王守仁 (1472~1528) 於嘉靖六年 (1527) 出任兩廣總督，負責收拾田州土官、土目叛亂的殘局。他上任後立刻招撫叛亂的土目盧蘇、王受，隨即又以二人新降的部隊攻打八寨、斷藤峽兩處賊巢。短短半年間，守仁先後採取「剿」與「撫」兩種迥異的手段處理廣西不同地區的動亂。本文從前任兩廣總督姚鏌 (1465~1538) 所面對的困境展開追索，指出當時廣西的局勢是朝廷政爭、官員矛盾等因素交錯互動的結果。桂萼 (1531年卒)、張璁 (1475-1539)、方獻夫 (1544年卒) 等大禮議中冒起的官員，希望藉廣西土目叛亂一事打擊政敵費宏 (1468~1535)。故此桂萼否定費宏的邊疆政策，同時提出與之相反的建議，並推薦王守仁出任兩廣總督，將之付諸實行。所以守仁對不同地區叛亂的處理手段，只是對外在情勢局限的妥協與回應，並非個人自主自決的選擇。同時，守仁的廣西之役亦反映了儒將所面對的兩難局面：一方面是經國濟民、建功立業的普世宏願，另一方面卻是爾虞我詐、無所不用其極的生死殺戮：加之以政途險惡，動輒得咎，往往只能於理想與現實的夾縫中找尋立錐之處。

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.