Chosŏn Loyalists to Ming China and Their Legacy in Qing China and Chosŏn Korea

In 1636, the Manchus, led by Hong Taiji, proclaimed the establishment of the Great Qing dynasty (1636-1912) in Manchuria and challenged the imperial hegemony of the Great Ming state (1368-1644) in China Proper. Chosŏn Korea (1392-1897), a Ming tributary state as well as a Manchu ally, was caught in this imperial competition. After refusing to abandon Ming and breaking off relations with Qing, Chosŏn was forced to become the first Qing tributary state in 1637 after a brief and devastating invasion by Qing. One requirement for the ceasefire was the surrender of a few pro-Ming officials deemed responsible for breaking off the alliance, who were eventually executed in the Qing capital. While this is an extreme case, there are many other instances in which Chosŏn subjects remained loyal to Ming China in diverse ways.

In this paper, I will look at how this phenomenon of loyalty across state boundaries was, in turn, remembered in Qing China and Chosŏn Korea in the following century and half. I will argue that loyalty to Ming could be commemorated in Qing only after Qing had transformed itself from a competitor to a successor of Ming imperial hegemony. To do this, I will show how Ming loyalism was celebrated in Korea but shunned in China as a dynastic loyalty in conflict with the current Qing regime during the rest of the seventeenth century. I will also show how that changed in the eighteenth century, when Ming loyalism gradually came to be understood as an ideal that crossed state and dynastic boundaries.