1617년 회답부사 朴榟의 『東槎日記』고찰

Abstract

In 1617, Pak Jae was nominated as the vice-envoy of a diplomatic mission tasked with delivering a king’s letter and repatriating the prisoners of war. The nomination of him was three months later than the envoy and the associate envoy. The reason why Gwanghaegun nominated him as the vice-envoy was that he was a maternal relative and had been assuming a hostile position toward the faction led by Jeong In-Hong and Lee Yi-Cheom(大北). He received a secret order to prevail on the delegation to devote silver, an acknowledgement from the shogun, to the construction of a palace. This subject is to be addressed later. Pak Jae’s ‘Dongsa Ilgi (a report on the diplomatic trip to Japan)’ well shows the reason the delegation was delayed in their departure. The first delay was caused by the re-nomination of the vice-envoy, and the second was by political circumstances in Joseon. The Japanese envoy made complaints about repeated delays in the mission’s departure and returned midway through. The king of Joseon ordered the mission on their way to Busan not to resend the diplomatic document to the Tsushima governor for the reason that they were delayed in departure, and he preindicated that a new envoy would come across the sea and guide to Japan. The vice-envoy, Pak Jae, departed from Busan on January 7th, 1617, but got a chest cold after arriving at Tsushima. His condition disorder eventually led to severe malaria when staying in Kyoto. He could not do his work properly and thus made daily records by hearing from others. Besides, then, he composed poems by rhyming with words from poems written by Jeong Mong-Ju his maternal remote ancestor and Kim Seong-Il. In the meantime, he asked a diplomatic monk in the Tsushima Fief about the tracks of Gwon Ju, his maternal great-grandfather who was sent on an embassy to Tsushima in obedience to the order of King Seongjong (the 9th king of the Joseon Dynasty), and conjectured the tracks of Kim Sung-Il in 1590 and Hwang Sin in 1596 after arriving at Sakai, Osaka. ‘Dongsa-Ilgi’ is organized by brief daily records as he was out of health during the diplomatic trip. Instead, it contains lots of poems. Meanwhile, it was not written by Pak Jae but was transcribed by a third party. As the case stands, many errors are found in names, posts, etc., along with the signs of redrafting. Unlike the records of the envoy and the assistant envoy, however, it covers all the course from departure to homecoming. That is like a custom found in reports on diplomatic trips to Japan in 1590, 1607, 1617, 1624 and 1636. Especially in the diplomatic trip in 1617, it is noteworthy that there are records of three envoys, which suggests that they should be compared to each other in addition to inquiry into the various facets of diplomatic trip reports.