[KS] Chinese "control" over Choson

[gkl1 at columbia.edu]

   That's quite a yarn that Mark got started, while a discussion on
how China somehow "controlled" Korea veered off into one of the
more bizarre episodes in Korean-Chinese cultural relations. The two
interesting postings by David and Adam add further grist to the
story of the Kap'yOng site. With Adam, I share some doubts about the
history spun by the P'ung family of how Kap'yOng's Chojong shrine
developed. I agree with him that it had, at least originally, more
to do with a shrine to this particular group of Ming defectors (it
certainly wasn't the only such group). I also think the P'ungs
may well have invented Song SiyOl's connection with Kap'yOng's
Chojong Shrine, or at least greatly exagerated it. I hope Adam's
research will not only clarify the Kap'yOng situation but also dig
deep into the very rich vein of pro-Ming sentiment in late ChosOn
times. It's not every Korean's favorite histopical theme, but it
is fascinating and was by any criterion a genuine, authentic
movement that deserves serious study.
   The P'ung spin gives a big role to Uam Song SiyOl (d. 1689), but
the shrine usually associated with Song was the Mandongmyo in
Hwayangdong, his native home about 30km east of Ch'Ongju in
Ch'ungbuk province-- quite a way from Kap'yOng. His project was
quite similar to that of many of the famous SOwOn. It started out
as his personal wish, and as it developed, and as his own
reputation posthumously grew greater and greater, it morphed into a
national institution, with court recognition, grants of land and
slaves, and the governor of Ch'ungch'Ong province (then comprising
both north and south) being designated as the official celebrant.
King YOngjo then added to the endowment with twenty more kyOl of
tax-free land. In the meantime, King Sukchong had already in 1704
created a parallel institution to enshrine Ming loyalty, the
Taebodan (Altar of the Great Requital) in the PiwOn in Ch'angdOk
Palace, which brought the Ming cult into institutionalized ritual in
Seoul. The TaewOngun abolished the Mandongmyo in 1865, but at the
initiative of the disciples of HwasO Yi Hangno (who had died in
1868) it was restored in 1874 after the TWG retired and Kojong
assumed full powers. Both the Mandongmyo and the Taebodan were
abolished for good sometime in the mid 1890s. You will look in vain
for any mention of either in the vast section devoted to official
rituals in the revised and expanded MunhOn Pigo of 1908
(editorially completed in late 1904).
   I suspect that the main ideological campaign in favor of the
Kap'yOng cult owed much more to Yi Hangno than to Song SiyOl. The
P'ung story, as passed on in David's 1991 Korea Journal article,
has accounts of Song writing letters to various people connected to
the Kap'yOng group. It is certainly possible; Song wrote thousands
of letters and was well connected to fervent Confucians throughout
the Korean countryside. But when the research is done and Song's
letters thoroughly searched, I would not be surprised if they all
turned out to connected with the Mandongmyo in Hwayangdon g, and
that the P'ung story is a 19th century grafting of a local Kap'yOng
group ancestral cult onto the bigger Mandongmyo/Taebodan nexus.
   One wonders exactly WHEN those big characters were engraved on
the rocks in Kapy'Ong. I checked in the official <Munhwa yujOk
ch'ongnam>, published by the Munhwajae kwalliguk (1977) to see what
it had to say. In Vol 1, p 258, under item 0317-25-002, we find the
"Chojongmyo." The description is as follows: "Enshrined are Ming
T'aejo, Sinjong, and Uijong. It is said to have been erected in
1684, but there are presently no remains." (hyOnjae yuji-nUn Opta.)
That's the complete entry. Given the concrete experiences and
accounts of Mark and David, this seems quite beyond belief.
Possibly it refers only to the original shrine building itself,
while simply ignoring the more recent structures and the inscribed
rock. If so, could it possibly be a put-down by the munhwajae
czars?
   On the same page, there is also item 0317-27-006, the
"KyOnghyOndan," (Altar of the Esteemed Wise Ones). The entry lists
twelve enshrined individuals, of which Yi Hangno is one. Only the
surnames and pen names are given. Checking out the pen names in
appropriate sources, I couldn't make any other link with the nine
enshrined wise ones in David's list on p. 128 of his 1991 article.
   My experience with the <Munhwa yujOk ch'ongnam> has not given me
great faith in its accuracy. In 1978, after having just acquired a
copy of this three-volume register, I noticed a stone inscription
and a shrine in Seoul in honor of Yang Hao, a Chinese general who
was regarded as a great supporter of Korea by Imjin contemporaries.
At the indicated site all I could find was another huge excavation
for a new Seoul skyscraper, so I went to the Munhwajae Kwalliguk
people and asked where the remains of the site were preserved. They
had no clue or record. When shown their own entry in the published
register, they were baffled. Later I found information identical to
their entry in the <Keij^o fushi>, a history of Seoul officially
compiled by the Japanese authorities in 1934. Obviously the
Munhwajae people had copied it without attribution and done no
further research. (Many years later the stone inscription was
located and re-erected at MyOngji University. My thanks to Dennis
Lee, or Yi HyOnsUng, then a student working in Seoul, who tracked
down for me several inscriptions of this type in Seoul in 2003-04.)
Incidentally, the earliest sprouts of the gratitude-to-China cult,
which were already blooming in Seoul before the Imjin War was over,
are treated in my article "Confucianism and War: The Korean Security
Crisis of 1598," in <The Journal of Korean Studies>, v. 6, 1988-89.
   To go back to the original theme of this thread, that security
crisis grew out of what the king and all factions in the court
believed to be a Ming betrayal, engineered by an anti-war faction
in the Ming government. This caused King SOnjo to literally go on
strike, refusing to give any orders or directives related to the
war and especially to supply of the front lines. This was
complemented by a barrage of memorials to Peking, shaming the
Chinese in Confucian terms for not recognizing Korea's loyalty to
the alliance. It is that episode that is analyzed in that article.
   The truth is, Chinese "control" was hardly absolute. While the
Koreans had to play the hand they were dealt, they repeatedly
prevailed in diplomacy and argument. This was not just in Imjin
times. I could cite other examples of how Korea often prevailed and
convinced China to retreat from an aggressive position. In other
words, the tributary system did provide for effective
communication, and Chinese and Korean officialdom spoke from a
common Confucian vocabulary. In THAT front, the relationship was
equal, if not at times actually in Korea's favor.

Gari Ledyard

Quoting David Mason <mntnwolf at yahoo.com>:

> Greetings to everyone.  Thanks to Mark Peterson for
> bringing up the ceremonies to the Ming held in rural
> northern Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do -- for it brings
> up melancholy but pleasant old memories for me.
>
> Yes there is a large well-kept traditional wooden
> walled shrine there, and three Emperors of the Ming
> Dynasty are enshrined within.  The three were selected
> because they helped Korea militarily against invasions
> by Manchus and Japanese (or in the case of the third,
> the last Ming Emperor, he was viewed as having sincerely
> tried to help although it proved fruitless).
>
> The ceremonies expressing gratitude to these three and
> proclaiming the legitimacy & righteousness of the Ming
> (and implicitly protesting any pro-Ching feelings or
> actions by successive Korean leaders) were started by
> the great philosopher U-am Song Shi-yeol, and continued
> by generation after generation of his disciples and
> their disciples.  They were conducted secretly during
> the Japanese occupation, and continue to the present day.
> Although the shrine/ceremony and the association that
> maintain them are private, I believe that Gapyeong
> recognizes it as a local cultural asset of some sort.
>
> The shrine is near the large "Da Ming" [Dae Myeong]
> characters carved on a /bawi/ that Mark visited -- I
> seem to recall that those characters were written as
> calligraphy-on-paper by U-am Song Shi-yeol himself,
> then that paper was brought to that site by one of
> his disciples and used as a model to carved those
> characters on the outstanding boulder, per U-am's
> instructions.  The shrine was built later on.
>
> I attended the ceremonies several times from the end
> of the eighties through the early nineties, got to know
> the six remaining scholars who performed them (Mr. Pung,
> Kim "Song Heon" and the others).  They were fascinating,
> all more than 70, the last that remained of a 300+-year
> unbroken teacher-disciple line from U-am.  Long white
> robes & long white beards, white hair in topknots under
> /kat/.  They had spent their entire lives doing Neo-
> Confucian scholarship and rituals taught and performed
> in the traditional style, knew everything in the old
> Chinese characters, could do the old styles of poetry
> in calligraphy, etc -- didn't know much about the modern
> world and didn't seem to care -- just as the modern
> world had no use for their knowledge and wisdom.
> Talking with them was a rare authentic glimpse into
> the mentality of the late Joseon Dynasty...
>
> Kind of sadly comic that in the 1990s this small
> brotherhood was still vehemently proclaiming the Ming
> as the legitimate government of China and center of
> the political universe, reminding Koreans to express
> thanks to them and denouncing the Manchus as barbarians
> who did not follow the Principles.  They were so sincere
> about it, however, that I felt a great Nobility in their
> hopeless but continuing efforts.
>
> They also denounced Communists, and thanked the United
> States for saving half of Korea from them -- drawing an
> obvious parallel from the Ming to the USA, saying these
> are the only two foreign nations that ever "sincerely"
> assisted Korea (they included gratitude to the 14 other
> allied Korean war countries under the American banner),
> their sole gesture to modernity I guess.
>
> Not one of them had a real official disciple -- they
> knew they were the End Of The Line and were terribly
> tragically sad about that, felt guilty for having
> "failed"; I really felt bad for them.  Every year when
> I came to the ceremony one more of their brotherhood
> had died.  By the mid-nineties they were all gone; the
> rituals were being continued by their sons or nephews,
> regular modern short-haired shaven Korean guys in
> business-suits -- it wasn't authentic or interesting
> anymore so I stopped attending.
>
> In 1991 this became my first-ever academic publication
> in a journal, "The Sam-hwangje Baehyang, Korea's link
> to China's Ming Dynasty" in Korea UNESCO's _Korea
> Journal_, Autumn 1991 edition (30th anniversary issue).
> I refer anyone further interested in this topic to that
> article -- it includes four photos of the ceremony.
>
> Mr. Pung was very kind in letting me look at their
> extensive collection of old documents, translate some
> relevant passages.  After my publication he presented
> me with a plaque done in classical Hanja with his own
> calligraphy, thanking me for being the first scholar
> (or even journalist) to ever pay serious attention to
> their group and ceremony, publicize it -- they very
> much believed in what they were doing, were still
> quite proud of it -- but frustrated that no Korean
> professors or any other Koreans had ever bothered to
> study / write about them.  I still display that plaque
> in my office...
>
>
> David A. Mason
> http://san-shin.org
>
> Professor of Korean Tourism, KyungHee University
> Office #710,  phone 02-961-0852
> Mobile Ph: 011-9743-9753   home: 02-442-7391
>
>
>