cross-posting from e-list, KoreanStudies: University of Oregon e-Asia Digital Library ...the University of Oregon Libraries are embarked on numerous digital projects, one of which is the e-Asia Digital Library located at http://e-asia.uoregon.edu/ ...The materials available for Korea (pre-1950 Korea is identified with South Korea in the indexing) are both ancient and modern, and in a variety of formats, pdf and Microsoft Reader mainly. Particularly valuable are the single articles from rare journals, including the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, also a few from The Korean Repository. I have included a short list of about 60 of the titles available in PDF format in my list of Old Books About Korea http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/BooksKorea.htm because the U Oregon page does not seem to offer that kind of overview, you need to search by category etc. Brother Anthony at Sogang University / Dankook University / RASKB
[reply on e-list for KoreaStudies]
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010
Subject: Re: [KS] inquiry of Koryo period during the Yuan period
Mapmakers are not comfortable with ambiguity. Koryo was largely autonomous in its internal affairs, but had been incorporated into the Mongol empire and therefore was under the overall authority of the Yuan dynasty. The reason why Silla and Choson are shown as independent countries on maps and Koryo during the Mongol period is not is that the Mongols exercised much more control over Koryo than Tang ever did over Silla or Ming and Qing ever did over Choson. A careful mapmaker might try to draw the distinction between fully independent countries and countries that are autonomous within a larger empire by using dotted lines for the border between Koryo and the territory the Mongols ruled directly, and solid lines to distinguish the Yuan empire from countries it never drew into its orbit. Did that map do that?
---D Baker, Professor at the University of British Columbia
More details, 20 Dec 2010: G. Ledyard
...No doubt the Mongols probably had the general idea that Korea was theirs. From 1231 to 1259 they struggled without success to overthrow the Koryo state, which, with its governing institutions secure from assault on Kanghwa Island, maintained its weakened hold on the peninsula. In 1259 the Mongols succeeded in forcing the capitulation of King Kojong, and sending his eldest son and heir to Peking, where he was married to a Mongol princess and made to establish his household in Peking. Within two months Kojong had died, and the heir then returned to take the Koryo throne as King Wonjong (r. 1269-1274), while leaving his own son and heir in Peking in his own princely household with HIS brand new Mongol princess-wife.
For almost a hundred years this process repeated itself. The uxorilocal matrimonial institution was a widely used strategy by the Mongols to keep control of conquered territories by keeping the heirs of their various rulers hostage in Peking, where they would grow up speaking both Mongolian and Korean and even assuming Mongol names. But in Korea, on the record, they kept the royal Koryo surname, Wang. As each king died or abdicated, his Mongolized heir and his Mongol queen would replace the preceeding royal couple. This situation continued until 1356, when King Kongmin militarily succeeded in expelling the Mongols from Korea. By that time they were a weak and dying regime.
So during all that time and through all those sucessions, the Koryo dynasty, through the suceeding male heirs to the throne, maintained its existence, and also the laws, institutions, and the Korean-staffed bureaucracy that governed Koryo. For a few decades in the late 1200s the northwestern area of the Korean peninsula had been formally annexed to the Yuan dynasty, but that was discontinued before the century ended. Cheju, earlier declared a direct Mongol holding, was also restored to Koryo around that time. Finally the Hamgyong coastal area was also Mongol territory throughout most the occupation, but those lands were recouped by King Kongmin in 1356. But from 1259 to 1356, the Koryo dynasty existed and governed, and retained the key populated areas of the nation, though with Mongols watching the situation.
Though the Mongols had the capability to seize the whole country, in fact they never did.Even if Khubilai Khan, who after all was Emperor of Yuan dynasty China, had resorted to the Chinese tributary system to maintain a controlled relationsip with the Korean kingdom, that institution would still not have dissolved the Koryo state. For all of its embarrasing elements of superior-to-inferior relationships, its general purpose was to recognize such outlying countries and to relate to them using its power and prestige rather than its military to run them as Chinese colonies, while offering them peaceful access to China's markets and culture. From China's point of view, this offered much more stability than if they had tried to rule the smaller states themselves. And it was certainly cheaper than having to support armies to conquer and repress unhappy neighbors.
Thus Korea, which for the Chinese dynasties of the last thousand years was considered the most important and highest ranking tributary in the system, actually had a practical interest in maintaining this relationship, with Korea remaining a Korean kingdom with a Korean king, governed by Korean laws and a Korean bureaucracy.The relationship of China to Korea was very different than its relationship to some other nearby ethnicities. During the Qing dynasty, for instance, administration of the Korea relationship, and the tributary system in general, was the responsibility of the Board of Rites, while its relationship with many of its ethnic minorities and/or neighbors, such as the Uighurs, Mongols, and Tibetans, was administered by the Lifanyuan, an entirely different institution with different goals.
When one talks with ordinary Chinese people, one finds that they often have the idea that because Korea was a tributary state of China it was also a part of China. The fact that Korea in the dynastic days was a paragon of Chinese culture, Confucian values, and a master of its classical language might explain such impressions. But one wonders if they have not unconsciously assumed that all near neighbors are in the same category. But today China recognizes two Koreas and deals with them in terms of international protocol, while the situation with the Uighurs, Inner Mongolians, and Tibetans is still pretty much a continuation of the Qing dynasty.
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