Joseon Dynasty

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Royal throne of the Joseon Dynasty, c. 1800-1900, in front of Sun, Moon, and Five Peaks Screen, also c. 1800-1900, at Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
  • Dates: 1392-1897
  • Korean/Japanese: 朝鮮 (Joseon, Chosŏn / Chousen)

The Joseon Dynasty ruled a united Korea from 1392 until 1897.

History

The dynasty was founded by Yi Sŏnggye, who then took the name King Taejo, ruling from 1392 until 1398.[1]

At the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty, the population of Korea was likely around 3.5 million, up from 3 million a century earlier.[2]

The early Joseon Dynasty (c. 1400-1450) saw the introduction of porcelain technology into Korea.[3]

King Taejo was raised in a Yuan Dynasty commandery, the son of a Yuan official of Korean extraction; as such, he grew up with close Jurchen, Mongol, and Han Chinese associates, as well as those of Korean ethnicity. Following the fall of the Yuan, that commandery became a portion of Korean territory once again, and after taking the throne, Taejo began receiving tribute from the Jurchens immediately. Around a century later, Joseon had incorporated a number of Jurchen areas (and thus, many Jurchen people) into its territory, and had begun re-settling Koreans into the northern border regions. Six garrisons on the Tumen River (today the eastern part of North Korea's border with China and Russia) guarded these settlements.[4]

Wakô pirate raids on the Korean and Chinese coasts were perhaps the most major concern in Japan's relations with both Joseon Korea and Ming Dynasty China in the 15th-16th centuries. The wakô (lit. "Japanese pirates") were in fact people from all over the region, mainly Chinese, under the direct control of no central or prominent Japanese authority. Despite demands from Joseon and Ming to the Ashikaga shogunate to put an end to the piracy, it was not within the shogun's power to command the pirates. In the 15th century, Joseon made several attempts to curb or cut off this pirate activity, eventually entering into an arrangement in 1443 with the Sô samurai clan of Tsushima, who were granted a variety of privileges in exchange for taking a leading role in ensuring that all Japanese trading ships traveling to Korea were properly licensed and authorized, and in taking care of those which were not (i.e. the pirates).[5] In the Edo period, the Sô came to be the only Japanese traveling or communicating between Korea and Japan, wielding considerable power as the only intermediaries between the Joseon court and the Tokugawa shogunate, overseeing and managing all trade and diplomatic interactions between the two lands.

While Joseon maintained a policy of maritime restrictions more or less just as strict as that of the Tokugawa shogunate, it was less strict in banning Christianity, and a number of Christian missionaries managed to sneak into Korea from China over the course of the period.[6]

In the 1860s, seeking to protect and continue its traditional tributary relationship with Qing Dynasty China, Korea resisted entering into diplomatic relations in the Western mode with either Western powers, or with the Qing's own Western-style foreign affairs office, the Zongli Yamen.[7] When informed in 1869 of the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the establishment of a new Imperial Japanese government, the Korean Court chastised the Sô family for its breach of the traditional vassal/tributary relationship, and Japanese-Korean relations soured for several years; after Tsushima and the Sô clan were removed from their traditionally special permission, and the Meiji government more fully took over control of foreign relations, factions within the government debated in 1873-1874 whether to invade Korea as punishment for its hostile position; in the end, there was no invasion, and several prominent figures in support of the invasion resigned from government. In 1875, a Japanese ship requesting aid, food, and water at a Korean port was fired upon in response, and so Inoue Kaoru and Kuroda Kiyotaka traveled to Korea on an official mission to address the issue. Mori Arinori was simultaneously dispatched to China, to seek China's assistance in securing friendly relations with Korea.[8]

Japanese-Korean relations in the Western/modern mode were finally established in 1876. The Treaty of Ganghwa signed that year has been regarded as one of the Unequal Treaties, granting Japan many of the same privileges in Korea that Western powers now enjoyed in Japan.[9]

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Kings of Joseon

References

  • In Grand Style, San Francisco: Asian Art Museum (2013), xxii-xxiii.
  1. ↑ Robert Hellyer, Defining Engagement, Harvard University Press (2009), 30.
  2. ↑ Robert Tignor, Benjamin Elman, et al, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, vol B, Fourth Edition, W.W. Norton & Co (2014), 410.
  3. ↑ Gallery labels, Arts of Korea, LACMA.
  4. ↑ Adam Bohnet, “Ruling Ideology and Marginal Subjects: Ming Loyalism and Foreign Lineages in Late Chosŏn Korea.” Journal of Early Modern History 15:6 (January 2011): 484-485.
  5. ↑ Hellyer, 31.
  6. ↑ Mitani Hiroshi, David Noble (trans.), Escape from Impasse, International House of Japan (2006), 2.
  7. ↑ Hellyer, 236.
  8. ↑ Marius Jansen, China in the Tokugawa World, Harvard University Press (1992), 115.
  9. ↑ Hellyer, 240-245.
Preceded by:
Goryeo (Koryŏ) 		Joseon Dynasty
1392-1897 		Succeeded by:
Korean Empire
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