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Encyclopédie des historiographies : Afriques, Amériques, Asies

 | 
Nathalie Kouamé
, 
Éric P. Meyer
, 
Anne Viguier

I

Illustrated Account of the Xuanhe Era Embassy to Koryŏ

Mémoire illustré sur Gaoli des envoyés de l’ère Xuanhe

宣和奉使高麗圖經

Sem Vermeersch

Résumé

Dans les États d’Asie Orientale de la période pré‑moderne, les « relations tributaires et d’investiture » jouaient un rôle important dans les échanges politiques et culturels. Nombre de membres de ces ambassades qui étaient dépêchées pour offrir un tribut (de la part de l’État ayant fait allégeance) ou pour donner une investiture (par le souverain du Grand Pays), rédigeaient des récits de leurs visites, sources d’informations aujourd’hui inestimables sur les pays visités. Parmi les récits chinois sur la Corée, le Mémoire Illustré sur Gaoli de la légation de l’ère Xuanhe, est sans nul doute le plus célèbre du genre. Il fut achevé en 1124 par Xu Jing (1091‑1153) qui avait visité le Koryŏ (pinyin : Gaoli) l’année précédente. Construit sur les données des précédents mémoires d’ambassades chinoises, il s’en démarque par le souci du détail : il rapporte fidèlement les noms des personnes rencontrées ainsi que les toponymes et positions des îles, localités, palais et importants bâtiments. Toutefois, en ce qui concerne l’histoire du Koryŏ et les pratiques sociales, il s’appuie principalement sur des emprunts à d’autres sources et, de ce fait, restitue une information souvent succincte et partielle.

Texte intégral

1Up until the late nineteenth century, diplomatic relations in East Asia were conducted mainly through a regular exchange of embassies. Formally these proceeded mostly under the pretense of the so‑called tribute‑investiture relationship: a vassal country such as Korea offered local products as a pledge of loyalty to its suzerain, usually a Chinese dynasty, which in turn granted the Korean ruler investiture and also bestowed the Chinese calendar as well as other emblems of Chinese civilization. This system has caused a lot of confusion, mainly because many have failed to distinguish between the rhetoric of the system and its actual application. Offering tribute did not signify giving up sovereignty, while the investment of a ruler did not constitute any interference in domestic affairs; it was usually merely a mark of acknowledgment that lent the recipient a certain degree of prestige.

2The regular exchange of embassies proved to be a fertile source for literary writing. Over time the embassies developed an elaborate protocol, in which writing played an important part: this started with the accreditation of the envoys, who were tasked with transmitting official letters of state (國信; Ch. guoxin, K. kuksin), usually in the form of an edict (詔; Ch. zhao, K. cho) in the case of the suzerain and of a petition (表; Ch. biao, K. p’yo) in the case of the vassal. The envoys were invariably famous literati, who had to impress at the foreign court, for example through the exchange of poetry. But here I want to focus especially on the reports that the envoys or other members of the embassy drafted upon their return. Since joining an embassy was virtually the only way to visit a foreign country, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to explore a strange world beyond one’s own border, and the impression this left on the participants is often apparent in the account written down later. A good example of this is the writings left behind by Chosŏn 朝鮮 officials who visited the Qing court in the 17th and 18th centuries, known in Korea as Yŏnhaeng nok 燕行錄 or records of visits to Yanjing [Beijing].

3But such records seem to have been mainly individual endeavors; the manuscripts of many Yŏnhaengnok circulated only among a few friends, and were obviously not intended for official use - although some records did have political resonance. Here though I want to focus on official reports that were presented to the throne following the completion of an embassy. In this respect, the Illustrated Account of the Xuanhe‑era Embassy to Koryŏ 宣和奉使高麗圖經 (Ch. Xuanhe fengshi Gaoli tujing, K. Sŏnho pongsa Koryŏ togyŏng) is a unique example, in that it appears to be one of the most detailed and complete official records that have been transmitted. It was written by Xu Jing (徐兢; 1091‑1153), member of the 1123 mission to offer condolences on the death of King Yejong 睿宗 and deliver a state letter, and presented to Emperor Huizong 徽宗 in 1124. The work is famous in Korean Studies because it is considered a unique witness account to Koryŏ society of the time; it is also well known for its detailed descriptions of Chinese shipping technology, including the design and size of ships as well as navigation. Thus, although ostensibly about Korea, before discussing its merit as an account of Korea, I would like to focus first and foremost on its characteristics as a specific genre.

4In his own introduction, Xu Jing helpfully points to precedents that help to understand what he set out to do. He compares himself favorably to the famous general Zhang Qian 張騫, who was sent on a mission in 139 BC to gain information about the Yuezhi 月氏 and found out if an alliance with them was feasible. Intercepted by the Xiongnu 匈奴, he spent a long time in captivity before escaping and returning to the Han 漢 court with important information on the geopolitics of central Asia 西域. Xu Jing argues that good geopolitical intelligence is crucial to the rule of the emperor, and rather immodestly presents his work as the most supreme source of information on Koryŏ.

5Perhaps for this reason he labels his work a tujing 圖經, which is usually understood as a “gazetteer”, i.e. the history and geographic description of a certain locality. Most embassy accounts written up to that time were not comprehensive in nature. Although we do not have much information on other embassy accounts, since most have been transmitted only in fragmentary format or not at all, the ones that do survive are mostly descriptions of the journey. For example, many of the records of visits by Chinese embassies to the court of the Khitan Liao dynasty (遼; 916‑1125) focus almost exclusively on the journey taken from Song 宋 China to the Liao court in the north. A clear understanding of their nature is however hampered by the fact that they exist mainly in truncated editions. That is, since there were a number of routes taken to the various Liao capitals, once a work had established a certain route, if a later embassy took the same route, it was no longer described in the embassy record - or left out by later editors.

  • 1 Fu, 1984, p. 4.
  • 2 Wright, 2005, p. 191‑192.

6Therefore, the remaining embassy records before the Illustrated Account all appear rather perfunctory, even inconsequential. According to the Chinese scholar Fu Lehuan, all returning embassies were required to submit a “conversation transcript” (語錄; yulu) to the emperor. He surmises that the conversation transcript took on a standardized format sometime between 1020 and 10281. This may have been the case, but from what remains in terms of embassy records, apart from the focus on the route taken there seems to have been little unifying characteristics. Most records do not even carry the title “yulu”. Also, none of the remaining records contain any transcription of important conversations. Of course, most of the embassies were of a ceremonial nature - for example to convey condolences on the death of a ruler or congratulations on the ruler’s accession - and little substantial political discussion took place. A good example of this is the Qidan yulu (契丹語錄; Conversation transcript [of a visit to] the Khitan) written by Chen Xiang 陳襄 in 1067, which appears to be one of the few records of missions to Liao that is complete. It does not contain much route description, but a lot of recorded conversations with Liao officials. Most of these can best be described as gossip: for example, the Song envoys seem to have been interested mainly in hearing what the Khitan thought about previous Song envoys, especially illustrious figures such as Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 and Fu Bi 富弼2.

  • 3 Wright, 2005, p. 196.

7It is therefore hardly surprising that some officials protested that the yulu was insufficient to transmit all the important information: Su Che (蘇轍; 1039‑1112), who had traveled to Liao in 1089, therefore submitted several additional reports to give further information; in one he wrote explicitly that the yulu did not suffice to record everything that needed to be said3. One can also imagine that certain sensitive information was only transmitted orally to the throne, and never committed to writing.

  • 4 Hargett, 1996, p. 409.
  • 5 Mostern, 2011, p. 75, p. 291, n 109.

8Xu Jing’s Illustrated Account marks a break with previous accounts, including the yulu. While it includes a detailed route description (in chapters 34 to 39), it does not contain any recorded conversations. In fact, as its title suggests, it has much more in common with the tujing, which were local gazetteers. During the Tang dynasty, prefects were required to submit updated tujing to the court every three years. According to James Hargett, this practice reached its apogee during the Song dynasty (960‑1279), when vast compilations were made of the tujing of every prefecture of the empire. According to James Hargett4, tujing literally means “maps/illustrations and treatises” in other words it included both maps of the prefectures, illustrations of important objects or buildings, and detailed reports on local history, economy, society etc. Ruth Mostern5 has argued that tujing should be translated as “map guides” because tu denotes maps of territory and jing guides to mountains. However, this does not appear to be a mainstream view.

9In applying this model to a foreign state, Xu Jing seems to have been attempting to gather the same level of knowledge as was possible for China. While there had been many descriptions of Korea before the Illustrated Account, none seem to have been as ambitious. Perhaps it was thought that Barbarian countries simply did not merit this level of knowledge. However, Xu is at pains to point out that Koryŏ was very much unlike other barbarians: it had cities and palaces, walls and temples, just like China. And while here and there they fell short in emulating Chinese culture, in general, he notes, they are “benevolent by nature, and have an unbroken tradition of [rule by] ‘gentlemen’ (junzi).” He attributes this to the fact that Kija 箕子 bequeathed Chinese customs after exiling himself to Chosŏn 朝鮮 (ch. 40).

10Still, they are different, and thus in this “gazetteer” he has set out to list all the things that make Koryŏ distinct, organizing them in 302 thematic items grouped in forty chapters. In his introduction he notes that previous embassy accounts of Koryŏ fell short in many ways, and set out to correct them. To what degree he used these accounts as a model is difficult to tell. His immediate predecessors were the Jilin leishi (鷄林類事; Classified affairs of Kyerim [=Korea]), written by Sun Mu 孫穆, and the Jilin zhi (鷄林志; Monograph on Kyerim), written by Wang Yun 王雲. Both seem to have been the outcome of an 1103 mission to Koryŏ 高麗. Xu Jing himself only makes mention of the Jilin zhi, explicitly mentioning on a number of occasions how he managed to rectify its mistakes. Yet remaining fragments of this work show it to be quite different: it has information not found in the Illustrated account, while its contents is more anecdotal, noting for example the legend of the founding of a temple. The Jilin leishi, on the other hand, or at least what remains of it, contains a few passages describing Koryŏ society that are very similar to the Illustrated Account; however, it also contains a famous list of 300 Korean words transcribed into Chinese, but Xu Jing completely ignores any linguistic facts, most likely because he would not have been able to improve on the Jilin leishi list.

11Xu Jing’s work is at its best in its attention to details. In chapters 1 and 2 he gives a condensed history of Koryŏ, tracing its origins first to Kija’s being enfeoffed with Chosŏn, and in particular the founding of Koguryŏ (高句麗; 37 BC‑668 AD), which he regards as one and the same state as Koryŏ (918‑1392). Silla 新羅 and Parhae 渤海 are completely glossed over, but in terms of its genealogy of Koguryŏ and Koryŏ kings, it was probably the most comprehensive treatment available in China at the time. Chapters 3 to 6 then offer detailed descriptions of the capital of Koryŏ, Kaegyŏng (開京; modern Kaesŏng 開城). Invaluable here is his attention to the names, locations, and functions of palace buildings. Thanks to this factual recording of what he saw, we can now identify many of the ruins of the former palace buildings.

12In fact, though the surface structure of the work is encyclopedic (i.e. thematically organized), the core of the work is the progress of the embassy. In other words, from the day Xu Jing left the harbor near Mingzhou (明州; Ningbo) up until his return to the same harbor about three‑and‑a‑half months later, he gives information on all the islands and reefs he passes, the weather, the ships, and even the people who come out to meet the ships after they reach the first inhabited Korean islands. This is found in chapters 34 to 39. Chapters 24 to 27 then describe the embassy’s progress from the landing in the harbor on the Yesŏng River 禮成江 to the reception of the imperial edict in the Koryŏ palace. It contains a meticulous rendering of the protocol of pouring and receiving wine at the banquets, as well as the seating arrangements. The hostel for the Chinese embassy - which Xu Jing claims to have left only five or si  times, meaning that freedom of movement in the Koryŏ capital was severely limited - is also depicted in great detail.

13But even the rest of the work, which is ostensibly not based on the embassy’s progress, is in fact derived from the embassy’s movements. Thus, the tents, curtains, vessels, and other daily objects that are the object of chapters 28 to 32 are clearly those things that he could see and use during banquets and while at the hostel. The same goes for the ceremonial attributes and Koryŏ guards and soldiers that are the subject of chapters 9 to 12: Xu Jing could witness these as the Koryŏ army escorted the Chinese embassy to the capital and then back to their ships for the return journey. The temples that are listed in chapter 17 are clearly also for the most part those temples that he could see on the way from the hostel to the palace and back. Even the description of the palace starts in chapter 3 with the embassy’s entrance via the Kwanghwa gate 廣化門 into the palace compound.

14The problem starts with the things that he could not witness, or about which he may not have had sound information. What attracts the attention of modern readers especially is what he has to say about Koryŏ customs. However, here the pickings are decidedly slim: while chapters 22 and 23 nominally deal with customs, in fact this again contains a lot of information gleaned from his visits to the palace, such as the use of torches (according to him, candles had only recently been introduced), marking the time in the palace courtyard with a clepsydra, or the way of greeting. Where it actually concerns daily customs as practiced by the people, such as marriage, festivals, or food, here he seems to rely more on pre‑established knowledge than on what he could observe or hear. Thus, chapter 23 starts with the well‑worn story about the cleanliness of the Koreans: they wash every morning, and in the summer men and women together mingle in streams to bathe. This is something we also find in the Jilin leishi, and even in ancient Chinese records such as the Book of the Later Han (Hou Han shu 後漢書, juan 85), which already recounts that the “customs of [Koguryŏ] are licentious, they maintain cleanliness and delight in themselves.”

15Since Xu Jing regards Koryŏ as the continuation of Koguryŏ, he indiscriminately uses information from earlier dynastic records about Koguryŏ, even though some predate his own visit by nearly a millennium. Much as Victorian travelers delighted in the unchanged customs of the “native” populations they described, Xu Jing’s imperialist gaze tries to fix the natives in pre-ordained categories. Thus, when he describes the military, he is somehow amused by the high hats (“almost two feet high”) soldiers wear, and claims that they wear that to make themselves look bigger, because “the people of this country are of a dwarf-like stature.” (chapter 11) He also cites a fifth century Chinese envoy who had already made fun of these caps. Furthermore, he mocks the impromptu cavalry display, and derides their weapons as “simple and rough. How can it be otherwise if their nature is originally like this [i.e. meek and compliant].” (chapter 13) In this and other descriptions his cultural bias clearly influences what kind of information he retains and how he presents it.

16While we can mistrust some of Xu Jing’s choices and especially the way he analyzes what he saw - vastly favoring what resembled China, and despising or misinterpreting what was not - nevertheless we have to be grateful for his zeal in recording everything that was presented to him. He records even the names of local Koryŏ prefects who came to greet the Chinese ships as it moved along the west coast toward the capitals. As some also appear in the Koryŏsa (高麗史; the official history of Koryŏ), we can verify the accuracy of his record in this and many other instances. It remains the most complete Chinese description of Korea before the modern era, a unique exemplar among the hundreds if not thousands of embassy accounts that were produced in history.

Bibliographie

Books

Chang Tong’ik (장동익), 2000, Songdae Yŏsa charyo chimnok (宋代麗史資料集錄) [Collection of historical sources from the Song on Koryŏ history], Sŏultae ch’ulp’anbu, Seoul.

Mostern Ruth, 2011,“Dividing the Realm to Govern”: The Spatial Organization of the Song State, Harvard University Asia Center, Cambridge, MA, 296 p. [9780674056022]

Wright David Curtis, 2005, From War to Diplomatic Parity in Eleventh Century China: Sung’s Foreign Relations with Khitan Liao, Brill, Leiden, 290 p. [9789004144569]

Xu Jing, tr. Vermeersch Sem, 2016, A Chinese Traveler in Medieval Korea. Xu Jing’s Illustrated Account of the Xuanhe Embassy to Koryŏ, University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 400 p.

Papers and Contributions to Books

Fu Lehuan (傅樂煥), 1984, “Songren shi Liao yulu xingcheng kao” (宋人使遼語錄行程考) [Travel route description in conversation transcripts by Song envoys to Liao], in Fu Lehuan, Liaoshi congkao, Zhonghua shuju (中華書局), Beijing, p. 1‑28.

Hargett James, 1996, “Song Dynasty Local Gazetteers and Their Place in the History of Difangzhi Writing,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 56, no. 2: p. 405‑422.

Notes

1 Fu, 1984, p. 4.

2 Wright, 2005, p. 191‑192.

3 Wright, 2005, p. 196.

4 Hargett, 1996, p. 409.

5 Mostern, 2011, p. 75, p. 291, n 109.

Auteur

Department of Religious Studies, Seoul National University

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