원대 요동 여원(麗元) 접경에서의 요양행성 역할 고찰

Abstract

Throughout the Goryeo and Joseon period, Liaodung region served as an intermediary between the Korean peninsula and the Chinese mainland. Liao and Chin, Ming and Qing all established a governmental body along the border between Liaodung and the peninsula, and had them face issues and take charge of resolving them. Among all such cases, however, the situation between Goryeo and the Mongol Yuan empire was somewhat different. Goryeo and the empire was closely connected with each other more than ever compared to other time periods due to the marital relationship established between the leaders on both sides, and at the same time the Jeongdong Haengseong Provincial government was tieing bureaucratic systems of both sides closer to each other. So a buffer system, in the form of a governmental entity stationed in Liaodung, was simply not necessary.BR As a result, in this period the role of Liaodung was simply that of a traffic route or channel of communication between the Chinese mainland and the Korean peninsula. Yet sometimes the region witnessed more conflicts than dialogue. The region served as a base of operations for several Chinese factions which were formed to put the Korean peninsula under check. These factions began to surface fairly early on, since the early years of the Mongol empire, but when the Liaoyang Provincial government was established in the region by Emperor Qubilai, they were incorporated into that entity and continued to operate within that boundary.BR There were two types of roles played by the Liaoyang Provincial government (or Liaodung region for that matter) in terms of attempting to restrain Goryeo. One was a rather direct approach, using a strategy of stealing part of the Northern territory of Goryeo, as we can see from the examples of Dong’ nyeong-bu and Ssang’seong Chong’gwan-bu. In the other, either influential figures in the Liaodung region or members of the Imperial government would use factions inside the Liaoyang Provincial government to intervene in sovereign deliberations of the Goryeo government. Hong Jung-hi, who served as a Wuseung(右丞) figure inside the Liaoyang Provincial government, or Gi Cheol, who rose to the status of a Pyeongjang(平章) minister in the same province were both such examples, as they both tried (at different times) to relieve the Goryeo king from the throne through a series of campaigns designed to appeal to the Emperor himself for the erection of a new Provincial government on the Korean peninsula (to replace the existing Jeongdong Provincial government). And in another example, Dowager Empress Gi even tried to replace King Gongmin, by mobilizing troops of the Liaoyang Provincial government and sending them to Goryeo.