乾隆年間 朝鮮使行의 銀 분실사건

Abstract

This paper examines several cases of silver robbery, which happened to Korean tribute embassies while they traveled through borderland between Qing and Choson in the Qianlong reign. It first discusses the ways that Koreans searched for their lost silver and arrested local Qing peoples who arguably stole the money. Then it follows the process that the cases took attentions of the Shengjing General, who found the accused persistently denied their crime and finally decided to re-examine the case in order to resolve similar accidents, which were frequently involved with Korean embassies travelling through, and his subjects living in his district. By exploring the Choson court's response to such cases and the final results of the investigation, this paper addresses the hierarchy in the relationship between the Qing and the Choson courts. These silver robbery cases show, however, that the conventional understanding of the Qing-Choson tributary relationship has long focused on the perspectives of the center, while ignoring active and diverse contacts taking place in their borderland. Under such center-focused perspectives, any activities in the borderland have been deemed of either illegal or trivial issues, unless they were directly relevant to the designated rituals. Seen from the border, however, the hierarchical relationship between the two neighbors was reversed. Koreans in Qing borderland were no longer subjects of inferior vassal state; instead, they paid to stay in local houses, hired local Qing people to carry their luggage, and even randomly accused and arrested them for robbery. Such Korean abuses demonstrate that the borderland was the meeting place where people from the two countries contacted and exchanged in various ways, and also where the central rule based on the tributary relationship was not always applied.