초기 고려-명 관계에서 사행로 문제: 요동 경유 사행로의 개통 과정

Abstract

It is widely known that envoys going to Beijing during the Joseon dynasty traveled along the land route via Liaodong: They crossed the Yalu River to reach Liaoyang, and then went through the Shanhai Pass to arrive in the capital of Ming and Qing empires. Then what kind of travel route did the envoys take during the period when the capital of Ming was Nanjing, not Beijing? In the early years of Goryeo-Ming relations, envoys who visited the other country’s capital had no choice but to take the Yellow Sea route crossing the open sea at the risk of shipwreck. In the mid-1370s when the Ming troops were advancing into the Liaodong region, however, Goryeo envoys were granted permission, after many twists and turns, to take the alternative Liaodong-Shandong route, which was far more safer than the Yellow Sea route: They were allowed to cross the Yalu River to reach Liaoyang by land, set sail from the Liaodong peninsula to the Shandong peninsula, and then traveled to Nanjing by land. In this paper, we analyze the relevant sources in great detail to track how and why the change in the travel route of envoys occurred. It was Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang’s ‘speech of denunciation’ that first triggered the twists and turns that, in the end, led to the change in travel routes. In this speech the emperor, suspecting that Goryeo was attempting military espionage activities in the Liaodong region, forbade Goryeo envoys from traveling along the Liaodong-Shandong route, and demanded that Goryeo greatly reduce the frequency and scale of the dispatch of envoys. However, ambiguous and even contradictory words in the emperor’s speech led the Goryeo court to misinterpret his intentions when the speech was actually delivered in the summer of 1373. The Goryeo court mistakenly thought that the emperor demanded envoys be sent to Liaodong by land, not by sea. This misunderstanding led Goryeo envoys to undergo many troubles including a fatal shipwreck as they tried to alternately take the Liaodong-Shandong and the Yellow Sea routes. In June 1374, when Goryeo envoys managed to arrive in Nanjing via the Yellow Sea route in their fourth attempt of travel to the Ming capital, the emperor finally accepted Goryeo’s request and designated the Liaodong-Shandong route as the official travel route for envoys. Goryeo preferred taking the Liaodong-Sandong route as it was far safer than the Yellow Sea route. While permitting Goryeo to use this route, the Ming emperor ensured that Ming could closely control and monitor Goryeo envoys all the way from Liaodong to Nanjing. He could deny their entry into Liaodong whenever deemed necessary. Therefore, the change of travel routes for envoys from the Yellow Sea to the Liaodong-Shandong required that Goryeo envoys be under strict control and surveillance by the Ming authority although it ensured their travel safety and on-time arrival.