明代 浙江지역의 海防體制와 조선 官人 崔溥의 漂着

Abstract

The founder of the Ming Dynasty, Hongwu Emperor, conducted the maritime proscription policy to prevent his people from sailing in the ocean without governmental permission. Fortresses and defensive posts were built along the coast line from Shandong to Guangdong Provinces to complete the defensive system against the waegu pirates. At the end of 14thcentury, sixty to seventy percent of the whole waegu pirates attack was focused upon Chinese coastal area. It was right before so called ‘the latter waegu attack’ had begun when an official from Joseon named Choi Bu arrived in Taizhou County of Zhejiang Province after drifting across the sea for two weeks. During the two weeks, Choi Bu and his company encountered bandits twice and they were put under threat of death. They finally extricated themselves from the difficult situation. But since the county people mistook them for the waegu pirates, they were sent to the local military post for an interrogation. When the Chinese military officers belatedly found out that a group of unidentified people were drifted ashore, they took them for pirates. However, after an inquest, it was revealed that Choi Bu’s company was not waegu and they were actually from Joseon. But there is something significant in Choi Bu’s interrogation report. The officers who questioned him at first tried to find a way to omit the fact that Choi’s company encountered bandits. This suggests that those bandits could have been a unit of coastal guard and there was a critical problem on their maritime defense system. They did not notice that an unidentified ship was drifted ashore without being captured by their patrol boats until the county people reported. So it is possible to assume that those officers tried to fabricate the report to conceal the fatal defects of the defense system.