Introduction
1. Such an extensive empire had never existed in Asia. The East Asian khanates of the Mongol Empire attempted but failed to include the Japanese archipelago.
2. The list includes such familiar titles as Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983); Eric J. Hobsbawm and Rerence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Anthony D. Smith, Theories of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Holmes & Meier, 1983); E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
3. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism.
4. Ibid., 6–13.
5. Ernest Renan, “What Is a Nation?” in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha (New York: Routledge, 1990), 8–22.
6. David A. Bell, The Cult of Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680–1800 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), 13, 34, 108–25, 145.
7. Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 6–13.
8. Patrick J. Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 1–40.
9. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 8–11.
10. Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 14.
11. Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, rev. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). [ED]
12. Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 220–57.
13. Michael Rogers, “Medieval National Consciousness in Korea,” in China Among Equals, ed. Morris Rossabi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 151–72.
14. Both stemmed from the realignments of power in East Asia. One was in the seventh century, when the Silla, in alliance with Tang China, conquered its two neighboring states, Paekche and Koguryŏ, to turn Korea into one polity, and Japan unsuccessfully attempted to attack Silla in 661 to resurrect Paekche. The other came after the Koryŏ, overcome by the Mongols, were forced to join the unsuccessful Mongol campaign to conquer Japan in 1274 and in 1281. Neither resulted in full-fledged war.
15. JaHyun Kim Haboush, “Creating a Society of Civil Culture: Early Chosŏn, 1392–1592,” in Art of the Korean Renaissance, 1400–1600, ed. Soyoung Lee (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009), 3–14.
16. Many believe that this term originated after the Manchu invasions of Korea, but it long predates it. For the use of the term during the Imjin War, see Kim Myŏn’s exhortation in Cho Kyŏngnam’s Nanjung chamnok [The miscellaneous record of the war], 4 vols., in Kugyŏk Taedong yasŭng [The translation of the unofficial narratives of the Great East] (Seoul: Minjok munhwa ch’ujinhoe, 1972), 1:358, 2:557.
17. Sŏnjo sujŏng sillok (hereafter SSS), 25:3a–b [24/3#4#5]. Mary E. Berry, Hideyoshi (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 1982), 208, quotes the same passage based on Kuwata Tadachika, Toyotomi Hideyoshi kenkyū (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1975), 239. I believe it to be incorrectly translated.
The Revised Veritable Records of Sŏnjo (Sŏnjo sujŏng sillok) is cited in these notes according to fascicle and page (i.e., 26:5a) followed by the entry number in brackets (i.e., [26/5/#5]). The date is in the order of reign year and lunar month. The entry number reflects the organization of individual daily records in the Veritable Records of the Kings of the Chosŏn Dynasty (Chosŏn wangjo sillok) provided by the Kuksa P’yŏnch’an Wiwŏnhoe (National Institute of Korean History) at http://sillok.history.go.kr/. Date numbers are omitted for SSS entries (i.e., [26/5#5]) because records are organized by month, not by date. [ED]
18. SSS 25:4a–11a [24/3#7]; Jurgis Elisonas, “The Inseparable Trinity: Japan’s Relations with China and Korea,” in The Cambridge History of Japan, ed. John Whitney Hall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 4:265–66.
19. Yoshi S. Kuno, Japanese Expansion on the Asiatic Continent: A Study in the History of Japan with Special Reference to Her International Relations with China, Korea, and Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937), 1:175.
20. Ibid., 1:173.
21. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 67–82.
22. Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 6–13.
1. The Volunteer Army and the Discourse of Nation
1. Kyŏngsŏng taehakkyo hyangt’o munhwa yŏn’guso, ed., Non’gae sajŏk yŏn’gu [A study of Non’gae from historical perspective] (Pusan: Sinji sŏwŏn, 1996).
2. Yi Sungju, Kim Chŏnggyu, and Han Chunsŏ, Pulmyŏl ŭi Yi Sunsin [Immortal Yi Sunsin] (South Korea: Korean Broadcasting System, September 4–August 28, 2005). [ED]
3. In practice, the army was not a unitary movement but consisted of dispersed groups with their own leaders. Nevertheless, in this study the groups are discussed together under the term “Righteous Army.” The groups did not operate under a unified command, but for simplicity the term is used in the singular throughout this book. [ED]
4. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983), 144.
5. For some of major studies this study relied on, see Ch’a Munsŏp, Chosŏn sidae kunsa kwan’gye yŏn’gu [A study of military affairs during the Chosŏn period] (Seoul: Tan’guk University Press, 1996); Chang Pyŏngok, Ŭibyŏng hangjaengsa [History of the volunteer armies’ fighting] (Seoul: Hanwŏn, 1991); Cho Wŏllae. Imjin waeran kwa Honam chibang ŭi ŭibyŏng hangjaeng [The Imjin War and the fighting of the volunteer armies in the Honam region] (Seoul: Asea Munhwasa, 2001); Ch’oe Hyosik, Imjin waeran’gi Yŏngnam ŭi ŭibyŏng yŏn’gu [A study of volunteer armies in Yŏngnam during the Imjin War] (Seoul: Kukhak charyowŏn, 2003); Ch’oe Yŏnghŭi, Imjin waeranjung ŭi sahoe tongt’ae [Social movements during the Imjin War] (Seoul: Han’guk yŏn’guwŏn, 1975); Samuel Dukhae Kim, “The Korean Monk-Soldiers in the Imjin Wars: An Analysis of Buddhist Resistance to the Hideyoshi Invasion, 1592–1598,” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1978); Kim Tonghwa et al., “Hoguk taesŏng Samyŏng taesa yŏn’gu” [A study of the great patriotic Buddhist monk, Samyŏng], Pulkyo hakpo [Journal of Buddhism] 8 (1971): 13–205; Song Chŏnghyŏn, Chosŏn sahoe wa Imjin ŭibyŏng yŏn’gu [A study of the Chosŏn society and of the volunteer armies during the Imjin War] (Seoul: Haggyŏn munhwasa, 1998); Yi Sŏngnin, Imjin ŭibyŏngjang, Cho Hŏn, yŏn’gu [A study of a volunteer army leader, Cho Hŏn] (Seoul: Sin’gu munhwasa, 1993). [ED]
6. Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 128–35. [ED]
7. Yi Sangbaek, Han’guksa: Kŭnse chŏn’gi p’yŏn [History of Korea: Early modern period] (Seoul: Ŭryu munhwasa, 1962), 601–3.
8. For discussion of the misunderstanding concerning Korea’s position toward Hideyoshi’s request, see Kitajima Manji, Chōsen nichinichiki, Kōrai nikki: Hideyoshi no Chōsen shinryaku to sono rekishiteki kokuhatsu [Daily record in Chosŏn, Korea diary: Hideyoshi’s invasion of Chosŏn and its historical judgment] (Tokyo: Soshiete, 1982), 19–38.
9. SSS 25:3a–b [24/3#4]; Wm. Theodore de Bary and Donald Keene, eds., Sources of Japanese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 1:166–67. For a different translation, see Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), 208. The letter had already been a subject of dispute between the Korean ambassadors of the mission, who saw it while they were in Japan, and Hideyoshi’s intermediaries. Finding it full of suspicious and insolent passages, the Koreans had protested to Keitetsu Genso, the mediator, who apologized and made a few cosmetic changes. SSS 25:3b [24/3#5].
10. The Korean response was sharp. One official demanded the execution of Genso. SSS 25:4a–11a [24/3#7]; Jurgis Elisonas, “The Inseparable Trinity: Japan’s Relations with China and Korea,” in The Cambridge History of Japan, ed. John Whitney Hall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 4:265–66.
11. Han’guksa: Chosŏn chunggi ŭi woech’im kwa kŭ taeŭng [History of Korea: An outcry and its response of mid-Chosŏn] (Seoul: Kuksa py’ŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe, 1995), 29:24–26.
12. The preparations were opposed by the local elite, and resented by the people conscripted for construction of the fortresses for military training. SSS 25:18b [24/7#6]; also Yu Sŏngnyong, Chingbirok [The book of corrections], cited in Han’guksa, 29:25–26nn.8, 9.
13. Kenneth M. Swope, “The Three Great Campaigns of the Wanli Emperor, 1592–1600: Court, Military, and Society in Late Sixteenth-Century China” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2001), 180.
14. During the early Chosŏn, Pusan was a small port town whereas Tongnae was a county of Kyŏngsang Province. [ED]
15. Korean sources intimate large-scale killings but do not give specific numbers. For example, see Cho Kyŏngnam, Nanjung chamnok [The miscellaneous records of the war], in Kugyŏk Taedong yasŭng [The translation of the unofficial narratives of the Great East] (Seoul: Minjok munhwa ch’ujinhoe, 1972), 3:330–31, which describes someone hiding under the pile of dead bodies.
16. Yoshino Jingozaeon, Yoshino Jingozaeon oboegaki [Yoshino Jingozaeon’s memoir] (Tokyo: Zoku Gunsho Ruijū Kanseikai, 1931), 23:379. Another number cited was 8,500. Samuel Jay Hawley, The Imjin War: Japan’s Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China (Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, and Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 2005), 138.
17. These figures are given by Tenkei, the Buddhist monk who accompanied Konishi Yukinaga as a recorder, in his Saisei nikki. Quoted in Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 13.
18. There were surely occasional displays of brave martyrdom by loyal officials—for example, the martyrdom of Shin Kilwŏn, the magistrate of Mun’gyŏng (Nanjung chamnok, 1:343)—but no effective resistance.
19. Han’guksa, 29:29; Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 12.
20. Sŏnjo sillok (hereafter SS) 26:1a [25/4/17#1]; SSS 26:3b–4a [25/4#8]; Nanjung chamnok, 3:343.
The Veritable Records of Sŏnjo (Sŏnjo sillok) is cited in these notes according to fascicle and page (i.e., 26:5a) followed by the date and entry number in brackets (i.e., [26/5/12#5]). The date is in the order of reign year, lunar month, and day. The entry number reflects the organization of individual daily records in the Veritable Records of the Kings of the Chosŏn Dynasty (Chosŏn wangjo sillok) provided by the Kuksa P’yŏnch’an Wiwŏnhoe (National Institute of Korean History) at http://sillok.history.go.kr/. [ED]
21. SS 26:1b [25/04/17#4]; SSS 26:5a–5b [25/4#16]; Nanjung chamnok, 3:344–45.
22. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 332.
23. SS 26:2a–b [25/4/28#4]; 26:2b [25/4/29#1]; 26:3a [25/4/29#4]; SSS 26:12a [25/5#21]; 26:6a [25/4#23].
24. SS 26:3a [25/4/30#1;#3]; Nanjung chamnok, 3:348.
25. SS 26:1b–2a [25/04/28#1;#3].
26. SS 26:2b [25/4/29#2].
27. SSS 26:7a [25/04#28].
28. Nanjung chamnok, 1:347–48.
29. SS 26:3a [25/5/3#5]; 27:3b [25/6/10#1]; 27:4b [25/06/11#1]; Han’guksa, 29:33–34.
30. Ch’a Munsŏp, Chosŏn sidae kunsa kwan’gye yŏn’gu, 1–38.
31. Yi I proposed a creation of army of 100,000 men on active duty, with 20,000 in the capital and 10,000 in each province. James B. Palais, Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions: Yu Hyŏngwŏn and the Late Chosŏn Dynasty (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996), 76.
32. Their capture is first reported in the Veritable Records on October 8, 1592. See SS 30:3a [25/9/4#3].
33. Kuk Kyŏng’in was a native of Hoeryŏng, Hamgyŏng Province. SS 36:20b–21a [26/3/11#2].
34. The two princes were released in the summer of 1593, after a year of captivity. SS 41:48a–b [26/8/23#4]; [26/8/24#2].
35. O Hŭimun, Swaemirok [The records of trivial and insignificant matters] (Seoul: Kuksa p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe, 1962), 7.
36. For a critical assessment of this practice, see Yu Sŏngnyong’s remark in SS 48:33–33b [27/02/27#1].
37. It is not clear when the edict was sent out. The Veritable Records of Sŏnjo, in an entry of 5/3 (June 12, 1592), says that the king wrote an edict addressed to the scholars and people of the capital city, but because the city fell to the enemy, the person in charge of delivering the message could not do it (SS 26:4b [25/5/03#8]). This was when the court was staying at Kaesŏng. The Revised Annals, in an entry for the fifth month, says that the king promulgated the edict and sent it out to eight paths, and sent officials with his message that the people should mobilize into a volunteer army (SSS 26:9a [25/5#9]). The entries in the revised annals are made by months, not specific dates, but this entry comes after one that reports that the capital city fell. Hence this edict must have been written at the earliest on the fourth of the fifth month (June 13, 1592).
38. Chŏng T’ak, Yongsa ilgi [The diary of the dragon and snake war] (9/15/Imjin year) (Pusan: Pusan University, 1962), 189–94. Chŏng T’ak’s Yongsa ilgi indicates that nonelites would be allowed to take the state examinations or be granted degrees. [ED]
39. Chosŏn society was based on four different hereditary social status groups. At the top was the aristocracy, known as yangban, a small group of governing aristocrats who comprised less than 10 percent of the total population. Another small group just below this elite stratum was known as “middle people” (chungin)—government technical specialists, administrative functionaries, and some illegitimate sons (sŏŏl) of aristocratic fathers and concubines (ch’ŏp). Next were the commoners, who were mostly peasants but also artisans and merchants. These people made up the majority of the population and carried most of the burden of taxation, military service, and corvée labor. At the bottom were the low-born, known as ch’ŏnmin, who were mostly slaves but also included those with debased occupations such as butchers, tanners, shamans, and female entertainers. [ED]
40. Kim Su instructed the residents to hide. SSS 26:3b–4a [25/4#8]. Some officials are reported to have taken things from the state treasury. SSS 26:2b–3a [25/4#3].
41. In his memorial Kwak Chaeu puts the date as June 1 (4/22), but his first identifiable military action is set at June 3 (4/24). Ch’oe Hyosik, Imjin waeran’gi, 130.
42. Kwak’s and his wife’s families were supposed to have been affluent. Ch’oe Hyosik, Imjin waeran’gi, 125–26.
43. Nanjung chamnok, 1:339–40.
44. Kim was the deputy ambassador on the mission to Japan in 1590. Contrary to Ambassador Hwang Yun’gil who reported that Japan was likely to attack Korea, Kim maintained that he did not see signs of planned invasion and that it was unlikely. It is said that the new appointment was due to Yu Sŏngyong’s defense of Kim. SSS 26:4b [25/4#12].
45. Yi No says that this was 5/8 (Yi No, Yongsa ilgi, 46–58) while Cho Kyŏngnam places it in the entry of 5/5 (Nanjung chamnok, 1:359–64).
46. Nanjung chamnok, 1:339–40.
47. Although the Revised Sŏnjo sillok, like all Sillok, was compiled after the death of the king who bears its title, it heavily consulted the documents produced during the time that it describes and attempted to represent the views of that time.
48. This entry is included in the sixth month of 1592, which corresponds to July 9 to August 6. SSS 26:19b [25/6#32].
49. The Miscellaneous Record states that Kwak took great care in safeguarding the river so that the inhabitants of many villages could farm no differently from the time of peace. Nanjung chamnok, 1:341; SSS 26:19b [25/6#32].
50. Yi Hyŏngjong, ed., Cho Chŏng sŏnsaeng munjip [The literary collection of Cho Chŏng] (Seoul: Cho Chŏng sŏnsaeng munjip kanhaeng wiwŭnhoe, 1977), 144.
51. Nanjung chamnok, 1:390, 393–95. Nanjung chamnok also states that Chŏng Inhong was the first one who formed the Righteous Army, but because he did not wish to claim the military merit, he was not awarded this distinction (1:390).
52. “Kyo Chŏng Inhong, Kim Myŏn tŭng sŏ,” in Swaemirok, 259–61.
53. Nanjung chamnok, 1:367, 351. The court stayed at Kaesŏng. On June 12, the day the Japanese Army took the capital city, Governor Yi wrote to Ko Kyŏngmyŏng, a local elite and a former official who enjoyed a reputation as a good writer, asking him to compose a letter exhorting people to rise as a volunteer army. On June 30 Yun Ansŏng, magistrate of Namwŏn, sent out an open letter addressed to the scholars of the locality in which, after reporting that Kwak Chaeu had risen in the occupied region, he lamented that “no Righteous Army yet emerged in Chŏlla despite the beautiful custom of the province that was second to none.” Ibid., 1:383.
54. Swaemirok, 30–36.
55. Yi’s rationale was that the royal court had moved on and, not knowing its whereabouts or even its survival, it was pointless to keep marching north. Yi Kŭngik, Kugyŏk Yŏllryŏsil kisul [The translation of the narratives of yŏllryŏsil], ed. Kim Yungyŏng (Seoul: Minjok munhwa ch’ujinhoe), 4:89.
56. Kim Ch’ŏnil, “Yŏnbo,” 12b–13a; Cho Wŏllae, Imjin waeran, 115–16.
57. About ten letters were sent out. Ko Kyŏngmyŏng, Kugyŏk Chebong chŏnsŏ [The translation of the anthology of Chebong] (Sŏngnam: Chŏngsin munhwa yŏn’guwŏn, 1980), 2:31–48.
58. Letters of exhortation were employed in different ways. For instance, rebel leaders used the genre to mobilize people for their cause. For various uses of the letters, see JaHyun Kim Haboush, “Open Letters: Patriotic Exhortations During the Imjin War,” in Epistolary Korea: Letters in the Communicative Space of the Chosŏn, 1392–1910, ed. JaHyun Kim Haboush (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 121–40.
59. Yi Kwang sent a letter to Ko Kyŏngmyŏng urging him to compose an exhortation: “The royal entourage has left for the West, and we could not guard the capital city. Now that the affairs of our country have reached this, this is truly lamentable. If there is one thing we could do, it is to write a letter of exhortation of sorrow and urgency, to disseminate to like-minded colleagues wherever we can, and to hope that they will raise an army to blot out our heaven-searing rage. However, if words [in the letter] are not passionate, it won’t be able to move people’s hearts, and one should not compose it roughly or carelessly. Dare I ask you to please compose it, and show it to me?” Nanjung chamnok, 1:351. The Japanese occupation of Seoul is recorded on the same day.
60. Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 153–208.
61. According to Smith, the goal and the content of the national imaginings were to “to present a vision of ethnic fraternity of elites and masses through a historical drama in which a unified past is uncovered and re-presented, in the fashion of a museum, and thereby to evoke deeper meanings of collective destiny and community in the face of the dangerous fragmentation and alienation that modern industrialization and science unfold.” Ibid., 173.
62. Kim Sŏng’il, Hakpong chŏnjip [The complete anthology of Hakbong] (Seoul: Hakpong sonsaeng kinyŏm saŏphoe), 141–43; Kukyŏk Hakpong chŏnjip [The translation of the complete anthology of Hakbong] (Seoul: Hakpong sŏnsaeng kinyŏm saŏphoe), 364–69. For a discussion and English translation of this exhortation, see Haboush, “Open Letters,” 121–24, 126–30. Yi No says the date was 5/8 (Yi No, Yongsa ilgi, 46–58) while Cho Kyŏngnam places it in the entry of 5/5 (Nanjung chamnok, 1:359–64).
63. The author of the Miscellaneous Record comments, after quoting this letter, that Kim Sŏng’il let another scholar compose it but did not like it, so he rewrote it himself. His words came out of his heart and he was so moved that he barely had the time to wet his brush in ink. Nanjung chamnok, 1:364.
64. A li is a unit of measure equal to approximately 449.17 meters (a third of a mile).
65. T’oegye and Nammyŏng were two of the most renowned Neo-Confucian scholars of the sixteenth century.
66. Ko passed the higher civil service examination (munkwa) in 1558 at the top and served in both the central and local governments. He retired from service and mobilized a volunteer army as a private person.
67. “So passionate and heartfelt that when anyone reads it, his hair stands on end and tears began to roll down his cheek” (preface by Yi Chŏnggu, in Ko Kyŏngmyŏng, Kugyŏk Chebong chŏnsŏ, 2:25).
68. Ko Kyŏngmyŏng, Kugyŏk Chebong chŏnsŏ 2:33–36; Swaemirok, 130–31. For a discussion and English translation of this exhortation, see Haboush, “Open Letters,” 124–25, 130–32.
69. Ko Kyŏngmyŏng, Kugyŏk Chebong chŏnsŏ, 2:37–38.
70. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 144.
71. Nanjung chamnok, 1:472–73. See also Cho Wŏllae, Imjin waeran, 183–86.
72. Yi Sŏngnin, Imjin ŭibyŏngjang, 144–57.
73. The letter is undated but must have been written early in the seventh month of 1592. Nanjung chamnok, 1:91–93 (49–50). For a discussion and English translation, see Haboush, “Open Letters,” 125–26, 132–35.
74. This exhortation is undated, but from context it can be located sometime in the twelfth month of 1592, just before Chinese Army arrived. Yi Hyŏngjong, ed., Cho Chŏng sŏnsaeng munjip, 454. For an English translation, see Haboush, “Open Letters,” 137.
75. Ko, Chonggirok, 13a–14a. For an English translation, see Haboush, “Open Letters,” 135–37.
76. From the first circular letter signed by the residents of Yŏngdong city, Chŏlla Province, dated 5/13/1592, Swaemirok, 17–18.
77. From an exhortation signed by private scholars Kim Hyŏn, Kim Hŭn, Kim Sŏm, and others residing in Kobu of Chŏlla Province around 5/27/1592. This letter is not dated but was written before July 6 (5/27). Ibid., 20.
78. Song Chemin’s exhortation, in Nanjung chamnok, 1:91–93 (40–49).
79. From the exhortation of Yi Kwang, governor of Chŏlla, sixth month of 1592, Swaemirok, 18–19.
80. Kim Sŏng’il to Kwak Chaeu, 5/20/1592, Nanjung chamnok, 1:376–77.
81. From the circular letter that Cho Chongdo, the former magistrate, and Yi No, former petty officer, sent to Kyŏngsang Province, 5/5/1592, ibid., 1:365.
82. Chŏng Kyŏngse’s memo (kye) to Kim Sŏng’il, 5/24/1592, ibid., 1:389.
83. From the exhortation of Governor Yi Kwang of Chŏlla, written sometime during the fifth month of 1592. Swaemirok, 18–19.
84. Two Ho refers to Chŏlla and Ch’ungch’ŏng Provinces.
85. From Yu P’aengno’s circular letter, Ko Kyŏngmyŏng, Kugyŏk Chebong chŏnsŏ, 2:37.
86. From an exhortation by Ko Chonghu, ibid., 2:53–54. Also Nanjung chamnok, 1:399–400.
87. Chunghwa refers to China, but also it was used as metaphor for civilization. When Koreans referred to their country as sojunghwa, they meant an entity that was a territorially smaller than but culturally equal to China.
88. Kim Myŏn’s exhortation, 10/20/1592, Nanjung chamnok, 2:557.
89. From Chŏng Kyŏngse’s letter to the chief recruiter, 7/3/1592, ibid., 1:387.
90. From the commander of the Royal Army, Kim Myŏngwŏn’s exhortation to eight provinces, 7/13/1592, ibid., 1:409.
91. From the exhortation of Yi Kwang, governor of Chŏlla, Swaemirok, 18–19.
92. From Chŏng Kyŏngse’s letter to the chief recruiter, 7/3/1592, Nanjung chamnok, 1:387.
93. From the governor of Kwangju Kwŏn Yul’s exhortation to all the gentlemen of all the counties of Chŏlla, 8/3/1592, Swaemirok, 31–33.
94. From the exhortation to all the gentlemen of all the counties of Chŏlla by Kwŏn Yul, mayor of Kwangju, 6/26/1592, ibid.
95. From the circular letter of Cho Chongdo and Yi No, 7/14/1592, Nanjung chamnok, 1:365.
96. From Kim Chibok’s exhortation “ŭibyŏng kyŏngmun,” in Yi Hyŏngjong, ed., Cho Chŏng sŏnsaeng munjip, 302, 454.
97. From Ko Kyŏngmyŏng’s letter to Ch’oe U, Ko Kyŏngmyŏng, Kugyŏk Chebong chŏnsŏ, 2:46
98. From Yi Kwang’s exhortation sent to the soldiers of Kyŏngsang, 6/12/1592, Nanjung chamnok, 1:357.
99. From a circular letter by the residents of Yŏngdong, Chŏlla, 6/22/1592, Swaemirok, 17–8.
100. From Yu P’aengno’s circular letter to the magistrates and superintendents of county schools of Ch’ungch’ŏng, Kyŏnggi, Hwanghae, and P’yŏngan Provinces, Ko Kyŏngmyŏng, Kugyŏk Chebong chŏnsŏ, 2:37–39; Nanjung chamnok, 1:400–3.
101. From Kim Tongnyŏng’s letter to the villages in Chŏlla, 11/2/1593, Swaemirok, 390–91.
102. From the first letter by the residents of Yŏngdong, Chŏlla, ibid., 17–18.
103. From Ko Chonghu’s letter sent to monks secluded in temples, Ko Kyŏngmyŏng, Kugyŏk Chebong chŏnsŏ, 2:52–53.
104. From Ko Chonghu’s exhortation, ibid., 2:55.
105. From the exhortation by Kim Hyŏn, Kim Hŭn, Kim Sŏm, and other private scholars of Kobu of Chŏlla, Swaemirok, 20.
106. Kim Yŏng’s circular letter to Andong, Kyŏngsang, Nanjung chamnok, 2:613–14.
107. From Song Chemin’s exhortation, ibid., 1:91–93 (40–49). [ED]
108. From the circular letter of Cho Chongdo and Yi No, 6/14/1592, ibid., 1:365.
109. From an exhortation by Cho Chongdo et al. Nanjung chamnok, 1:366, reports that Cho died at the walled city of Hwangsŏk in 1597.
110. This is reminiscent of early sixteenth-century France in which patriotism was equated with its image as the most Christian of kingdoms. Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (London: Blackwell, 1992), 102–3.
2. The Volunteer Army and the Emergence of Imagined Community
1. The editors added the chapter title and the transitional sentence from chapter 1 to chapter 2. [ED]
2. See, for example, an exhortation by the residents of Yŏngdong, Chŏlla, and O Hŭimun, in Swaemirok [The records of trivial and insignificant matters] (Seoul: Kuksa p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe, 1962), 17–18.
3. For example, Nanjung chamnok, after recording a letter of exhortation, says that this was sent to all villages. See Cho Kyŏngnam, Nanjung chamnok [The miscellaneous record of the war], in Kugyŏk Taedong yasŭng [The translation of the unofficial narratives of the Great East] (Seoul: Minjok munhwa ch’ujinhoe, 1972), 1:453.
4. See Yu P’aengno’s circular letter, no. 210.
5. Yi Hyŏngjong, ed., Cho Chŏng sŏnsaeng munjip [The literary collection of Cho Chŏng] (Seoul: Cho Chŏng sŏnsaeng munjip kanhaeng wiwŏnhoe, 1977), 169–71; Kim Sŏngu, Chosŏn chunggi kukka wa sajok [The state and the elites in mid-Chosŏn dynasty] (Seoul: Yŏksa pip’yŏngsa, 2001), 343.
6. Swaemirok, 31–34.
7. Ibid., 22.
8. Ibid., 33–35.
9. Ibid., 16–17.
10. Nanjung chamnok, 1:367. The court was staying at Kaesŏng at the time of the edict.
11. The Veritable Records of Sŏnjo, in an entry of June 12 (5/3), says that the king wrote an edict addressed to the scholars and people of the capital city, but because the city fell to the enemy, the person in charge of delivering the message could not do it (SS 26:4b [25/5/3#8]). This was when the court was staying at Kaesŏng. The Revised Annals, in an entry for the fifth month, says that the king promulgated the edict in which he took responsibility by blaming himself and sent it out to eight paths, and sent officials with his message that the people should mobilize into volunteer armies (SSS 26:9a [25/5#9]). The entries in the revised annals are made by months, not by specific date, but this entry comes after an entry that the capital city fell, and hence the edict must have been written at the earliest on June 13. The Miscellaneous Record also says that the king sent out a sad edict on June 7 (4/28) (Nanjung chamnok, 1:347).
12. For example, see the circular letter sent by the residents of Yŏngdong on 6/22/1592, Swaemirok, 22.
13. Jean-François Gilmont, “Protestant Reformation and Reading,” in A History of Reading in the West, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 179–237, esp. 224–33.
14. For a discussion of the social setting in regard to art and literature, see Joseph Grigely, Textualterity: Art, Theory, and Textual Criticism (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), 122.
15. See Yi Kwang’s letter to Ko Kyŏngmyŏng, Nanjung chamnok, 1:351.
16. For example, one circular letter specifically talks about appealing to those illiterate people who would be listening to the letter. See “Yŏngdong t’ongmun,” in Swaemirok, 17–18.
17. This preface was written by Yi Chŏnggu in 1601. Ko Kyŏngmyŏng, Kugyŏk Chebong chŏnsŏ, 2:25.
18. “Yŏnbo,” in ibid., 2:207.
19. Joseph McDermott, “The Ascendance of the Imprint in China,” in Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China, ed. Cynthia J. Brokaw and Kai-wing Chow (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 55–104, esp. 90–91.
20. For a survey of printing in Korea, see Pow-Key Sohn, “Early Korean Printing,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 79, no. 2 (1959): 96–103.
21. For a discussion of the power of manuscript culture, see Sheldon Pollock, ed., Literary Cultures in History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 21.
22. Kim Tonguk, “P’anbon’go–Han’gŭl sosŏl panggakpon ŭi sŏngnip e taehayŏ” [The rise of woodblock-print vernacular novel], in Ch’unhyang chŏn yŏn’gu [A study of The Tale of Ch’unhyang], 3rd ed. (Seoul: Yŏnsei taehakkyo, 1983), 385–99; William Skillend, Kodae sosŭl: A Survey of Korean Traditional Style Popular Novels (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1968).
23. E.g., letters by Kim Sŏng’il, Yu P’aengno, and Kim Su in the following section.
24. Jurgis Elisonas, “The Inseparable Trinity: Japan’s Relations with China and Korea,” in The Cambridge History of Japan, ed. John W. Hall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 4:276–77.
25. Nanjung chamnok, 2:577.
26. By the late sixteenth century the government had much relaxed its original anti-Buddhist stance and now welcomed the monks’ contribution to fighting the Japanese. [MD]
27. Nanjung chamnok, 2:578; Samuel D. Kim, “The Korean Monk-Soldiers in the Imjin Wars: An Analysis of Buddhist Resistance to the Hideyoshi Invasion, 1592–1598” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1978).
28. Ch’oe Yŏnghŭi, Imjin waeranjung ŭi sahoe tongt’ae [Social movements during the Imjin War] (Seoul: Han’guk yŏn’guwŏn, 1975), 60.
29. On September 12, 1592, in a royal conference to discuss the deployment of troops, Yun Tusu, the minister of the left, proceeded from the assumption that Kim Ch’ŏnil’s army was superior to the royal army, based on its being a Righteous Army. SS 29:8a [25/8/7#1].
30. SS 34:15a–17b [26/1/11#15].
31. Ch’oe Yŏnghŭi, Imjin waeranjung, 63.
32. Examples of this activity include Kim Sŏng’il, chief recruiter of Kyŏngsang Province, and Kyŏn Yu, governor of Naju, who recruited a large number of volunteers. Cho Wŏllae, Imjin waeran kwa Honam chibang ŭi ŭibyŏng hangjaeng [The Imjin War and the fighting of the volunteer armies in the Honam region] (Seoul: Asea Munhwasa, 2001), 7.
33. One example often cited for this category is Paek Kwang’ŏn, who mobilized several hundred men and fought under Yi Kwang, governor of Chŏlla, and was killed in the battle at Yongin. Ibid.
34. One case was Pyŏn Ŭnjing, the magistrate of Haenam, who joined Cho Hŏn, and died at the battle at Kŭmsan. Ibid.
35. Ch’oe Yŏnghŭi, Imjin waeranjung, 49–51; Ch’oe Hyosik, Imjin waeran’gi Yŏngnam ŭi ŭibyŏng yŏn’gu [A study of volunteer armies in Yŏngnam during the Imjin War] (Seoul: Kukhak charyowŏn, 2003), 468–94.
36. Ch’oe Hyosik, Imjin waeran’gi, 206–13.
37. Kenneth M. Swope, “Crouching Tigers, Secret Weapons: Military Technology Employed During the Sino-Japanese-Korean War, 1592–1598,” Journal of Military History 69, no.1 (2005): 27–28.
38. Swaemirok, 17–18.
39. Cho Wŏllae, Imjin waeran, 142.
40. J. L. Boots, “Korean Weapons and Armor,” Transactions of the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 33, no. 2 (1934): 4.
41. For a discussion on this point, see Song Chŏnghyŏn, Chosŏn sahoe wa Imjin ŭibyŏng yŏn’gu [A study of the Chosŏn society and of the volunteer armies during the Imjin War] (Seoul: Hagyŏn munhwasa, 1998), 58–61.
42. Nanjung chamnok, 1:467.
43. Ch’oe Hyosik, Imjin waeran’gi, 134–38.
44. Cho Wŏllae, Imjin waeran, 216.
45. Nanjung chamnok, 2:623–29.
46. Ch’oe Yŏnghŭi, Imjin waeranjung, 25–26; Cho Wŏllae, Imjin waeran, 216–21.
47. Nanjung chamnok, 2:562–72.
48. Kitajima Manji, Chōsen nichinichiki, Kōrai nikki: Hideyoshi no Chōsen shinryaku to sono rekishiteki kokuhatsu [Daily record in Chosŏn, Korea diary: Hideyoshi’s invasion of Chosŏn and its historical judgment] (Tokyo: Soshiete, 1982), 249–50.
49. Cho Wŏllae, Imjin waeran, 86–88.
50. Ch’oe Hyosik puts it at 8,000 (Imjin waeran’gi, 93), while Cho Wŏllae estimates around 15,000 (Imjin waeran, 140).
51. Nanjung chamnok, 2:647; Ch’oe Hyosik, Imjin waeran’gi, 102; Chang Pyŏngok, Ŭibyŏng hangjaengsa [History of the volunteer armies’ fighting] (Seoul: Hanwŏn, 1991), 116.
52. Chang Pyŏngok, Ŭibyŏng hangjaengsa, 118–31.
53. Cho Wŏllae, Imjin waeran, 144.
54. JaHyun Kim Haboush, “Dead Bodies in the Postwar Discourse of Identity in Seventeenth-Century Korea: Subversion and Literary Production in the Private Sector,” Journal of Asian Studies 62, no. 2 (2003): 428.
55. SS 32:14b [25/11/16#2].
56. SSS 26:19a–b [25/6#31].
57. Liah Greenfeld states that popular sovereignty was interpreted either as actual sovereignty of individuals or as the theoretical sovereignty of the people, that whereas in the case of actual sovereignty the idea was inspired by the practice, in the case of theoretical sovereignty the imported idea initiated the changes of the political structure, and that these views led to either individualistic-libertarian or collectivistic-authoritarian nationalism. Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (London: Blackwell, 1992), 10–11.
58. The first recorded announcement of this concept appears in the “Announcement by Tang” (Tang gao) in the Book of History. See Clae Waltham, ed., and James Legge, trans., Shu Ching: Book of History, a Modernized Edition of the Translations of James Legge (Chicago: Regnery, 1971), 72–73.
59. T’aejo sillok 1:43a–45a [1/7/28#3]; English translation is in Peter Lee and Wm. Theodore de Bary, eds., Sources of Korean Tradition: From Early Times Through the Sixteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 1:272–74.
60. Sŏnjo’s edict of the twenty-fifth of the fourth month (6/4/1592) addressed to “officials, men out of office, older subjects, soldiers, and the people” pleaded that “the soldiers and people of all provinces forgive my mistakes and, in consideration of my sincere wish, rise in passionate determination and exterminate the enemy so that we can live in peace as before.” See “Sŏnjo kyosŏ,” in Swaemirok, 21–22. The Revised Veritable Records of Sŏnjo records another edict of the same type in the entry of the first of the fifth month. SSS 26:9a [25/5#9].
61. Martina Deuchler, The Confucian Transformation of Korea: A Study of Society and Ideology (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1992), 12–13.
62. Tu Wei-ming, “Yi T’oegye’s Perception of Human Nature: A Preliminary Inquiry into the Four-Seven Debate in Korean Neo-Confucianism,” in The Rise of Neo-Confucianism in Korea, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary and JaHyun Kim Haboush (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 261–81.
63. Young-chan Ro, The Korean Neo-Confucianism of Yi Yulgok (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989).
64. Yong-ho Ch’oe, “Private Academies and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea,” in Culture and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea, ed. JaHyun Kim Haboush and Martina Deuchler (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999), 15–45.
65. This refers to self-regulating organizations that also offered mutual assistance. See Sakai Tadao, “Yi Yulgok and the Community Compact,” in The Rise of Neo-Confucianism in Korea, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary and JaHyun Haboush (New York: Columbia University Press), 323–48; Martina Deuchler, “The Practice of Confucianism: Ritual and Order in Chosŏn Dynasty Korea,” in Rethinking Confucianism: Past and Present in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, ed. Benjamin Elman, John Duncan, and Herman Ooms (Los Angeles: Asia Pacific Monograph Series, University of California, Los Angeles, 2002), 292–334. For China, see Cynthia Joanne Brokaw, The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit: Social Change and Moral Order in Late Imperial China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).
66. It frequently happens when social status is encoded with the qualities of virtue, the coexistence of two possible arguments—that the elite had privileges because of their moral superiority or that moral superiority resulted in their noble status—had a potential for exacerbating rather than resolving the tension. For a discussion of the conflict between class and the qualities of nobility in eighteenthcentury France before 1789, see Jay M. Smith, Nobility Reimagined (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 26–179.
67. I am not suggesting that their new role was a transformation from transpolitical to national identity, which Gellner proposes as markers of the change from agro-literate polity to industrial society. In his generalization Gellner acknowledges that the Chinese bureaucracy was one of the rare instances in which the ruling strata were co-extensive with a state, and that it displayed a certain kind of nationalism. This certainly applied to the ruling elite of Chosŏn. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), 13–17.
68. JaHyun Kim Haboush, “Open Letters: Patriotic Exhortations During the Imjin War,” in Epistolary Korea: Letters in The Communicative Space of the Chosŏn, 1392–1910, ed. JaHyun Kim Haboush (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 131.
69. George L. Mosse discussed the nationalization of the masses to describe the politics that “draw the people into active participation in the national mystique through rites and festivals, myths and symbols which gave a concrete expression to the general will.” Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), 2. I am using the term a little differently.
70. Greenfeld, Nationalism, 7.
71. Soon after the arrival of the Chinese troops, for example, the Righteous Army was assigned to transport food provisions. On February 11, 1593, it was only the Righteous Army of Kyŏnggi to which this duty was assigned (SS 34:12b [26/1/11#8]), but on February 23 the entire Righteous Army was assigned to it (SS 34:36b [26/1/23#5]).
72. SSS 28:4a [27/4#3].
73. The Veritable Records of Sŏnjo records a conference in which the king and high ministers discussed Kim, and it is clear that they regarded him as a threat and thought it judicious to get rid of him. SS 78:5a–6a [29/8/4#3].
74. The Revised Veritable Records of Sŏnjo records the impact of the news of Kim’s death: “When the Japanese heard the news of [Kim’s] death, they happily congratulated each other. The soldiers and the people of the southern region had relied on him and looked up to him. When he died under a false accusation, all who heard the news were chagrined and saddened. From this time scholars and the people of the region took this event as a warning, and those with military skills hid themselves and did not again mobilize the Righteous Army.” SSS 30:6a–7a [29/8#1].
3. War of Words: The Changing Nature of Literary Chinese in the Japanese Occupation
1. There is, for example, an extant manuscript copy, which is believed to have been sent out by the government in 1593. This copy is owned by a private family in Kyŏngju city in Kyŏngsang Province, the area in which the poster must have been circulated. Kim Chongt’aek, “Sŏnjo taewang ŏn’gyo ko” [A consideration of King Sŏnjo’s vernacular Korean edicts], Kugŏ kyoyuk nonji [Discourse on Korean education] (Taegu: Taegu kyoyuk taehak, 1975): 27–34.
2. Diplomatic relations between states were maintained through an elaborate system of ambassadorial missions. Depending on the nature of the relations and agreements, envoys were either exchanged or sent unilaterally. While the ambassadorial missions contained interpreters, all written communiqués were in literary Chinese, be they official or private.
3. In contrast to the period of Mongol domination, when there was a great deal of movement and travel in various directions by peoples in the region, personal travels abroad were rare during Chosŏn until late in the nineteenth century. Private individuals went to China, but they did so within the framework of ambassadorial missions. There were several Korean missions a year to China, and those officials holding ambassadorial ranks in the mission were allowed to take a certain number of guests at their own expense. In this way a considerable number of literati men went to China, and some of them met and developed friendships with Chinese, and they exchanged letters mainly through people on ambassadorial entourages.
4. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983), 14–15.
5. Sheldon Pollock discusses a mutually constitutive relationship of literature and community in the South Asian vernacular space of the late medieval period. See Pollock, “The Cosmopolitan Vernacular,” Journal of Asian Studies 57, no. 1 (1998): 16–37.
6. JaHyun Kim Haboush, “Royal Edicts: Constructing an Ethnopolitical Community,” in Epistolary Korea: Letters in the Communicative Space of the Chosŏn, 1392–1910, ed. JaHyun Kim Haboush (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 19.
7. Cespedes is viewed as having been influential in converting many Korean prisoners of war to Catholicism. Kim Yangsŏn estimates the number of converts at seven thousand. See Kim, “Imjin waeran chonggun sinbu Cespedes ŭi naehan hwaltong kwa kŭ yŏnghyang” [Activities and influences of the priest Cespedes in Korea during the Imjin War], Sahak yŏn’gu [Researches in Historical Studies] 18 (Sept. 1964): 705–39.
8. Virginia Mason Vaughan, “Preface: The Mental Maps of English Renaissance Drama,” in Playing the Globe: Genre and Geography in English Renaissance Drama, ed. John Gilles and Virginia Mason Vaughan (London: Associated University Presses, 1998), 14.
9. SSS 25:3a–b [24/3#4]; Wm. Theodore de Bary and Donald Keene, eds., Sources of Japanese Tradition, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002) 1:466–67.
10. According to Kokusho sōmokuroku [General catalog of national books], Yoshino’s memoir was written in 1593. However, the text that Haboush consulted seems to suggest that the memoir was written eighteen years after Hideyoshi’s death, which would have made it 1616. See Yoshino Jingozaemon, Yoshino Jingozaemon oboegaki [Yoshino Jingozaemon’s memoir], in Zoku-gunsho ruijū [Continued topical collection of all books] (Tokyo: Zoku Gunsho Ruijū Kanseikai, 1923–). [ED]
11. One hiro is about 1.8 meters (about 5.11 feet).
12. Yoshino, Yoshino Jingozaemon oboegaki, 379–80. This work, written in Japanese, is quoted in various other works. See Stephen Turnbull, Samurai Invasion: Japan’s Korean War, 1592–1598 (London: Cassell, 2002), 50–51. Turnbull mistakenly translates: “and there came to our ears the Chinese expression, ‘Manō! Manō!’” He then says, “The contempt and ignorance which led Yoshino to think that the people of Korea spoke Chinese provides a clue.” Turnbull is quoted in Samuel J. Hawley, The Imjin War: Japan’s Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China (Seoul: Royal Asiatic Society Seoul Branch, 2005), 138. Also in Sajima Akiko, “The Japan-Ming Negotiations,” paper presented to the Imjin War conference at Oxford University, August 2001, 2–3.
13. Kitajima Manji, Chōsen nichinichiki, Kōrai nikki: Hideyoshi no Chōsen shinryaku to sono rekishiteki kokuhatsu [Daily record in Chosŏn, Korea diary: Hideyoshi’s invasion of Chosŏn and its historical accusation] (Tokyo: Sohiete, 1982), 41–55; Jurgis Elisonas, “The Inseparable Trinity: Japan’s Relations with China and Korea,” in The Cambridge History of Japan, ed. John W. Hall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 4:273.
14. The Miscellaneous Record reports on June 16 the burning of Yangsan (Nanjung chamnok, 1:333); on June 19 the burning of Yŏngsan and Ch’ŏngdo (1:334); on June 21 the burning of Ch’angnyŏng, Hyŏnp’ung (1:337); on the same day the burning of Hayang and the massacre of its residents (1:337–38); and on June 23 the burning of Indong, Sŏngju, and Ch’angwŏn (1:341–42). It says that Yangsang, Yŏngsan, Ch’ŏngdo, Ch’angnyŏng, Hyŏnp’ung, and Sŏngju were all reduced to ashes. Nanjung chamnok, 1:334, 337, 341.
15. This was at first attributed to logistical undesirability and then to his poor health. (See Hawley, The Imjin War, 123–24.)
16. Kitajima Manji explains that it was one of the duties of the accompanying Buddhist monks to write such proclamations and keep records. Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 44.
17. The proclamation is recorded in Saisei nikki (The diary of the western campaign), a journal kept by Tenkei, in Zokuzoku gunsho ruijū (Tokyo: Zoku gunsho ruijū kanseikai, 1969–1978), 3:677.
18. Nanjung chamnok, 1:342 (4/24/1592); 1:350 (5/3/1592).
19. Before the Japanese entered Seoul, the angry mob set fire to royal palace. SSS 26:9b [25/4#28].
20. Katō Kiyomasa ate Toyotomi Hideyoshi shuinjō [To Katō Kiyomasa. Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s missive with red stamp], in Katō monjo [Documentation about Katō] quoted in Kitajima Manji, “The Imjin Waeran,” paper presented to the Imjin War conference at Oxford University (August 2001), 9–10; Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 76–78.
21. Kimpaku Hidetsugu ate Toyotomi Hideyoshi oboegaki [To Kimpaku Hidetsugu. Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s memoir], in Seikan monjo [Documentation on conquering Korea], in Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 67–71. For an English translation, see Yoshi Saburo Kuno, Japanese Expansion on the Asiatic Continent: A Study in the History of Japan with Special Reference to Her international Relations with China, Korea, and Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937), 1:314–18; Hawley, The Imjin War, 172–73.
22. Sō Yoshitoshi ate Toyotomi Hideyoshi shuinjō, in Sōke Chōsenjin bunsho, quoted in Kitajima, “The Imjin Waeran,” 9–10. See also Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 90.
23. Tax was calculated in measures of grain. The total amount of tax from eight provinces was calculated at 81,916,186 koku. “Kōrai hatshū no kokunō oboe no koto” [What (the author) remembered about the collection of tax grains in eight provinces of Korea], Tosa no kuni tokanshū [Moth-eaten letters of Tosa Province] quoted in Kitajima, “The Imjin Waeran,” 11.See also Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 90–91.
24. Katō monjo, in Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 91–92.
25. Nanjung chamnok, 2:502 (8/3/1592).
26. The Royal Ancestral Temple was not among the buildings that the angry mob burned, but the royal ancestral tablets were removed from the temple and taken with the royal court when it fled.
27. It is not known exactly when the tombs were destroyed. The Revised Veritable Records of Sŏnjo reports it as the twelfth month of the Imjin year (1592) (SSS 26:44a [25/12#1]). The first time it appears in the Veritable Records of Sŏnjo is May 1593 (SS 37:17b [26/4/13#2]). The Revised Veritable Records seems to indicate that this was done in 1592 but that the Korean government did not hear of it until May the following year. The two tombs were both located in present-day Samsŏngdong, south of Han River, in Seoul. At the time this was outside the walled city of Seoul.
28. Tenkei, Saisei nikki, 678.
29. These were dated with the Japanese imperial year and signed by several generals. The entry was followed by the author’s comments: “The extremity of evil and atrocity could not surpass this, something that cannot be forgotten for ten thousand generations.” Nanjung chamnok, 1:371 (5/20/1592).
30. Kankyōdō hyakushō ate Katō Kiyomasa bōbun [To people in Hamgyŏng Province, Katō Kiyomasa’s poster], in Taichōin monjo [Taichōin documents], quoted in Kitajima, “The Imjin Waeran,” 12. I am following the English translation provided at the conference, modified slightly. See also Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 99.
31. The total came to 244,360 sŏk. There were different categories of grain. “Chōsenkoku sozei chō” [Tax ledger of the Chosŏn state], quoted in Kitajima, “The Imjin Waeran,” 13. See also Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 102. “Nabeshima Naoshige shuchi” [Nabeshima Naoshige’s ruling over prefectures (in Hamgyŏng Province)], in Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 103–5.
32. Katō Kiyomasa to Ki (noshita) Hansuke, dated [Tenshō 20] 9/20/1592. See Hawley, The Imjin War, 268–69n10; Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 117–19; Elisonas, “The Inseparable Trinity,” 275–76.
33. Jurgis Elisonas describes the situation as follows: true to their master’s orders that they treat their conquered areas “according to Japanese rules” (Nihon okime no gotoku), “the generals of Hideyoshi’s occupation forces in Korea taxed the peasants, confiscated their weapons, coerced them by taking hostages, and ruthlessly put down recalcitrants as though they were subjugating yet another Japanese province to his regime of unification through the methods of the Taikō kenchi.” Elisonas, “The Inseparable Trinity,” 275.
34. Tajiri Akitane, Kōrai nikki, entry of Bunroku 1 (1592) 7/18/1592, in Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 381.
35. SS 30:12b–13a [25/9/15#2].
36. Quoted in Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 106.
37. Nanjung chamnok, 1:460 (7/4/1592).
38. Ibid., 1:466–67 (7/9/1592).
39. Yi Chŏng’am, Sŏjŏng illok [The daily record of the western campaign] (Seoul: T’amgudang, 1979), 72–73.
40. Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 156–57.
41. This is the poster that said that Japan was no longer the Japan of the past. Yi mentions that because of the idu, the writing was coarse and difficult to comprehend. In the entry of the fifth of the sixth month, Yi records it in pure Chinese, presumably his own translation. Yi Chŏng’am, Sŏjŏng illok, 72–73.
42. Yi T’aegyŏng, Yŏkchu chŏngmannok [Annotated translation of the record of the campaign against barbarians] (Ŭisŏng: Ŭisŏng munhwawŏn, 1992), 98–99.
43. Nanjung chamnok, 1:371 (5/20/1592).
44. Itsuku monjo, quoted in Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 92–93.
45. Kenneth M. Swope, “The Three Great Campaigns of the Wanli Emperor, 1592–1600: Court, Military, and Society in Late Sixteenth-Century China” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2001), 214–23.
46. Luis Frois, Historia de Japam, ed. Josef Wicki (Lisbon: Bilioteca Nacional de Lisbona, 1976–1982), 5:599, quoted in Elisonas, “The Inseparable Trinity,” 280.
47. SSS 26:44b–45a [25/12#4].
48. Swope says that this figure is disputed. Swope, “The Three Great Campaigns,” 247–48.
49. Nanjung chamnok, 2:623 (1/5/1593).
50. Swope, “The Three Great Campaigns,” 250–54.
51. For a detailed discussion of the battle, see Hawley, The Imjin War, 324–27.
52. Tajiri Akitane, Kōrai nikki, entry of Bunroku 2 (1593) 1/23/1593, in Kitajima, Chōsen nichinichiki, 384. I modified Elisonas’s translation (“The Inseparable Trinity,” 280).
53. Nanjung chamnok, 2:633 (4/19/1593).
54. SSS 27:5a [26/1#4].
55. Swope, “The Three Great Campaigns,” 257.
56. SS 43:2b [26/10/2#16].
4. Language Strategy: The Emergence of a Vernacular National Space
1. Peter Lee and Wm. Theodore de Bary, eds., Sources of Korean Tradition: From Early Times Through the Sixteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 1:57–59.
2. For a detailed treatment, see Kenneth M. Swope, “The Three Great Campaigns of the Wanli Emperor, 1592–1600: Court, Military, and Society in Late Sixteenth-Century China” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2001), 89–156.
3. Kenneth M. Swope, “Bestowing the Double-Edged Sword: Wanli as a Supreme Military Commander,” in Culture, Courtiers, and Competition: The Ming Court (1368–1644), ed. David M. Robinson (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008), 92–93. One liang was 1.327 ounces.
4. Zu reported to his superior that the defeat had been due to the nonparticipation of the Korean Army, charging that a portion of the army had surrendered to the Japanese. The Korean assessment was that Zu had been overly confident and, anxious to further his fame, reckless in his strategy. SS 28:18a [25/7/20#4]; 28:21b [25/7/24#3]; 28: 24a [25/7/26#4]; Han’guksa, 29: 75–77.
5. SS 28:26b [25/7/29#3].
6. Swope, “Bestowing the Double-Edged Sword,” 93.
7. This is what China called itself. Although it became a proper noun, as in the case of Taiwan, it was used to connote a cultural center rather than a polity.
8. I translated the edict as it is recorded in the Veritable Records of Sŏnjo (SS 30:1b–2a [25/9/2#1]). Swope also includes his own translation in “Bestowing the Double-Edged Sword,” 95–96.
9. SS 30:1b [25/9/2#1].
10. SS 30:2b [25/9/2#2].
11. SS 30:3b [25/9/4#7].
12. SSS 26:36a–37a [25/9#6].
13. SS 30:2b [25/9/2#2].
14. Swope, “Bestowing the Double-Edged Sword,” 92–93.
15. Kija (Ch. Qizi) was, according to the Book of Documents, enfiefed as the feudal lord of Chosŏn by the founder of the Zhou dynasty, King Wu. When Kija moved to Korea, he is said to have devised a penal code that served as a civilizatory instrument. [MD]
16. SS 32:13b–14a [25/11/15#4].
17. SS 32:11b–13b [25/11/15#3].
18. SS 32:16a–17b [25/11/16#5].
19. SS 32:20a [25/11/18#2]; 32:23b [25/11/22#2].
20. East of the Taedong River actually meant the area south of the Taedong, beginning just south of P’yŏngyang.
21. Han’guksa, 29:89–90.
22. SS 33:21a–b [25/12/17#4].
23. SS 33:30a–b [25/12/25#2].
24. SS 33:30b–31a [25/12/26#2]; [25/12/27#2; #3].
25. Until the end of the war it was Koreans who were responsible for this task, and it was under the jurisdiction of the Korean king and his close officials. Gari Ledyard, “Confucianism and War: The Korean Security Crisis of 1598,” Journal of Korean Studies 6 (1988): 103.
26. Li got the horse. SS 35:29a–30b [2/17/11] (in Sŏnjo’s conversation with Yi Hangbok).
27. SS 34:23b–24a [26/1/13#6].
28. Before his departure he had an extensive discussion with the distraught Sŏnjo, who, as well as other officials present at the meeting, seems to have felt that the entire Korean court was under censure. Those present in the meeting probed for possible reasons for Li’s censure. According to the attendant royal secretary, some people, among them Li’s adjutant, took women, having either a female slave or a kisaeng accompany them on some public procession or another. But they felt that this was not the real reason. SS 34:24b–25a [26/1/14#3].
29. Swope, “Bestowing the Double-Edged Sword,” 84.
30. O Hŭimun, Swaemirok [The records of trivial and insignificant matters] (Seoul: Kuksa p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe, 1962), 265.
31. SS 34:46a–b [26/1/28#6].
32. Kenneth M. Swope, “Deceit, Disguise, and Dependence: China, Japan, and the Future of the Tributary System, 1592–1596,” International History Review 24, no. 4 (2002): 771.
33. There is a detailed description of the battle, fought from February 6 to 8, in the Veritable Records of Sŏnjo (SS 34:13a–15a [26/1/11#13]). Also see Kenneth M. Swope, “Turning the Tide: The Strategic and Psychological Significance of the Liberation of Pyongyang in 1593,” War and Society 21, no. 2 (2003): 1–22.
34. SS 34:15a [26/1/11#13].
35. Swope, “The Three Great Campaigns,” 254–55.
36. SSS 27:4b [26/1#2].
37. Sŏnjo ordered that they should pursue the retreating enemy and wanted to behead a Korean general who let the Japanese escape, but Li Rusong asked that the general be pardoned. SS 34:38b–39a [26/1/24#9]; SSS 27:2a–4a [26/1#2].
38. Swope, “The Three Great Campaigns,” 254.
39. Yoshi Saburo Kuno, Japanese Expansion on the Asiatic Continent: A Study in the History of Japan with Special Reference to Her International Relations with China, Korea, and Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937), 1:164.
40. Swope, “The Three Great Campaigns,” 252–53.
41. At the discussion all objected except Prime Minister Yi Sanhae, who said that there were such precedents in ancient history. SS 26:1b [25/4/28#2].
42. SS 26:1b [25/4/17#4]; SSS 26:5a–5b [25/4#16]; Nanjung chamnok, 3:344–45.
43. SS 26:3a [25/4/30#1; #3]; Yu Sŏngnyong, who was in the entourage, described this in his Chingbirok [The book of corrections], trans. Nam Mansŏng (Seoul: Hyŏnamsa, 1970), 74–78, 288–99.
44. SS 26:8b [25/5/8#7].
45. Timothy Tackett, When the King Took Flight (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003), 9–25.
46. See chapter 1 for more details.
47. Yu Sŏngnyong, Chingbirok, 111–13, 305–6.
48. SS 27:3b [25/6/10#1].
49. SS 27:2a [25/6/2#5].
50. SS 27:4b [25/6/11#4].
51. It is notable that the content of this edict does not appear in the Veritable Records of Sŏnjo. It is assumed that once it was sent out, it was not recorded by historians. However, it is recorded in other books by those who received the edict. Swaemirok, 16–17. The same letter appears in the Nanjung chamnok, 1:453–54, but in a truncated form.
52. Nanjung chamnok, 2:515–17.
53. Ibid., 518–19.
54. Ibid., 540–42.
55. SS 29:1a [25/8/1#5]. Also Han’guksa, 29:72–73.
56. Discussions and reports as they appear in the Sillok show this view. SS 28:18a [25/7/20#4]; 28:21a [25/7/24#3]; 28:24a [25/7/26#4]; Han’guksa, 29:75–77.
57. The royal entourage was moving from Yŏngch’ŏn to Pakch’ŏn. SS 27:8b [27/6/14#4].
58. This was on the 22nd of the sixth month. SS 27:15a [25/6/22#2].
59. SS 27:6b–8a [25/6/13#7#8]; 27:8a [25/6/14#5].
60. “P’ilbu” refers to a common man of lowly station, but in this context a morally low person with no spirit.
61. SS 27:15b [25/6/24#1]; 27:16b [25/6/26#1] 27:17a–b [25/6/26#4#7].
62. SS 28:26b–28a [25/7/29#3]; 29:2a [25/8/2#1].
63. On the 19th of the eighth month, the king ordered that copies of the royal letter in Korean be forwarded to Song Ŏnsin, the governor of P’yŏngan Province, to be disseminated among the residents and that Yu Sŏngnyong carry them north to distribute to the people. SS 29:23a [25/8/19#1].
64. They include Kuno, Japanese Expansion, 1:159–73; Elisonas, “The Inseparable Trinity,” 281–85; Swope, “Deceit, Disguise, and Dependence,” 757–82; Hawley, The Imjin War, 299–428.
65. Swope, “Deceit, Disguise, and Dependence,” 776–78; Elisonas, “The Inseparable Trinity,” 284–85.
66. Mary E. Berry states that Hideyoshi did not object to dragged-out peace talks as he preferred ambiguity to an “unbecoming settlement,” but when this was no longer possible he decided on the second invasion. Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), 217, 232.
67. Ronald P. Toby, State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984), 77–83. Also see Kenneth R. Robinson, “Centering the King of Chosŏn: Aspects of Korean Maritime Diplomacy, 1392–1592,” Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 1 (2000): 109–22.
68. Ray Huang, “The Lung-ch’ing and Wan-li Reigns, 1567–1620,” in Cambridge History of China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 7:571.
69. Swope, “Deceit, Disguise, and Dependence,” 772–73.
70. Swope, “Bestowing the Double-Edged Sword,” 77.
71. Kuno, Japanese Expansion, 1:169–70. His wife and children were sold into slavery. Hawley, The Imjin War, 422–23.
72. Swope, “Deceit, Disguise, and Dependence,” 780.
73. Sŏnjo’s conferences with Li were in the third month of 1593 and with Song in the sixth month of 1593. Han’guksa, 29:96–7.
74. SS 41:36 [26/8/14#2]; 42:3a [26/9/1#12]; Han’guksa, 29:98–105.
75. SS 41:13a [26/8/6#8; #11]; 47:2a [27/1/2#2]; 60:2b [28/2/2#4]; 69:3b [28/11/3#2]. For example, in the tenth month of 1592, a Korean official who had been captured by the Japanese was released, returning with Katō Kiyomasa’s letter to the effect that if Korea were to agree to territorial concessions, the Japanese would retreat from Korea and return the Korean princes whom they had captured. SS 31:16b [25/10/19#5].
76. For example, see the argument by Yun Tusu, the minister of the left. SS 47:2a [27/1/2#2]. Prime Minister Yu Sŏngnyong, on the other hand, continued to counsel the necessity of buying time. By the end of the sixteenth century the political elite was split in several factions. Yu Sŏngnyong was the leader of the Namin (“Southerners”), whereas Yu Tusu represented the Sŏin (“Westerners”). [MD]
77. This text is based on a manuscript copy, which is believed to have been sent out by the government on this occasion. The copy is owned by a private family in Kyŏngju city in Kyŏngsang Province, in which the poster must have circulated. Kim Chongt’aek, “Sŏnjo taewang ŏn’gyo ko” [A consideration of King Sŏnjo’s vernacular Korean edicts], Kugŏ kyoyuk nonji [Discourse on Korean education] 2 (1975): 27–34.
78. SS 42:20b [26/9/9#3].
79. It is interesting to note that this edict is not recorded in the Veritable Records of Sŏnjo but only in Nanjung chamnok, 4:231–33. The one at the beginning of the war is recorded only in the Swaemirok, although the Veritable Records of Sŏnjo records that the edict had been sent out.
80. JaHyun Kim Haboush, “Royal Edicts: Constructing an Ethnopolitical Community,” in Epistolary Korea: Letters in the Communicative Space of the Chosŏn, 1392–1910, ed. JaHyun Kim Haboush (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 21, 24–26.
5. The Aftermath: Dream Journeys and the Culture of Commemoration
1. JaHyun Kim Haboush, “Constructing the Center: The Ritual Controversy and the Search for a New Identity in Seventeenth-Century Korea,” in Culture and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea, ed. JaHyun Kim Haboush and Martina Deuchler (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999), 46–90.
2. Inaba Iwakichi, Kokaikun jidai no Man-Sen kankei [Korea-Manchu relations during the reign of King Kwanghae] (Keijō: Osakayago shoten, 1933), 111–241.
3. Injo’s court entered Namhan Fort on the fourteenth day of the twelfth month, 1636, and surrendered on the thirtieth of the first month, 1637. For a description of the forty-seven days and the ceremony of surrender, see Na Man’gap, Pyŏngja namhan ilgi [The records of the Namhan Fort in 1636] (Seoul: Sundang, 1977), 28–110; Kim Kwangsun, trans., Sansŏng ilgi [The diary of mountain fortress] (Seoul: Hyŏngsŏl ch’ulp’ansa, 1985).
4. Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 6–46.
5. See Mary Elizabeth Berry, Hideyoshi (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1982).
6. See Frederic E. Wakeman, The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
7. Ch’a Munsŏp, Chosŏn sidae kunsa kwan’gye yŏn’gu [A study of military affairs during the Chosŏn period] (Seoul: Tan’guk University Press, 1996); Hŏ Sŏndo, Chosŏn sidae hwayak pyŏnggisa yŏn’gu [A study of firearms and weapons of the Chosŏn period] (Seoul: Ilchogak, 1994); Song Chŏnghyŏn, Chosŏn sahoe wa Imjin ŭibyŏng yŏn’gu [A study of the Chosŏn society and of the volunteer armies during the Imjin War] (Seoul: Haggyŏn munhwasa, 1998); Yi T’aejin, Chosŏn hugi ŭi chŏngch’i wa kunyŏngje pyŏnch’ŏn [Politics and the changes in the military garrisons structure in the late Chosŏn] (Seoul: Han’guk yŏn’guwŏn, 1985).
8. Han Myŏnggi, Imjin waeran kwa Han-Jung kwan’gye [The Imjin War and Sino-Korean relations] (Seoul: Yŏksa pip’yŏngsa, 1998); Sŏn Sŭngch’ŏl, Chosŏn siadae Han-Il kwan’gyesa yŏn’gu [A study of Korean-Japanese relations during the Chosŏn period] (Seoul: Chisŏng ŭi saem, 1994).
9. Chŏng Okcha, Chosŏn hugi Chosŏn chunghwa sasang yŏn’gu [A study of Korea-centered ideology in late Chosŏn] (Seoul: Ilchisa, 1998).
10. Im Ch’ŏlho, Imjinnok yŏn’gu [A study of The Record of the Black Dragon Year] (Seoul: Chŏng’ŭmsa, 1986); Im, Sŏlhwa wa minjung ŭi yŏksa ŭisik [Legends and people’s historical consciousness] (Seoul: Chimmundang, 1989); Kim T’aejun et al., Imjin waeran kwa Han’guk munhak [The Imjin War and Korean literature] (Seoul: Minŭmsa, 1992); So Chaeyŏng, Im-byŏng yangnan kwa munhak ŭisik [The Imjin and Pyŏngja Wars and literary consciousness] (Seoul: Han’guk yŏn’guwŏn, 1980).
11. Ernest Renan, “What Is a Nation?,” in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London: Routledge, 1990), 19.
12. Kristin Ann Hass, Carried to the Wall: American Memory and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 34–86.
13. I was invited to participate in a ceremony to commemorate the Imjin War dead as recently as 1973.
14. Imjinnok [Record of the Black Dragon Year] can be described as a vivid example of this kind. See Im Ch’ŏlho, Imjinnok yŏn’gu, and also Peter Lee, The Record of the Black Dragon Year (Seoul: Institute of Korean Culture, Korea University, 2000).
15. Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press. 1981), 428.
16. I use the edition of this narrative put out by the Association of Korean Language and Literature.
17. The edition at the National Library in Seoul (Kungnip chungang tosŏgwan) contains both Kangdo mongyurok and P’isaeng mongyurok, Ko 3636–38. Reprinted in Kim Kidong, ed., P’ilsabon kojŏn sosŏl chŏnjip [The complete anthology of classical Korean novels in manuscript] (Seoul: Asea munhwasa, 1980), 3:201–38.
18. Cho Tongil, Han’guk munhak t’ongsa [History of Korean literature] (Seoul: Chisik sanŏpsa, 1994), 2:483–93.
19. Yu Chongguk cites ten stories; see Yu Chongguk, Mongyurok sosŏl yŏn’gu [A study of dream journey novels] (Seoul: Asea munhwasa, 1987), 5–128. So Chaeyŏng mentions two new discoveries; see So Chaeyŏng, “Imjin waeran kwa sosŏl munhak” [The Imjin War and the novel], in Imjin waeran kwa han’guk munhak [Imjin War and Korean literature], ed. Kim T’aejun et al. (Seoul: Minŭmsa, 1992), 246–48.
20. The most conspicuous examples include Zhuangzi’s famous butterfly dream in his eponymous philosophical treatise, continuing through innumerable stories in zhiguai and chuanqi genres to the great Ming play Mudanting [Peony Pavilion] and the famous Qing novel Hongloumeng [The Dream of the Red Chamber].
21. Kuunmong was circulated in both Korean and Chinese editions. Because no extant Korean edition predates the Chinese editions, scholars disagree over the language in which the novel was written. See Cho Tongil, Han’guk munhak t’ongsa, 3:118–25; Chŏng Kyubok, Han’guk kojŏn munhak ŭi wŏnjŏn pip’anjŏk yŏn’gu [A critical study of editions of Korean classics] (Seoul: Koryŏ taehakkyo minjok munhwa yŏn’guso, 1992). The same question is raised concerning Hong Kiltong chŏn [The tale of Hong Kiltong], long thought to be the earliest vernacular novel written in Korean. In fact, even the traditional attribution of authorship to Hŏ Kyun (1569–1618) is questioned. Some claim a much later composition. See Yi Yunsŏk, Hong Kiltong chŏn yŏn’gu [A study of the tale of Hong Kiltong] (Taegu: Kyemyŏng University Press, 1997).
22. Judith Zeitlin, Historian of the Strange: Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tale (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 133–81.
23. JaHyun Kim Haboush, “Dreamland: Korean Dreamscapes as an Alternative Confucian Space,” in Das andere China [The other China], ed. Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995), 659–70.
24. Of the four tales in this genre that predate the three discussed in this chapter, only one is narrated in this mode, namely, Wŏnsaeng mongyurok [Master Wŏn’s dream journey]. This tale is a narrative in which the dreamer encounters seven famous tragic characters in Korean history: Tanjong (1441–1457, r. 1452–1455), the boy king who was deposed by his powerful uncle, King Sejo (1417–68, r. 1455–1468), and the six ministers, known as “six loyal ministers who died” (sayuksin), who were put to death when Sejo uncovered their secret plot to restore Tanjong. The authorship of Master Wŏn’s Dream Journey has not been determined, but it is commonly attributed to either Wŏn Ho (fl. 1450), one of “six loyal ministers who lived” (saengyuksin), who, out of loyalty to Tanjong, lived their lives in retirement, or Yim Che (1549–1587), a well-known writer who lived a century after Wŏn Ho. See Yu Chongguk, Mongyurok sosŏl yŏn’gu [A study of dream journey novels] (Seoul: Asea munhwasa, 1987), 5.
25. Of twelve known dream journeys, five are about wars. After the mid-seventeenth century, dream journeys revert to the other mode of narration, in which the dream is employed as the dreamer’s interior mental landscape.
26. Praesnjit Duara, “The Regime of Authenticity: Timelessness, Gender, and National History in Modern China,” in Constructing Nationhood in Modern East Asia, ed. Kai-wing Chow, Kevin M. Doak, and Poshek Fu (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 367.
27. David Goodman, Japanese Drama and Culture in the 1960s: The Return of Gods (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1988).
28. See Kim Sŏngnae, “Lamentations of the Dead: The Historical Imagery of Violence on Cheju Island, South Korea,” Journal of Ritual Studies 3, no. 2 (1989): 251–85; Boudewijn Walraven, “Muga: The Songs of Korean Shamanism” (Ph.D. diss., Leiden University, 1985), 1–11.
29. Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), 25.
30. Ibid., 41.
31. Judith Zeitlin, Historian of the Strange, 7–8.
32. The dreamer in the Master P’i’s Dream Journey dreams on the same night that he arrives, whereas the one in Dream Journey to Kanghwa Island dreams several days later. In the Dream Journey to Talch’ŏn there is a gap of several months between the time P’adamja arrives at the Talch’ŏn River and writes poems pitying the dead and when he dreams. Yun Kyesŏn, “Talch’ŏn mongyurok,” in Hanmun sosŏlsŏn [Anthology of novels in literary Chinese], ed. Kugŏ kungmun hakhoe (Seoul: Taejegak, 1982), 140. Both So and Yu imply that P’adamja arrives and dreams on the same day. So Chaeyŏng, “Imjin waeran kwa sosŏl munhak,” 245; Yu Chongguk, Mongyurok sosŏl yŏn’gu, 74. I examined several editions, and this is not the case.
33. Yun Kyesŏn, “Talch’ŏn mongyurok,” 141.
34. Kangdo mongyurok [Dream journey to Kanghwa Island], National Library of Korea, Ko 3636–38, 1b.
35. Rosemary Jackson, Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion (New York: Methuen, 1981), 171–80.
36. Martina Deuchler, The Confucian Transformation of Korea: A Study of Society and Ideology (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1992), 179–202; Susan Naquin, “Funerals in North China: Uniformity and Variation,” in Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, ed. James Watson and Evelyn Rawski (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 37–70.
37. Yun Kyesŏn, “Talch’ŏn mongyurok,” 141.
38. Kangdo mongyurok, 1b.
39. Yi Changhŭi, Imjin waeransa yŏn’gu [A study of the Imjin War] (Seoul: Asea munhwasa, 1999), 37–49.
40. Yun Kyesŏn, “Talch’ŏn mongyurok,” 141.
41. Ibid., 142.
42. The miserable defeat of the Korean Army at the Talch’ŏn River and Sin Ip’s role in it emerge as a familiar trope in postwar discourse on the war with Japan. Hwang Chungyun’s Dream Journey to Talch’ŏn focuses on this very issue. In it the defeat of the Korean Army is placed in a larger context of the social and military system of the Chosŏn government. Both Sin and his brother expound on the inadequacy of the military, which allowed the powerful to evade service while relying mainly on peasant soldiers with no training or expertise. Hwang’s mongyurok has the same title as Yun’s, except that tal is written with an extra “dog” radical. There is only one extant copy of Hwang’s mongyurok, and the text is quite corrupt. It is reproduced in Hwang’s collected works. See Hwang Chungyun, Talch’ŏn mongyurok [Dream journey to Talch’ŏn], in Hwang Tongmyŏng sosŏlchip [Collected novels of Hwang Tongmyŏng] (Taegu: Munhak kwa ŏn’ŏ yŏn’guhoe, 1984), 275–94. The character tal in Yun Kyesŏn’s Talch’ŏn mongyurok is usually rendered without the dog radical, but the one in Nanjung chamnok, a multivolume history of the Imjin War written by a volunteer army leader, Cho Kyŏngnam (1570–1641), is with the radical. See Cho Kyŏngnam’s Nanjung chamnok, in Taedong yasŭng [The unofficial narratives of the great East], 4 vols. (Seoul: Minjok munhwa ch’ujinhoe, 1972), 4:32a–43a.
43. One such painting of the party given by the Queen Mother of the West was auctioned at Sotheby’s New York in 1993 (no. 34).
44. The perspective is that of the viewer, who faces north. The seating arrangement is typical of any formal gathering, which is reproduced in this dream. I am thankful to an anonymous reader for this clarification.
45. Yun Kyesŏn, “Talch’ŏn mongyurok,” 156.
46. Ibid., 157.
47. Ibid., 159–60.
48. SS 41:17b [26/8/8#3].
49. Chungbo munhŏn pigo [Expanded encyclopedia of Korea] (Seoul: Kojŏn kanhaenghoe, 1959), 3:21a.
50. Chosŏn wangjo ŭi chesa [Sacrificial rites of the Chosŏn court] (Seoul: Munhwajae kwalliguk, 1967), 136–37.
51. Hass, Carried to the Wall, 43–55.
52. Thomas Laqueur, “Memory and the Naming in the Great War,” in Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity, ed. John R. Gillis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 152.
53. Hass, Carried to the Wall, 57; James Mayo, War Memorials as Political Landscape: The American Experience and Beyond (New York: Praeger, 1988), 94.
54. The depiction of Yi Kuksin as intensely evil has prompted some scholars to conclude that this work was written as a veiled attack on an individual. See Ch’a Yongju, Mongyurokkye kujo ŭi punsŏk chŏk yŏn’gu [An analysis of the structure of the dream journeys] (Seoul: Changhaksa, 1981), 164; Yu Chongguk, Mongyurok sosŏl yŏn’gu, 83–84. One article even traces a historical personage of the same name and suggests that he is possibly the object of the criticism. See So Taesŏk, “Mongyurok ŭi changrŭjŏk sŏnggyŏk kwa munhaksajŏk ŭiŭi” [Generic characteristics of dream journeys and their literary historical significance], in Kyemyŏngdae Han’gukhak nonmunjip 3 (1975): 531–32.
55. Kangdo mongyurok, 10a.
56. Ibid., 3b. The Chosŏn state conferred honors on persons of virtue in three categories: filial children, loyal subjects, and exemplary women. These honors were often accompanied by material remuneration. For details see Pak Chu, Chosŏn sidae ŭi chŏngp’yo chŏngch’aek [Policies on the conferral of honors during the Chosŏn period] (Seoul: Ilchogak, 1990).
57. Kangdo mongyurok, 4a. For a description of the Buddhist underworld, see Louis Frederic, Buddhism: Flammarion Iconographie Guides (Paris: Flammarion, 1995), 252–53.
58. Kangdo mongyurok, 10a.
59. Duara, “The Regime of Authenticity,” 368–69.
60. “Pakssi chŏn” [The Tale of Madam Pak], in Han’guk kojŏn munhak taegye [Compendium of Korean classical literature], Chang Tŏksun and Ch’oe Chinwŏn (Seoul: Kyomunsa, 1984), 1:391.
61. Song Sanghyŏn, whose fierce although ultimately unsuccessful defense of Tongnae city earned Japanese admiration, for instance, received the posthumous title of Ch’ungnyŏl. Hyojong sillok 10:38a [4/3/4#6].
62. Jenny Sharpe, “The Unspeakable Limits of Rape: Colonial Violence and Counter-Insurgency,” in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 226–35.
63. Peter H. Lee, Anthology of Korean Literature (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1981), 110–11.
64. Mark Edward Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 2–4.
65. Cho Tongil, Han’guk munhak t’ongsa, 3:9–129.
66. Ōtani Morishige, Chosŏn hugi sosŏl tokcha yŏn’gu [A study of readership of novels in late Chosŏn] (Seoul: Koryŏ taehakkyo minjok munhwa yŏn’guso, 1985), 17–74.
67. Martina Deuchler, “Despoilers of the Way-Insulters of the Sages: Controversies over the Classics in Seventeenth-Century Korea,” in Haboush and Deuchler, Culture and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea, 91–133; Ch’oe Yong-Ho, “Private Academies and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea,” in ibid., 15–45.
68. Kim Ilgŭn, Ŏn’gan ŭi yŏn’gu [A study of letters in Korean] (Seoul: Kŏn’guk University Press, 1986), 191–92, 202.
69. For Korea, see Haboush and Deuchler, Culture and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea, 1–13; for China, see Judith Berling, The Syncretic Religion of Lin Chao-en (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980); Donald S. Lopez, ed., Religions of China in Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
70. Rosemary Jackson, Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion (New York: Methuen, 1981), 4.
71. See Robert Buswell, Jr., “Buddhism Under Confucian Domination: The Synthetic Vision of Sŏsan Hyujŏng,” in Haboush and Deuchler, Culture and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea, 134–59; Boudewijn Walraven, “Popular Religion in a Confucianized Society,” in ibid., 160–98.
72. Jean-Paul Sartre, “‘Aminadab’ of the Fantastic Considered as a Language,” Situations 1 (1947): 56–72; Jackson, Fantasy, 86.
73. Yi Changhŭi, Imjin waeransa yŏn’gu, 65–66.
74. Gari Ledyard, “Confucianism and War: The Korean Security Crisis of 1598,” Journal of Korean Studies 6 (1988): 81–119.
75. David McMullen, “Historical and Literary Theory in the Mid-Eighth Century,” in Perspectives on the Tang, ed. Arthur F. Wright and David Twitchett (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), 307–44; Charles A. Peterson, “The Restoration Completed: Emperor Hsien-tsung and the Provinces,” in ibid., 151–92.
76. SS 41:58a–b [26/8/30#2].
77. Sŏnjo left Seoul on the thirtieth day of the fourth month in 1592 and returned on the first of the tenth month in 1593. He stayed in what was called Chŏngnŭngdong haenggung. SS 43:1a [26/10/1#2; #3].
78. The eighteenth-century monarch Yŏngjo’s use of Ming symbols and the eighteenth-century scholar Pak Chiwŏn’s (1737–1805) story Hŏsaeng chŏn [The tale of Master Hŏ] illustrate Korea’s predicament vis-à-vis Qing China. See JaHyun Kim Haboush, The Confucian Kingship in Korea: Yŏngjo and the Politics of Sagacity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 40–45; Lee, Anthology of Korean Literature, 213–21.
79. Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 133–34.
80. Samuel Dukhae Kim, “The Korean Monk-Soldiers in the Imjin Wars: An Analysis of Buddhist Resistance to the Hideyoshi Invasion, 1592–1598” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1978).
81. Buswell, “Buddhism Under Confucian Domination,” 134–59.
82. Pak Chonghwa, Imjin waeran [The Imjin War] (Seoul: Ŭryu munhwasa, 1972), 3:181–84.
83. SSS 28:4a [27/4#2]; SS 55:30b–31a [27/9/22#6]
84. Kim Tonghwa et al., “Hoguk taesŏng samyŏng taesa yŏn’gu” [A study of the great patriotic monk, Samyŏng], Pulgyŏ hakpo [Journal of Buddhism] 8 (1971): 13–205.
85. Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address,” delivered at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery dedication, November 19, 1863.
86. Wolfgang Iser, Walter Pater: The Aesthetic Moment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 83.
87. Renan, “What Is a Nation?,” 19.