Contested Agricultural Resources and Knowledge Circulation in Northeastern Asia from the 14th to 17th Centuries: Farming Cattle in the Chinese–Korean–Jurchen Borderlands

This essay examines the circulation of cattle-related knowledge as a critical agricultural tool among the Ming Chinese, Chosŏn Korean, and Jurchen-Qing peoples and states from the 14th to the 17th centuries. By exploring various information related to cattle farming, including geographical knowledge of ranching, prices and taxation in official trade and borderland markets, and agricultural technology, it argues that the sources of information, along with the motivations and processes of knowledge production and circulation, reflect the accelerated transformation of the agrarian landscape in the Chinese-Korean-Jurchen borderlands, accompanied by tensions surrounding agricultural resource acquisition and maintenance. The 14th-15th century Ming court’s geographical knowledge of ranching was derived from the Mongol legacy of ranching on Jeju Island, and the imperial knowledge coincided with the Ming’s emerging demand for a self-sufficient provisioning supply for the military-agrarian society; however, this outdated knowledge troubled the Chosŏn court, which sought to prevent the domestic cattle supply from being exported. The borderland market taxation records from the Ming borderland officials and the inventories of Jurchen plunder reflect the contested demand for oxen in both the Ming territory and the emerging Jurchen agrarian society, coinciding with the expansion of Jurchen military power, which ultimately became the dominant force in Northeast Asia by the mid-17th century. Witnessing the tremendous turmoil from the late 16th century to the mid-17th century, travelogues by Korean envoys to the Qing Empire and proposals for social reform by Korean literati shed light on agricultural technology and the use of farming cattle across the border while reflecting on the consequences of the involuntary export of oxen.