조선의 대(對) 명 · 후금 이중외교와 출병(出兵) 논쟁의 추이

Abstract

This article mainly focuses on the debate held by Chosŏn court, whether to comply with the Ming’s demand of dispatching troops in 1618. In order to withstand the threat posed by the later Jin Khanate, Chosŏn had no choice but to remain in complete alliance with the Ming both for their own strategic need and the duty as a vassal state. But in the realm of real politics, Ming’s demand sparked a heated debate in Chosŏn court. The fundamental reason for the debate was Chosŏn’s Dual Diplomacy that has been implemented for decades towards Ming and Later Jin Khanate respectively. Until now, the debate on dispatching troops during Kwanghaegun’s reign was discussed in a dichotomy of the confusion justice and the practical benefit. It was depicted that Kwanghaegun who was reluctant to dispatch troops, tried to implement the neutral diplomacy, but yielded to the coercion of the justification discourse. This article sees that the debate was triggered not from ‘the Neutral Diplomacy of Kwanghaegun’, but from ‘the Dual Diplomacy of the Chosŏn court’. Here it is argued that the relation between the Chosŏn and the Ming court should be differentiated from that between Chosŏn and Liaodong Yamen, that the Chosŏn negotiated with the Jianzhou Jurchens and the later Jin Khanate consistently for the stability of the borders, and that the debate itself was not to weigh the pros and cons but to discuss how to respond to the Liaodong Yamen’s request of troop dispatch. Simultaneously, since the Ming and the later Jin Khanate, who were the counterparts of the dual diplomacy to the Chosŏn, began the full-scale war against each other, the Chosŏn was left to the agony even though the support for the Ming was strategically required and justifiably inevitable.