I won a military victory on my "pacifist" run

It was my second game after switching from Sovereign to Immortal, with Confucius.

I didn't plan the pacifist strategy, it just naturally emerged due to extremely favourable terrain on borders, it was basically a big irl Spain, with the bermuda triangle on the gibraltar strait (tho you could still pass) and only one gap in the pyrenees mountains. On both borders, any civ attacking the other would have had a terrific disadvantage. So I started investing a massive amount of influence and production on trade routes, and got very rich in the exploration age so I switched from my original objective, science victory, to the economic one.

I went to war one time only, during the modern age, because two of my allies went to war against each other so I decided to support one. Absolutely smoked Chaterine due to the fact that she had no navy (??? And she was full of Admirals for some reason. All sea cities but one) and left her with two minor cities, one of which completely surrounded by me. Now I was first in military victory, went on for the economic one, got the lead there too. Then victory conditions changed and I was missing one city only so winning the game was super easy, declared war on Chaterine again, took the surrounded city, easy win.

Now, this pissed me off a bit. I had actively neglected the military, I only got this win because of random stuff, dumb AI, and conditions that, honestly, were just TOO EASY to obtain. How can one have a military victory without having a strong army? Without ever training a plane when everyone else has them? By going to war ONCE. I feel like my aggressive settling tactic (which didn't provoke any angry response from any ohter civ, I was very mindful of that) won me the military vitory more that my actual army, and that is kinda dumb tbh. Had any of the other major civs declared war on me, I definitely wouln't have been able to keep up, and if I did, it would have been only because money buy troops and I was full of money lol

I feel like a victory, especially at high levels like Immortal, shouldn't be something you stumble upon... What's you opinion? Has anybody had similar experiences?