Luminos is the Open Access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framework for preserving and rein- vigorating monograph publishing for the future and increases the reach and visibility of important scholarly work. Titles published in the UC Press Luminos model are published with the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as those in our traditional program. www.luminosoa.org Ginseng and Borderland Ginseng and Borderland Territorial Boundaries and Political Relations between Qing China and Chosŏn Korea, 1636–1912 Seonmin Kim UNIVERSIT Y OF CALIFORNIA PRESS University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advanc- ing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2017 by Seonmin Kim Suggested citation: Kim, Seonmin. Ginseng and Borderland: Territorial Boundaries and Political Relations between Qing China and Chosŏn Korea, 1636–1912 . Oakland: University of California Press, 2017. doi: https://doi. org/10.1525/luminos.36 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-by-NC-ND license. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses. Cataloging-in-publication data is on file with the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-0-520-29599-5 e-ISBN 978-0-520-96871-4 v List of Illustrations and Tables vii Acknowledgments ix Note on Transcriptions and Conventions xii Note on Weights and Measures xiii Introduction 1 1. From Frontier to Borderland 19 2. Making the Borderland 47 3. Managing the Borderland 77 4. Movement of People and Money 105 5. From Borderland to Border 129 Conclusion 153 Notes 161 Bibliography 189 Glossary 205 Index 217 C ontents vii F IG U R E S 1. Ginseng 23 2. Hetu Ala and its surrounding area 32 3. Nurhaci receiving the honorary title of Genggiyen Han 37 4. Changbaishan 53 5. P’yesagundo (map of the Four Closed Counties) 64 6. Paektusan ch ǒ nggyebi chido (map of the stele of Changbaishan) 67 7. Willow Palisade 80 8. The Fenghuangcheng gate, the Yalu River, and Ŭiju 94 9. Sanhaegwan tongnasŏn g (eastern rampart of Shanhaiguan) 108 10. Choyangmun (Gate of Rising Sun) 114 11. Chogong (tributary ritual) 117 12. Changbaishan and the Tumen riverhead 147 M A P S 1. Qing Manchuria and the Korean peninsula xiv 2. The Jurchen-Chosŏn frontier 18 3. The Qing-Chosŏn borderland 76 4. The Chosŏn tributary embassy’s travel route 104 Illustrations And Tables viii Illustrations And Tables TA B L E S 1. The ginseng-gathering privileges of princes and aristocrats by rank 56 2. The size of the p’alp’o trade 112 3. Change in the number of ginseng permits from the 1760s to 1850s 132 ix This book is indebted to many teachers, colleagues, and friends who have sup- ported me for all these years. I have waited for this opportunity to express my long-delayed gratitude to them. At Duke University, Professor Sucheta Mazumdar has trained me patiently in critically reading, thinking, and writing. Her question of why a Korean student should study Chinese history has led me to this path of exploring the Korean agen- cy in Qing history. Professor Kären Wigen has provided full support at every stage, from taking her graduate classes to completing my dissertation to publishing this book. I am deeply grateful for her steadfast confidence in my work for all these years. At Korea University, Professor Pak Wonho inspired me to study Ming and Qing history. His reading seminar was the most valuable training in learning how to read Chinese documents. Professor Peter Perdue has encouraged my project from its early stages to this present version of the book manuscript. This book would have been impossible without his staunch support of my project and his motivating scholarship on Qing history. Professor Nam-lin Hur has supported my research in many ways, espe- cially by inviting me to his research project at the University of British Columbia and to workshops and conferences in Canada, Korea, and China. Professor Mark Elliott showed interest in my work since the early stages and has inspired me to explore Qing and Chosŏn relations into a new direction. Professor Wen-hsin Yeh has provided valuable advice for this publication. I would like to thank all of them for sharing their precious time and knowledge with me, and making this book possible. Friends and colleagues have read various stages of the manuscript to help make it a publishable version. My special gratitude goes to Professor Adam Bohnet, who has shown his friendship and support by taking the time to read the entire Acknowled gments x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS manuscript and giving me useful advice and comments. Professor Saeyoung Park also read the manuscript and helped polish the key arguments and narratives. I am grateful for her never-ending confidence in my project. Professor Koo Bumjin helped me avoid errors by reading the introduction and providing valuable com- ments. Professor Kim Hyong-Chong generously shared with me his unpublished book manuscript, which allowed me to improve and mend many parts of the fifth chapter of this book. Portions of this book have been presented at various conferences and work- shops in the United States, China, and Hong Kong. Professors Evelyn Rawski, Pamela Crossley, Richard von Glahn, Kirk Larsen, and Yuanchong Wang have asked important questions and made valuable comments on different stages of the work. Professors Ding Yizhuang, Liu Xiaomeng, and Zhao Zhiqiang have not only given me the opportunity to present early versions of this work in Chinese, but have also provided valuable comments and advice. Professors Loretta Kim and Chang Yuenan invited me to their conferences, where I was able to further en- hance my arguments. At the Research Institute of Korean Studies of Korea University, Professor Cho Sungtaek made an excellent environment for scholarly projects and academic net- working. This book is hugely indebted to his vision and passion for Korean studies. Professors Kim Munyong, Park Heonho, Kang Sangsoon, and Jung Byungwook have guided me with integrity and generosity. Professor Park Sang-soo has sup- ported my career and research in every possible way. The graduate students who attended our weekly reading seminar of Manchu and Chinese documents have inspired me with their passion and hard work. I am especially grateful to Dr. Lee Sun-ae, who has led the seminar for many years with dedication and expertise. Executive Editor Reed Malcolm at the University of California Press has pa- tiently answered each and every one of my questions and has helped me revise the manuscript. Keila Diehl and Hanna Siurua polished and edited my early writings into this publishable version. Their professional expertise and personal support helped me endure the long and painful revision phase. Lee Seungsu produced beautiful maps for this book, and Choi Soonyoung edited the bibliography and glossary. I am thankful that their friendship is imprinted in these pages. Generous support from the following institutions helped me to conduct re- search and complete the book: Duke Graduate School; the AAS China and Inner Asia; the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library in Taiwan; and Keimyung University, Korea University, and the National Research Founda- tion in Korea. Most of all, the Laboratory for the Globalization of Korean Studies of the Academy of Korean Studies in Korea provided me financial support to fin- ish the book manuscript and contributed a subsidy for publication (AKS-2013- LAB-2250001). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi Some material in chapter 2 appears in “Ginseng and Border Trespassing be- tween Qing China and Chosŏn Korea,” Late Imperial China 28, no. 1 (2007): 33–61, and is used with the permission of Johns Hopkins University Press. The Korea University Library, the Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies at Seoul National University, and the Korean Christian Museum at Soongsil University have given me generous permission to use their illustrations and maps in this book. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, who have waited patiently for their youngest daughter to finish her long stay abroad and for her professional career to be fully pursued. My brothers and sisters in Korea and in the United States have supported me for the past years by making me smile during the hardest times. I hope that they will discover how far I am in my career after reading this book. Lastly, my deepest gratitude is reserved for Lee Hun, my husband and colleague. His knowledge and support made it possible for me to complete this book. It is his unwavering faith in my work that has kept me from giving up. xii Citations of Asian-language books and articles observe the following conventions: the pinyin romanization system for Chinese, the Hepburn system employed by the Library of Congress for Japanese, and the McCune-Reischauer romanization sys- tem for Korean. Manchu words and names are transcribed according to the Möl- lendorff system. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean names are transcribed surname first, in the traditional order. Chinese transliterations of Manchu personal names are written with dashes, for example “Mu-ke-deng.” Terms in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Manchu are marked C., J., K., or M. re- spectively. If not specified, the word is assumed to be Chinese. Citations from the Ming Shilu , Qing Shilu , Chosŏn Wangjo Sillok , Tongmun Hwigo , and Pibyŏnsa tŭngnok give the date in terms of reign year, lunar month, and day. N ot e On Transcrip tions An d C onventions xiii 1 liang = 1.3 ounces or 37 grams liang is used for both currency and weight, for example, 1 liang of silver; 1 liang of ginseng 1 jin (16 liang) = 1.3 pounds or 0.6 kilograms 1 li = 0.36 miles or 0.5 kilometers 1 mu = 0.16 acre or 0.06 hectare 1 xiang (15 mu ) = 2.4 acres N ote On Weights And Measures Map 1. Qing Manchuria and the Korean peninsula. 1 In 1745, the Shengjing military governor ( jiangjun ), Daldangga, wrote to the Qian- long emperor (r. 1736–95) to propose building a guard post at the mouth of the Yalu (K. Amnok ) River. The suggested place was Mangniushao, a sandbank located where the confluence of two tributaries of the Yalu River, the Caohe and the Aihe, flowed into the mainstream of the Yalu. These tributaries, both originating in Changbaishan (K. Paektusan ), also led to the Halmin and Elmin areas, the biggest ginseng preserve in Shengjing. Daldangga’s predecessors had tried to protect the ginseng mountains ( shenshan ) in their jurisdiction by building outposts and sta- tioning soldiers on the land routes around the area, but the waterways were poorly guarded and open to illegal poachers. Eager to improve the security situation in the Shengjing area and to tighten the management of ginseng production in par- ticular, Daldangga emphasized the necessity of a guard post on the waterways; without one, people could easily build boats, transport food grains, and approach the prohibited ginseng preserves. He was concerned that, without a guard post, it was impossible to prevent, among other things, illegal ginseng poaching. Trained naval forces in Lüshun could be mobilized and stationed at Mangniushao, added Daldangga, and for their living they could cultivate the empty land available near the Yalu River. 1 However, it was not his emperor or his rival officials in Beijing who severely objected to the military governor’s idea; it was the Chosŏn court that urged the Qianlong emperor to reconsider the proposal and eventually succeeded in per- suading him to drop the plan for an outpost on the Yalu River. Even though Qing officials confirmed that the sandbank was located within Qing territory, the Chosŏn repeatedly insisted that the two countries had long prohibited any Introduction 2 Introduction settlement or cultivation in the vast area, as wide as a hundred li , between the Willow Palisade and the Yalu River. The Chosŏn king, Yŏngjo (r. 1724–76), lauded the ban as “a well-designed plan by the virtue of the imperial court [K. hwangjo ]” to prevent contacts between Qing and Chosŏn people and thus eliminate any chance of trouble with the “small country” (K. sobang ). Rejecting the Shengjing military governor’s proposal for a new guard post to protect the ginseng mountains, the Qianlong emperor finally decided to acquiesce to the Chosŏn king’s insistence that the land near the Yalu River should remain empty and not be opened to soldiers or civilians. The eighteenth-century Qing emperor agreed to keep his territory north of the Yalu River in the state that the Chosŏn king preferred. 2 The Shengjing military governor’s proposal for a guard post on the Yalu River was eminently reasonable in order to protect the Manchurian treasure and the im- perial estate. But despite his full awareness of this, and even after confirmation that the sandbank was located within Qing territory, the Qianlong emperor decided to favor the Chosŏn request and reject the opening of the Yalu River to settlement. Why did the Qing emperor accept the Chosŏn king’s request over the Manchu of- ficial’s proposal? What empowered the “small country” of Chosŏn to persuade the “imperial court” to change its plans to protect its lands? This study seeks to find answers to these questions through the lens of ginseng, whose roots are entangled between the Qing and the Chosŏn and which reveals the peculiar nature of the two states’ territorial boundaries and political relations. The jurisdiction of the Qing Shengjing military governor overlapped roughly with today’s Liaoning Province in China. It was also the sacred birthplace where Nurhaci (1559–1626) had raised himself from the leader of the Jianzhou Jurchens to the khan of the Aisin Gurun, also known as the Later Jin ( Jinguo , Houjin ); his son Hong Taiji (1592–1643) consolidated the Manchus, the Mongols, and the Han Chi- nese into the Qing empire. Even after its 1644 conquest of China proper, the Qing never lost its strong interest in Manchuria, including Shengjing, Jilin, and Heilong- jiang. The Manchu homeland was to be preserved from the Han Chinese, because it was arguably the place where the Manchu ethnic identity and military prowess—the “Manchu way”—were maintained. In addition to the political and cultural signifi- cance of Manchuria, the land’s natural resources had huge economic value, since they had provided the Manchu ancestors with the material wealth to develop their own state and eventually establish the Qing empire. Pearls, sable, and ginseng, all growing in the rich mountains and rivers in Manchuria, were widely called the three treasures of the northeast. Of the three, ginseng was widely available in the Jianzhou Jurchen territory and was also the most valuable commodity in trading with the Ming. Well aware of the commercial value of this root, the Qing court paid special attention to protecting the ginseng monopoly until the 1850s through strong restric- tions that allowed only people holding official permits to enter ginseng-producing Introduction 3 mountain areas in Shengjing and Jilin. When he proposed the erection of a guard post on the Yalu River, the Shengjing military governor sought only to be loyal to his emperor by preventing illegal poachers from accessing the ginseng crop and ar- rogating the profits of the imperial court. It was their special interest in ginseng that had led the Manchus to be involved with Chosŏn Korea from the very beginning of their history, because this precious root was primarily available in the region near Chosŏn territory. Throughout the years from the initial rise of the Jurchens in Liaodong to their conquest of China proper, the issue of Korean trespassers poaching for ginseng and hunting animals north of the Yalu and Tumen (K. Tuman ) Rivers was a constant source of trouble between the Aisin Gurun/Qing and the Chosŏn. Illegal Korean incursions into Qing territory brought the Chosŏn court nothing but trouble, in the form either of Manchu armies’ attacks or of fines levied by the exasperated emperor on the Chosŏn king. In order to avoid conflicts with the great country, the Chosŏn pun- ished illegal crossing severely and forbade its people to approach the Yalu and Tumen Rivers. The Chosŏn kings wanted to have the areas around the two rivers empty and off-limits, and so did the Qing emperors. The Manchus built the Wil- low Palisade, gates, and outposts to curb Han Chinese traffic into the northeastern region; the Qing emperors further told the Chosŏn court to reinforce its guards on the Yalu and Tumen Rivers and to prohibit Korean subjects from approach- ing the ginseng-producing mountains in Qing territory. Accordingly, the Yalu and Tumen Rivers as well as Changbaishan, as part of the sacred Manchu birthplace, were restricted and closed off from civilian access. The Qing, then, was motivated by the goal of securing its profits from ginseng, while the Chosŏn sought to avoid conflicts over the root with its strong neighbor; but the two countries settled on the same solution of clearing the sensitive areas near the two rivers. They pursued different aims through this policy, but for both it was ginseng that led them to reach the solution. There is no doubt that considerable powers were required in order to keep people out of the vast territory near the Yalu and Tumen Rivers, where lucrative ginseng and fertile land were widely available. It was not equal relations between the Qing and the Chosŏn that enabled them to achieve this feat; rather, it was the asymmetrical tributary relationship that led the two countries to pursue the same solution and to endure the problems caused by the restriction of access to the area. The Chosŏn found that an empty buffer zone between the two states was more ef- fective in preventing trespassing and subsequent troubles with the Qing. In order to persuade the Qing emperors to keep the land near the Yalu River uninhab- ited, the Chosŏn, interestingly, emphasized their asymmetrical relationship. The Koreans insisted that the benevolent rulers of the great country should embrace the inferior subjects of the small country, and therefore the Qing emperor should do the Chosŏn king a favor. The Qing was convinced by this argument. Since the