This dissertation investigates envoy reception rituals between the Later Jin–Qing and Joseon during the reign of Hong Taiji (r. 1626–1643), and uses envoy reception as an analytical prism to illuminate the less visible dynamics of their bilateral ...
This dissertation investigates envoy reception rituals between the Later Jin–Qing and Joseon during the reign of Hong Taiji (r. 1626–1643), and uses envoy reception as an analytical prism to illuminate the less visible dynamics of their bilateral relationship. Diplomatic practice in this period unfolded not only through the circulation of documents but also through sustained human exchange. As the two polities sent missions to one another with increasing frequency, various rites and procedures for receiving envoys were performed at each encounter. These reception rituals functioned both as a public marker of formal interstate relations and as a channel for conveying responses more immediately and visibly than documentary communication alone.
Accordingly, the rituals of envoy reception provide a revealing window into the diplomatic arena of the time and offer crucial evidence for tracing the intentions and strategic choices of both states amid frequent exchanges. Moreover, these rituals provide an analytical vantage point for tracing how precedents from Ming–Joseon relations—so‑called “Ming precedents” (明朝舊例)—were invoked, adapted, and applied within Later Jin–Qing–Joseon diplomacy. This is especially salient as the Qing challenged the existing order and ultimately positioned itself as Joseon’s suzerain.
During the Tiancong era (1627–1636), the Later Jin generally received Joseon envoys according to a four-step sequence: welcoming, audience, the bestowal of gifts, and sending off. This sequence was conducted largely by drawing on earlier precedents. Following the establishment of the Six Boards (六部) in 1631, the Board of Rites (禮部) became increasingly involved in overseeing these procedures. Taken together, these developments indicate that the Later Jin gradually developed and institutionalized the protocols of envoy reception during the Tiancong era.
The Later Jin at times adjusted elements of these otherwise repetitive procedures, particularly when issues arose in connection with the gifts brought by Joseon envoys. In addition, Joseon envoys were occasionally required to attend ritual occasions held within the Later Jin court. Centered on Hong Taiji, these ceremonies were closely tied to displays of military achievement and assertions of sovereign authority. By presenting such power and prestige in a highly visible setting, the Later Jin used ritual occasions as opportunities to project its authority toward Joseon.
During the Chongde era (1636–1643), the Qing court’s reception of Joseon envoys likewise followed a four-step sequence: welcoming and sending off at Dongjingcheng (東京城), an audience with Hong Taiji, banquets hosted by the Board of Rites and banquets held at the envoys’ quarters, and the bestowal of gifts. Compared with the Tiancong era, the Chongde era reception rituals exhibited a stronger tendency toward regularization. Through these ceremonial procedures, the hierarchical order that took shape after the 1637 Manchu invasion of Joseon—under which the Qing became Joseon’s suzerain and the two were redefined in a ruler–subject relationship—was rendered visible.
Even during the Chongde era, the Qing court at times altered overall reception procedures when particular diplomatic issues came to the fore, thereby signaling its stance toward Joseon. Nevertheless, although the Qing was in a position to adjust the level of reception at will, it did not substantially widen the range of such variation, and even when it did so, it favored generous treatment over slighting treatment. During the Chongde era, another key variable shaping the level of reception accorded to Joseon envoys was the presence of Joseon princes, who emerged after the 1637 Manchu invasion as a new channel of diplomacy between the two polities. In fact, both the most visible shifts in the Qing court’s treatment of Joseon envoys and the cases in which Joseon envoys were required to participate in Qing court rituals were tied to these princes. Overall, the basic level of reception for Joseon envoys in the Chongde era remained largely regularized, and unless the presence of Joseon royalty intervened, variation in reception levels tended to narrow rather than expand.
At the same time, the tendency toward regularization evident in these reception procedures reflected the Qing court’s need, as Joseon’s suzerain, to receive Joseon envoys in a manner befitting its new position. In pursuing this end, the Qing secured and mobilized Ming precedents—the ritual and institutional resources that had structured Ming–Joseon relations—and incorporated them into its own practices. In this process, the Qing appropriated Ming precedents through Joseon, drawing on Joseon’s accumulated precedents in the context of Ming–Joseon relations and thereby internalizing ways of dealing with a subordinate state from the standpoint of a suzerain power.
Joseon likewise performed rites of envoy reception for Later Jin–Qing envoys. Conscious of its rivalry with the Ming, the Later Jin invoked Ming precedents in discussions of how Joseon received its envoys and demanded an elevation in the level of treatment accorded to its envoys. Yet the Later Jin did not possess a precise understanding of the established precedents governing Ming–Joseon relations; rather, it referred to their existence mainly as a rhetorical point, with the expectation of securing more favorable treatment. At the same time, both the Later Jin and Joseon sought to gauge the other’s intentions through how they received each other’s envoys, while also using adjustments in reception to signal their own stance. In other words, shifts in the level of envoy reception in this period were shaped by reciprocity.
In 1636, as relations with Joseon deteriorated, the Qing court revived complaints about Joseon’s reception of Qing envoys. After securing suzerain status through the Manchu invasion of Joseon in 1637, the Qing demanded that Joseon receive Qing envoys in accordance with Ming precedents. In response, Joseon sought to adhere to Ming precedents in the overall framework of envoy reception procedures. At the same time, however, in an effort to reduce reception costs, Joseon curtailed or omitted those rites that the Qing did not contest. Joseon also used the presence of an edict-bearing imperial commissioner as a basic criterion shaping the general tenor of reception. In practice, however, reception levels hinged even more on the stature of the individual envoy—particularly on the individual’s involvement in Qing court affairs related to Joseon and status at the Qing court.
Although the Qing demanded that Joseon observe a level of envoy reception grounded in Ming precedents, it lacked precise knowledge of what those precedents entailed in concrete terms. The sources indicate that in 1637, Joseon reviewed records of how it had received Ming envoys and sought to transmit this information to the Qing. Thereafter, Qing envoys dispatched to Joseon either invoked Ming precedents explicitly or made demands concerning reception on the basis of copied transcripts (deungnok, 謄錄) documenting Joseon’s reception of Ming envoys. This dissertation draws particular attention to the fact that the royal protocols (uigwe, 儀軌) recording Joseon’s reception of Ming envoys during the reign of King Gwanghaegun (光海君), as well as a draft Manchu translation of the Gosachwalyo (攷事撮要), are preserved in the Qing Grand Secretariat Archives (Neige Daku, 內閣大庫). On this basis, this dissertation demonstrates that during the Chongde era, the Qing sought to appropriate Ming precedents through Joseon and to adapt them to its emerging suzerain order. Thus, during the Chongde era, the Qing gained access to the ritual-institutional legacy of Ming–Joseon relations through Joseon, and secured the conditions under which it could, to a certain extent, inherit and adapt that legacy.
Burdens and frictions in Joseon’s reception of Later Jin–Qing envoys similarly emerged at the Hoeryeong border market (kaeshi, 開市). The Later Jin dispatched personnel from Shenyang to Hoeryeong to conduct trade at a border market, and the Hoeryeong locality was required to provide these visitors with food and supplies. At times, impostors also claimed to be acting under Hong Taiji’s orders. To ease the burden of provisioning personnel dispatched for the border market, Joseon proposed attaching merchants to the envoy missions that traveled between the two polities and used this proposal as a pretext to seek the abolition of the Hoeryeong border market. The Later Jin, however, rejected the proposal, since it faced “regional demand” in places such as Ningguta that could not be met through such arrangements alone. Joseon then attempted to transform the Hoeryeong border market into free trade among commoners to address the problems generated by these Later Jin market dispatches. Hong Taiji, however, was mindful that such a shift could disrupt the border-market order and instead promoted an arrangement under which local officials on both sides would oversee and administer the market.
The Hoeryeong border market resumed in 1638, prompting Joseon to systematize procedures for receiving Qing personnel dispatched to the market. In a case from 1642 concerning Joseon’s hosting and provisioning of Qing personnel at Hoeryeong, Joseon’s deteriorating economic circumstances sometimes prevented full implementation of these procedures, while Qing personnel sent from Ningguta demanded provisions beyond what Joseon deemed acceptable. The same episode further suggests that Qing personnel falsely claimed to be edict-bearing imperial commissioners to obtain reception commensurate with that status. In addressing the incident, the Qing side avoided publicizing the false claim; instead, it faulted Joseon for deficiencies in reception and requested lenient treatment for those involved, thereby bringing the matter to a close. Although the Qing, as Joseon’s suzerain, advanced various demands at the Hoeryeong border market, the personnel managing market affairs did not consistently operate within a ritualized suzerain framework. As in the Tiancong era, ad hoc dispatches and escalating reception demands persisted into the Chongde era. Qing personnel continued to rely on expedients—most notably, impersonating imperial commissioners, echoing earlier patterns of “fake” emissaries—to secure more favorable treatment from Joseon. However, the Qing’s decision to publicize only selected aspects of the case while requesting lenient treatment for the Joseon personnel involved appears to have been intended both to project suzerain magnanimity toward Joseon and to conceal misconduct that would have been unbecoming of its suzerain dignity.
Ultimately, in Later Jin–Qing relations with Joseon under Hong Taiji, envoy reception was both a channel through which the two polities finely encoded hierarchy and immediate diplomatic contingencies across the entire process of receiving and dispatching envoys, and a venue in which the Qing—gradually constructing a suzerain-centered ritual order—absorbed and reconfigured “Ming precedents” through interaction with Joseon while practicing its position as suzerain.