Organizer: David Robinson, Colgate University
Chair: Martin Collcutt, Princeton University
Discussant: William S. Atwell, Hobart and William and Smith Colleges
While historians routinely examine Europe as a regional unit and World History demands that we consider the entire Eurasian continent as a system, with a few notable exceptions, these approaches have not been applied to pre-modern East Asia. In the belief that viewing East Asia as a whole is critical for making sense of developments in any individual country, this panel will approach a systematic understanding of the region via the connections of war, diplomacy, and trade in firearms technology.
David Robinson will open the discussion by examining the repercussions on East Asia of a very large 16th century rebellion in North China, pointing out how regional responses reveal lines of communications and interests heretofore overlooked. Kenneth Robinson will shift our attention to a sub-regional diplomatic system designed to govern Japanese access to Choson Korea and challenge the stereotypical view of Choson as a slavish imitator of the Chinese tributary model. Keith Knutti draws our attention to one example of technology transfer in East Asia: firearms technology. Knutti will explore the ways in which firearms technology was spread in East Asia and analyze its effects on Japanese society in the 16th century. James Lewis will close the period with a discussion of the most pivotal regional event of those two centuries, Hideyoshi's invasion of Korea, its immediate regional repercussions, and memories of the invasions as a historical problem in Korea and Japan from the 17th century into the present. William Atwell, who has long worked on connections between China and Japan, will serve as discussant.
The 1510 Rebellion and East Asia
David Robinson, Colgate University
This paper will explore links among Ming China, Choson Korea, and Muromachi Japan in the early 16th century through an examination of the 1510 Rebellion and its repercussions in East Asia. The 1510 Rebellion began just south of Beijing and grew to include over 130,000 members, directly affecting seven of China's 13 provinces and requiring two years to crush. Rebel attacks seriously disrupted normal military, economic, political, and agricultural patterns in the Ming.
At the Korean court, alarmed officials considered the imminent fall of neighboring Shandong Province, possible diplomatic relations with the Chinese rebels, and the specter of a rebel invasion of Korea. A Japanese diplomatic mission was denied permission to travel from the southeastern coast of China to the capital in Beijing for fear that they would be taken hostage or killed. The Zen monk who headed the expedition instead sojourned on the coast, becoming an abbot at a Chinese temple and hobnobbing with such Ming luminaries as Wang Yangming. Intriguingly, the period 1510-1512 also coincided with an outbreak of "Japanese piracy" on Korea's shores and a major disturbance by the Japanese community at the Japan House in Pusan.
This paper makes three general points: (1) individual major events in China could have a direct and observable impact on Korea and Japan; (2) both Korea and Japan enjoyed relatively prompt and accurate intelligence about developments in China; and (3) neither Korea nor Japan was rigidly bound to "tributary relations" or notions of serving the Great Ming.
Japanese Imposter Sovereign Envoys to Choson: The Late Fifteenth Century
Kenneth R. Robinson, University of Hawaii
Royal envoys from Ryukyu, envoys of Japanese provincial governors and traders, and Japanese shogunal envoys began visiting Choson Korea in the late 1300s and early 1400s. In the late fifteenth century, Japanese impostor sovereign envoys began seeking to trade with the Choson government. They donned a variety of disguises, modeling themselves after envoys with whom the Choson court had been trading for decades. Some represented the "King of Ryukyu," others the rulers of countries unknown to Korean officials. Choson court officials met (impostor) Ryukyu envoys as they had earlier royal envoys until they began to recognize mistakes in the envoys' documentation. These less fortunate envoys were received at a reduced level of reception, one reserved for foreign government elites. As for the envoys of the rulers of the unknown countries, they failed to convince Korean officials of the existence of those countries. But, rather than turn away these visitors, Choson court officials received them at the same, reduced status as the unmasked impostor Ryukyu royal envoys. Reception of these impostor envoys displays elements of the Choson Korea world order. Formed in part to promote trading over raiding, this hierarchical world order functioned simultaneously with the Ming Chinese tributary system. Choson court officials ranked the Chinese emperor as superior, the rulers of the tributary states of Japan and Ryukyu as equals to the Choson king, and Japanese and Ryukyuan government officials and traders as of lower status. The tributary system informed the structure of the Choson court's reception system, but tributary status did not confine Choson court officials to a set portfolio of foreign policies. Stated differently, Korean officials did not defer to the Chinese in their conduct of relations with Japanese and Ryukyuans.
Technology Transfer in Sixteenth-Century East Asia: Firearms and Their
Consequences
Keith P. Knutti, Lewis and Clark College
Historians frequently cite the Portuguese introduction of firearms to Japan in the mid-16th century as one of the primary causes of that country's eventual reunification and move toward "early modernity." This view ascribes great influence to a particular Western technology, much as earlier scholars highlighted the role of Western religion in what they labeled "Japan's Christian century." It also reinforces a tendency to view Tokugawa Japan as singular rather than a part of northeast Asia. There are some aspects of this story that we should reexamine.
Recently, Japanese scholars have begun to look to southeast Asia and the continent as potential sources for Japan's first firearms. Their scholarship should encourage us to question the overall influence of firearms on Japan's political and social history. I will examine the origin and diffusion of firearms technology and connections with developments on the continent, the technology's "fit" and its limitations, and the impact of firearms on 16th century Japan's domestic and international history.
Hideyoshi's Korean campaigns provide an arena for testing the significance of Western firearms in Japan in an international context. Did Japanese troops use large numbers of guns? How effective were they? How did the Koreans and Chinese respond? I believe that we will discover that, however ubiquitous firearms may have been in Japan by the end of the 16th century, their overall domestic impact has been overstated in a number of ways, and the advantage they gave Japanese troops in Korea was offset by non-Western technology the Koreans themselves used.
Hideyoshi's Invasion of Choson: Connections and Memories
James Bryant Lewis, Oxford University
This paper describes Hideyoshi's invasion in regional terms-geopolitical, military, and diplomatic-continuing the discussion of connections and then goes on to discuss the memories of the invasion in Korea and Japan. By categorizing and annotating the document bases for the respective national memories from 1592 to the present, we can discuss the content of these memories and examine the construction of national memories.
Korean documents fall into six categories: authentic records, commentary, poetry, personal war stories, novels, and the modern memory. Learned commentary abounds in private and public documents. We have Chinese and native poetry which took the invasion as a theme. War stories addressed the question of why the invasion occurred and presented examples of heroic resistance. Novels inspired by the invasion propelled that medium towards realism. The modern memory has linked the invasion to Japanese imperialism. Finally, we outline the treatment of the invasion in current high school textbooks.
Japanese documents fall into war tales, histories and commentaries, geopolitical writings, and the modern memory. Abundant war tales recounted the heroic exploits of warriors. Certain serious writings by Tokugawa intellectuals ignored the invasion, while others addressed the international and local significance of the invasion. Geopolitical thinkers in the 18th and 19th centuries prepared the way for the modern memory and its positive reassessment of the invasion. Current high school texts are offered for comparison with their Korean counterparts.