13～14세기 고려와 원제국의 ‘탐라(제주) 정책’

Abstract

Ever since the beginning of the 11th century, Goryeo continued to reinforce its control over Tamra(today’s Jeju-do island). It befriended Tamra aborigines and elevated Tamra’s own status while sending more powerful prefects to the island and increasing economic trades with the people of Tamra. As a result of such increased interactions, in the 13th century Tamra finally became one of the Goryeo Mok units, highly influential local centers of the Goryeo dynasty, and an integral part of the Goryeo society in general. But that time also witnessed the Mongol troops’ invasion of the Korean peninsula. At first, Tamra seems to have been spared from the war. But after a truce was established between Goryeo and the Mongols in 1259, the plight of the Tamra people began. The renegade Sambyeolcho forces, guards of the Military rulers, briefly took control of the region, severely disrupting the people’s original way of life(till 1273), and then the Mongol empire absorbed the Tamra region, by placing Darugachi monitors on the ground the same year. At first the empire used it as a forward base for its Japanese campaign(in 1274 and 1280), then decided to utilize the region as a trade base, as we can see from the imperial government’s efforts to connect the island with several regions on the Goryeo mainland, while not only extracting materials that were being circulated in the Tamra realm, but also eliminating elements that might disturb such imperial policy from the Tamra region. In response, the Goryeo government, which at least in the beginning phase of the Mongol intervention had no other means to stop such policy, only tried to prevent further outflow of resources and workforce from Tamra. Then suddenly, the Yuan imperial government decided to return the Tamra region to Goryeo in 1294, because Tam’ra’s value as a transport base was somewhat diminishing while rice transports between the Chinese Jiangnan and Laioyang regions were decreasing as well. Rather pleased at this turn of events, the Goryeo government, trying to make such arrangement permanent while appeasing its imperial counterpart, began to actively submit Tamra-produced materials to the Yuan court to satiate its needs. This actually turned out to be a fatal mistake, as the Mongol dignitaries who came to newly learn the value of Tamra products started to exact more administrative methods to extract Tamra materials in the longer run. Yuan established a Chong’gwan-bu office on Goryeo, but at Goryeo’s strong objection, it instead placed a Manho-bu unit in 1301. Coming into the 14th century, the Goryeo government resumed its policy over Tamra, in ways that were very much different from earlier times. King Chungseon-wang(1298, 1308-1313), consulting methods earlier employed by the Mongol authorities, concentrated upon strengthening ties between the Tamra island and specific regions in the Southern coastline of the Korean peninsula (by newly designating three regions in the vicinity of Naju [which was one of the original 8 Mok units at the time] as ‘New Mok’ units, and also reactivating the Seungnaju-do traffic route), and increasing protection of economic entities operating in the Tamra area, no matter they were either Goryeo or Mongol in origin (as we can see from Chungseon-wang’s intervention in an incident in which Mongol hunter households in Tamra were stripped and harassed by Goryeo Tamra prefects). Then in the mid-14th century, when King Gongmin-wang was in throne, reflecting his own aspiration to increase the Goryeo government’s voice in Tamra-related issues and matters, he first dispatched Sunmun-sa figures to eliminate the Gi family members in Tamra, and then used his own vassals and Tamra prefects to gain control of the Horse ranches and horse-breeding installations in Tamra, from the Mongol households who remained loyal to the already significantly weakened Yuan empire.