius.
Mengzi preached "benevolent government" and was the first to put forward the idea of "the people are more important than the ruler", and was listed by Han Yu as a figure who succeeded Confucius' "Taoism" in pre-Qin Confucianism, and was posthumously honored by the Yuan Dynasty as a "Yasheng". He was posthumously honored by the Yuan Dynasty as the "Sage of Asia".
Mengzi's speeches and writings are collected in the book "Mengzi". Among them, "The Fish I Desire", "The Way of the Gainer is More Helpful, the Way of the Loser is Widely Helped", "The Widow in the State", "Born in Worry, Dying in Peace and Happiness", and "The Rich and Powerful Cannot Be Prostitutes" were compiled into the secondary school language textbooks.