This is really neat. I want a piece of history like this for myself but I'm no Indy.

I agree there are a lot of Chinese nationalists who wants to claim that everything touched by Sinosphere of influence and confucianism belongs to modern day China which is obviously bs.

However, this still doesn’t change the fact that Joseon dynasty (at least the ruling caste) was very close to the Ming dynasty as they considered themselves to be part of the chinese culture sphere (again, nothing to do with china today). This connection is much to some korean nationalists’ dismay which leads them to change history and portray the Joseon-Ming relationship as some sort of mutual alliance etc.

Examples include Joseon officials strongly opposing Hangul as “only barbarians invent their own language” .

King Seonjo even suggested he would rather “die in the lands of the emperor rather than die at the hands of japanese bandits”

https://sillok.history.go.kr/id/wna_12506013_007

imo korea and japan preserved more Chinese culture than the entire China combined (especially after the communist takeover).

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Few Koreans deny that there was a hierarchical international order between China and its neighbors in the pre modern time, and kings of Korea (as well as Vietnam and other similar countries) agreed to endorse the symbolic authority of Chinese empires.

They typically are cautious to emphasize that because of its obvious potential of being misused for Chinese expansionist agenda.

Plus I don’t think “revisionism” is a good word here because it has a connotation of a former aggressor/perpetrator of atrocities denying its past. Korea considers itself as a smaller nation that needs to be defended

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If anyone knows a good website that turns multiple page articles into one page we'll link to it here.

Could anyone recommend me books about Korean history 9th century to 18th century?

Also very interested in books discussing the Great Leap Forward in China. Particularly from a non western point of view if possible.

Finally, if anyone could recommend something regarding north and south America's first nations/indigenous cultures would be greatly appreciated!

I’m merely stating facts and it has nothing to do with my nationality. I think people need to remember that China today has nothing to do with Ming Dynasty nor Qing. The rise of nationalism in countries such as Vietnam and Korea has lead to a lot of history denying/revisionism, it’s like French denying to be ever part of the Roman Empire because they are salty and don’t want to be associated with Italians. Chinese today to Ming is like Italians to Romans.

All of the points can be verified in Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, as well as related historic records in Chinese.

Joseon and Vietnam were a bit different. Vietnam has historically been part of the Chinese dynasty through direct rule. Vietnam became initially independent in 938AD, and have defeated Chinese armies at various points later. Due to its location the ruler of Vietnam have always considered themselves to be emperors interiorly, only calling themselves king when communicating with china. Joseon kings have never claimed to be emperor up until the point where they were annexed by Japan. Again, all can be easily verified by looking at the veritable records. Albeit it’s easier for me as most of the records and historic texts in both korea and vietn were written in Chinese characters.

Tldr: I don’t care about reactions from “the international community” as history is fact not bed time stories that can be changed just because someone is unhappy. That is called revisionism.

Nor I am implying Joseon being tributary state /vassal to Ming means Korea today is related to China today. Also, Vassals in sinosphere is completely different to the vassals in medieval history.

I agree that this would upset modern sensibilities. It's not the kind of thing shown in a lot of dramas, stories, and videos about the Admiral.

Doesn't upset me at all, I'm just surprised it took me this long to hear about it.

Nationalism is the enlightened idea that nation-states are preferable to feudal heirarchies and dynastic empires.

Just finished Leningrad by Anna Reid. It was a great book and she has a easy to read writing style. I especially liked the bit at the end where she detailed what happened to all the people she follows during the account of the siege.

Learned a lot from this, thank you!

Could be normal, but the severity of it has left the peninsula crippled throughout its history to modern times.

I hope someone else can check if each bullet point is true (unbiased) or not. Assuming that most of what you said is true,

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>In 1802, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh (who later became Emperor Gia Long) established the Nguyễn dynasty. In the second year of his rule, he asked the Jiaqing Emperor of the Qing dynasty to confer on him the title 'King of Nam Việt / Nanyue' (南越 in Chinese character) after seizing power in Annam. The Emperor refused because the name was related to Zhao Tuo's Nanyue, which included the regions of Guangxi and Guangdong in southern China. The Qing Emperor, therefore, decided to call the area "Việt Nam" instead

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it seems that the pre-modern relationship between Joseon and China you described is not different from the pre-modern relationship between Vietnam and China.

You seem to be a Chinese person. What reaction would you expect when you shout "Vietnam was a Chinese vassal state"?

For someone who has interest in Byeongja war(War between Joseon-Qing), I recommend to watch The Fortress (2017). Not like usual Korean history movies which focus on patriotism, this movie portrays one of the most humiliating Korean history calmly.

Seems like normal amount of "back stabbing". I guess you have not opened many other history books then

It’s probably worth mentioning also, that Joseon was heavily integrated into the Chinese tributary system and considered itself more or less a vassal to the Chinese emperor.

Relevance:

1. The name Joseon was a choice of two names (Joseon and Honin 화령(和寧) )presented by Taejo Yi Seong-gye to the Hongwu emperor of China who chose it (東夷之號, 惟朝鮮之稱美, 且其來遠, 可以本其名而祖之. 體天牧民, 永昌後嗣)

2. The king of Joseon wore clothes similar to the level of Prince in Ming, and the Mianguan the king wears during ceremonies have 9 strands as oppose to 12 strands(emperor). Similarly all of the officials clothing is the same as those of Ming dynasty

3. The Kings of Joseon are not officially king until emissaries from the emperor confirms them to be. This is why Taejo were never officially king but instead “manager of the affairs of Joseon”(朝鲜国权知国事) as the Hongwu Emperor considered him a usurper

4. This is why Wanli emperor decided to help Joseon against the Japanese invasion and why Gwanghaegun was overthrown as he refused to help Ming fight against the Manchus

5. Joseon uses the same era name as Ming emperor and the first two letters of Joseon kings Posthumous name are given by Ming (and Joseon adds a bunch more)

Can’t say we’ve come much further living here…It’s rather cut throat these days as well unfortunately

This may sound like a really stupid question, but what made you decide on medieval European history? Were you always interested in it? Right now I’m in undergrad and I know i want to go to graduate school for in particular. I just don’t have a area I want to specialize in though

While I largely agree with you,

>In the end the stuck up Royals fucked up the country by inviting the Japanese to deal with the Peasant uprising

There's a lot to unpack here too... I wrote a very long piece about this period which I'll post later. Actually the one who was the most anti-Japanese was Queen Myeongseong (commonly called "Empress Myeongseong" but I think that's a bit inflated title), who was the most influential politician in Joseon court back then. Her role and personality in that period is vastly underevaluated by later Korean historians, perhaps because of Confucianism-influenced gender bias.

She was consistently anti-Japan perhaps because she knew that Japan would be the biggest geopolitical threat to Korea. That's why she first allied with Qing China, and as soon as Qing lost the Sino-Japanese war, she immediately moved to ally with Russians. That was the point Japan decided to murder her (unnecessarily violently).

• Both Qing and Japan intervened the peasant uprising, and the queen was pro-Qing and some aristocratic faction was pro-Japan. This was the major cause of the Sino-Japanese war in which Japan defeated China. Right after this the queen tried to ally with Russians, the Japanese murdered her and had the Russian diplomats literally see her mutilated body as a warning. I think the symbolic and political significance (and the level of violence) of this event is not as much discussed as it needs.

King Gojong, who was her supportive husband (and the one who benefited the most from her political shrewdness), had been personally quite friendly with the emerging pro-Japan faction among the aristocracy. However, after having to let his wife violently murdered by the Japanese, he got deeply depressed, and after a few months he suddenly moved his residence into the Russian embassy, and kicked out all the major members of the pro-Japan faction.

So the Korean royalty pretty much resisted Japan's influence. There were quite many pro-Japan aristocrats but they lost influence after the queen's murder. It was when Russia was defeated by Japan (1905) that Korea couldn't resist the Imperial Japan's power anymore. Right after Japan won the Russo-Japanese war, the Japanese army encircled the Korean palace, and Japanese prime minister (or its equivalent - Ito Hirobumi) walked into the Korean palace and made the Joseon court sign a protectorate treaty (Eulsa treaty). King refused to sign it himself, but some of the court high officials did. That was the de facto end of Korea as an independent political entity.

Ancient Korea had so much potential, but internal political jousts and extreme lusts for power was their bane, especially in the Joseon era. Instability was why they couldn't be any greater.

Yeah, it's not unexpected whatsoever. I'd actually be pretty surprised if he managed to enforce discipline without harsh punishments for those kinds of crimes, particularly in the face of an enemy like the Japanese samurai. I think it's not mentioned more to avoid upsetting modern sensibilities, or perhaps it's just so normal for the time period people don't really pay attention to it. It's said that he would personally fulfill some of his soldiers dying wishes so it's not like he only wielded the stick, he also offered the carrot. Actually, I've read parts of his war diaries and he was a pretty sensitive man for the time period, very upright and disciplined but also soft when it came to his family and whatnot. It's no wonder he's remained an icon for Koreans all this time (including me).

Confucianism as practiced in Joseon was a tool of political control and financial enrichment of the nobility (yangban). As with most cultures, religion, for good or bad, has always been used for control and power consolidation.