18세기의 연행과 정조(正祖)

Abstract

Examined in this article, is a very special phenomenon that we now call as “Yeon’haeng(燕行),” which referred to all the travels and journeys made by the Joseon people to “Yeon’gyeong(燕京),” the capital city of the Manchurian Qing dynasty. Traveling to this foreign capital was a rather hot trend of the time for the Korean people, and such journeys constituted a vital part of the Korean-Chinese relationship of the time. So, analyzed here is the current level of understanding (or misunderstanding for that matter) of this particular aspect of the Joseon society. There have been a lot of misconceptions of this phenomenon, and among such misconceptions there have been some misunderstanding of the nature of those journeys as well, which were caused by the people’s literal interpretation of the texts(travel journals), or the people’s inability to perceive the nature of the Qing dynasty and the past peoples’ perception of the world, in more adequate terms. Many scholars have been studying all the travel journals which documented the journeys to the Yeon’gyeong capital. Those travel journals were (and are now) usually called as “Yeon’haeng-rok(燕行錄).” But scholars did not clarify the “weak spots” of these travel journals as a source of information, and failed to determine whether or not they were suitable material for historical examination. They only tended to make comments upon some of the aspects that continued to change all the time, and they also had a tendency to try bringing too much meaning out of it. Also, the changes that were made to the policy of King Jeongjo were never sufficiently examined, even with the fact that King Jeongjo himself had opportunities to travel to Yeon’gyeong as well. People were only ‘thrilled’ by some factual details that suggested themselves in various records. Considering all this, we can say for sure that studies of these “Yeon’haeng” travels should expand in the future. They should tackle with more diverse themes, from a more comprehensive viewpoint. One of the themes which previous studies did not care to examine enough, was how the Joseon Kings perceived the people’s such travels to the capital of the Qing dynasty. 18th century was a time which witnessed the most noticeable changes in the people’s Yeon’gyeong trips, and in the latter half of that century King Jeongjo too displayed a very sensitive attitude toward his subjects’ such journeys. He happened to feel a great interest in this phenomenon, and sometimes he made good use of all the information secured from such coming and going of the people, in his governing of the Joseon society. We can see that all the knowledge gained from people’s travels to the Chinese capital did not merely add some trivial things to the individuals’ understanding of the situation, but also contributed to the overall governing of the country as such information was all channeled into dynastic sources. King Jeongjo once had Kim Hong-do(金弘道) and Yi Myeong-gi(李命祺), who were the most acclaimed artists of the time, accompany the envoy he dispatched to Qing, in an effort to secure information as well as inspiration for several of his critical policies, which included the construction of the Hwa’seong(華城) city, the establishment of the rank-indicating stone plates(“Pum’gye-seok, 品階石”) at the Changdeok-gung palace, and the reinforcement of his own image as a “Master King”(“Gun’sa, 君師”). In other words, the Yeon’haeng journeys in the 18th century turned out to be a very special asset for King Jeongjo, as he wanted to renovate the Joseon society.