Goryeo 3 — From King Munjong to King Injong高麗 三

In earlier days the men of Goryeo came and went entirely by way of Dengzhou. In the seventh year Hwi sent his officer Kim Yanggam to say that he wished to keep the Khitan at a distance, and to beg that the road be changed so that they might come to the palace by way of Mingzhou. This was allowed. The commanderies and counties had no old standard for receiving them and troubled the people a great deal, so an edict laid down a fixed form and published it, and all the cost was met by the government. Also, because they were not at home in the speech of China, it was feared that men seeking profit would trade with them in private, and trading was forbidden wherever they went. Hwi's gifts to the two bureaus (二府) were very generous, so an edict handed them to the Trade Bureau (市易務) to be sold for silk, and answered him with that. He also asked by memorial for physicians and for craftsmen in painting and sculpture, to teach the men of his country, and an edict had Luo Zheng call for those who were willing to go.

In the ninth year he sent Choe Sahun again. The emperor ordered the palace attendants to build a hostel on the model of the Duting West Post-house (都亭西驛), and the treatment of them grew ever more generous, and the envoys who came grew more numerous as well. Once they presented more than ten court musicians, saying, "The music of the Yi (夷) is not worth looking at. We wish only to add lustre to the national history (國史)." Because that country honoured letters, the emperor, whenever he sent down a written edict, always chose literary officials to compose it and picked out the best of what they wrote.

In the first year of Yuanfeng, An Tao was for the first time given the acting title of Left Grand Master of Remonstrance and Chen Mu that of secretary of the imperial diary, and they were sent on a mission of friendship. Two ships were built at Mingzhou. One was called Lingxu Zhiyuan Anji and the next Lingfei Shunji, and both were named Divine Ships (神舟). They crossed the great sea eastward from Dinghai, and when they arrived the people of the country came out to meet them with shouts of joy. Hwi put on robe and tablet and jade belt and bowed to receive the edict. He treated Tao and Mu with still greater ceremony, lodging them in a detached palace and hanging up a board that read Suncheongwan (順天館), which was to say that he honoured and followed China as one follows Heaven. Hwi was already ill and could barely receive the command, and he begged for physicians and medicine besides.

In the second year Wang Shunfeng was sent with a physician to examine him and treat him. Hwi also had Yu Hong come to give thanks, but he met a wind at sea and lost the goods he was to present. Hong sent up a letter impeaching himself, and a rescript comforted him. Soon afterward he presented a carriage made in Japan, saying, "A feudal lord does not present carriages and robes, so I dare not bring it in together with the local tribute." Before this, when tribute goods arrived they were at once sent down to the office in charge to be priced, and were repaid with ten thousand bolts of silk. Now it was ordered that they be priced no more, and ten thousand bolts was made the fixed number.

In the sixth year Hwi died. He had been on the throne thirty-eight years, and his rule honoured benevolence and forbearance, so that he was a good ruler of the Eastern Yi. Yet he still followed the customs of his country. The king's daughters were not married to subjects or commoners but were always given to his brothers, and the royal kinsmen and the high officials did the same. His second son Un remonstrated, holding that since they were now in touch with the superior country they ought to reform the old habit by the rites. Hwi grew angry and drove him out. When word of the death was heard the Son of Heaven grieved, and by edict had Buddhist services held at Mingzhou for a month, sending Yang Jinglüe and Wang Shunfeng to make offerings and Qian Xie and Song Qiu to condole. Jinglüe put forward Li Zhiyi as secretary of the mission, but the emperor held that Zhiyi had no name for letters, and that a man of broad learning and upright bearing should be had. He called him to the Secretariat, tested him in composition, and only then sent him. And because it was a distant land he did not require full observance, but told the envoys that the names of the halls where they met, and the owl-tail ridge ornaments (鴟吻), need none of them be avoided.

Hwi's son Hun, King Sun (Sunjong), succeeded him and died after a hundred days, and his younger brother Un, King Seon (Seonjong), succeeded. Un was benevolent and worthy and loved letters, and his conduct at home was well ordered. Whenever a merchant came to sell books he would put on clean clothes and burn incense before facing them.

In the eighth year he sent his younger brother the monk superintendent, Uicheon, to court, to ask about the Law of the Buddha and to present scriptures and images.

When Zhezong ascended the throne, the envoy Kim Sanggi was sent to bear their condolence and Im Gi to offer congratulation, and they asked to buy books of criminal law, the Taiping yulan, the Kaibao tongli, and the Wenyuan yinghua. By edict only the one book, the Wenyuan yinghua, was given, and famous horses, brocade and silk, and gold and cloth were sent in return for their courtesy.

Un died in the fourth year after he ascended the throne, and his son Yo, King Hoe (Heonjong), succeeded. Before a year was out he was ill and could not govern the country, so the people of the country asked his uncle Hui, the Duke of Gyerim (Sukjong), to act as regent. Not long after, Yo died and Hui then ascended the throne, and for several years no envoy came.

In the fourth year of Yuanyou the king's son Uicheon sent the monk Sugae to Hangzhou to make offerings for a monk who had died, and he said that the king's mother had had him carry two gold stupas to pray long life for the two palaces. Su Shi, the prefect, memorialized and turned them back. The story is in the account of Shi. Hui later avoided the name of the ruler of Liao and changed his own name to Ong (顒). Ong was greedy and mean by nature and loved to take the profits of merchants. When a rich house broke the law he would hold its men long and demand redemption, so that even for a small offence they paid several catties of silver.

In the fifth year envoys passed between them again, and five thousand taels of silver vessels were bestowed.

In the seventh year Hwang Jonggak was sent to present the Huangdi zhenjing, and they asked to buy a great many books. Su Shi, minister of Rites, said, "The tribute of Goryeo brings not a hair's worth of profit and carries five harms. The books they now ask for and the gold leaf they would buy should none of them be allowed." By edict the buying of gold leaf was allowed; yet in the end they bought the Cefu yuangui and went home with it.

In the Yuanfu years they sent scholars to be presented as guest candidates.

When Huizong ascended the throne, Im Ui and Wang Ha were sent to condole and to congratulate.

In the second year of Chongning an edict sent Liu Kui, vice minister of Revenue, and Wu Shi, supervising secretary, to go as envoys.

Ong died and his son U (Yejong) succeeded. Tribute envoys followed one upon another, and five scholars, Kim Seo and the rest, were sent into the Imperial University, for whom the court set up professors.

In the Zhenghe years their envoys were raised to the standing of state envoys (國信), with ceremony above that of the Xia, and together with the men of Liao they were put under the Bureau of Military Affairs. The officers who led them and the officers who guarded them were renamed receiving officers and hostel companions. They were given the Dasheng banquet music (大晟樂) and ritual vessels, bian and dou, fu and gui, zun and lei, and the envoys were even feasted within the Ruimo Hall.

In the fourth year of Xuanhe U died. In the beginning the custom of Goryeo was that when an elder brother's line ended a younger brother took his place, but now the younger brothers strove to be set up, and the chief minister Yi Jasim set up U's son Hae (Injong). They came to announce the death, and by edict Lu Yundi, supervising secretary, and Fu Moqing, secretariat drafter, were sent to make offerings and to condole. While U was on the throne he had asked the court for physicians, and by edict two physicians were sent. They stayed two years, and when they were going home Hae said to them, "I hear that the court is about to use its armies against Liao. Liao is a brother country, and to keep it standing is enough to make a fence for the border. The Jurchen are wolves and tigers and must not be joined with. If the thing is already so, I beg you two physicians to go back and report to the Son of Heaven, that he may prepare early." They returned and reported his words, but it was already too late.

When Qinzong ascended the throne, the envoy of congratulation reached Mingzhou. The censor Hu Shunzhi said, "Goryeo has worn this country out for fifty years, and since the Zhenghe era their envoys have come every year, and the land between the Huai and the Zhe suffers for it. In the past they served the Khitan as subjects, and now they will surely serve the Jin. How can we be sure they will not spy out our strength and our weakness and report it? They should be stopped and not allowed to come." Thereupon an edict had them kept at the hostel in Mingzhou, and only their gifts were received. Not until the next year did they go home.

From the time of King Hwi onward envoys never ceased, yet Goryeo received investiture from the Khitan and followed its calendar, and in documents sent up to the court and in others besides there were some that dated the year by the cyclical signs (甲子). Their yearly tribute to the Khitan came to six missions, and still the demands did not stop. The Khitan would always say, "Goryeo is nothing but our slave. Why does the Southern Court treat them so well?" When Khitan envoys reached that country they were all the more haughty and violent, and if a hostel companion or a high official crossed them in the least they would seize him by the hair and beat him. When they heard that a Song envoy had come they would always find some other pretext to come and spy, and they took a share of the gifts. Once they called Goryeo to account for paying tribute toward the west, and Goryeo made apology by memorial, saying in brief, "China gets but one audience in three cycles of sixty years, while the great domain (大邦) receives six tributes in every circuit of the heavens (周天)." The Khitan understood, and so the matter was let go.

When Gaozong ascended the throne he feared that the men of Jin were in touch with Goryeo, and he gave Hu Li, a court gentleman, the acting title of Vice Minister of the Court of the Imperial Clan and made him envoy to the country of Goryeo, to watch them. The histories do not record Li's return.

In the second year Yang Yingcheng, Commander-in-chief of horse and foot of the Zhedong circuit, sent up a memorial: "The road from Goryeo to the Jurchen is very short. I beg to go myself as envoy to the Three Han, and to bind Gyerim to us, and so plan to bring the two sovereigns home." Thereupon Yingcheng was given the acting title of Minister of Justice and appointed state envoy to Goryeo. Zhai Ruwen, the commander in Zhedong, memorialized: "Yingcheng's deceit is a scheme for himself alone. If Goryeo declines, saying, 'And if the men of Jin too ask the way, meaning to spy out Wu and Yue, with what words will you answer them?' then at worst the mission will be disgraced and a distant people will laugh at us. I beg that he not be sent." Yingcheng heard of this and set out at once with Han Yan, his deputy, and Meng Jian, the secretary of the mission, taking ship at Hangzhou. In the sixth month they reached Goryeo and told their king Hae what they wished to do. Hae said, "The Great Court has a road of its own through Shandong. Why not go by Dengzhou?" Yingcheng said, "Because the road through your country is the shorter one." Hae looked troubled. Presently he sent Bu Il, his vice director of the Chancellery, to the hostel, and Bu Il answered just as Zhai Ruwen had said. Yingcheng said, "The Jurchen are no good at fighting on water." Il said, "They go back and forth by the sea roads all the time. And the Jurchen were once subjects of this country, yet now we serve them as subjects instead. From that their strength and our weakness may be seen." After some days had passed, Hae sent Choe Hongjae, vice director of the Secretariat, and Kim Busik, manager of the Bureau of Military Affairs, who held to what had been said before and did not change it. They said that the two sovereigns were now in Yanyun (燕雲), and that even if the Great Court handed over all its land it could not be sure of getting them back, so why not train its armies and fight? In the end they did not receive the edict.

Yingcheng stayed more than two months and at last had no choice but to see Hae at the Suchang Gate, where he received only the memorial Hae bowed over (拜表), and went back. In the tenth month he reached the palace and entered to report how things stood, and the emperor, holding that Hae had betrayed the kindness of the country, was very angry. Zhu Shengfei, right assistant director of the Department of State Affairs, said, "They border on the men of Jin and are cut off from China by the sea, so where their gain and loss lies is very plain. In past days they were treated too generously. How can we now call them to account for a return?" Huang Qianshan, right vice director, said, "Load tens of thousands of picked troops in great ships and strike straight at their country, and how should they not be afraid?" Shengfei said, "For raising an army across the sea, the affair of Yanshan (燕山) may serve as a mirror close at hand." The emperor's anger passed. In the eleventh month Hae sent his officer Yun Eoni with a memorial of apology. By edict it was said that since the two sovereigns had not come home music could not be used at a banquet, so a tent hall was set up outside the gate of the palace hall, and Wu Dexing of the Visitors Bureau was ordered to attend him and bestow wine and food, and Zhang Cheng, secretariat drafter, was ordered to escort him, and he was sent back with all the rites.

In the eighth month of the third year the emperor said to his ministers, "I hear that the Retired Emperor (Huizong) is sending two palace officers and two palace women along with the tribute envoy of Goryeo. Hearing it, sorrow and joy meet in me together." Lü Yihao said, "This must be the will of the men of Jin. Otherwise Goryeo would surely not dare. How can we know it is not to spy out our strength and our weakness and report it?" Thereupon an edict stopped it, and it said in brief: "The king guards his patrimony far away and has long shared our letters and our wheel tracks. He has sent his word on the raft that rides the sea and has kept up the reverence of the tribute basket. That he is loyal and obedient with no other heart could be put to the spirits without shame, and of late what has come to our ears is truly to be praised and admired. Consider that these later years have been full of trouble. All the people of the Central Plain have met the shock of a strong enemy, who has come deep within the borders and still has not laid down his arms, and so we have moved our guard and our standards and rest for a time by the rivers and lakes. If envoys should indeed come, we fear the offices in charge would not be ready for them. We shall wait until the alarms on the border are quiet, and then ask about the time for an exchange of missions. That the hostel of Jin (晉) was pulled down to let a carriage in was in the hope that there would be no repenting afterward, and that the Han closed their pass and declined a hostage is not a rule we would follow now. Thinking on what you have long held in your heart, know our true mind."