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Lelang Commandery

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Lelang Commandery
BERJAYA
Lelang Commandery in the early 4th century
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese樂浪郡
Simplified Chinese乐浪郡
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinLèlàng Jùn
North Korean name
Chosŏn'gŭl락랑군
Hancha樂浪郡
Transcriptions
Revised RomanizationRangnang-gun
McCune–ReischauerRangnang-gun
South Korean name
Hangul낙랑군
Hanja樂浪郡
Transcriptions
Revised RomanizationNangnang-gun
McCune–ReischauerNangnang-gun
Japanese name
Kanji楽浪郡
Hiraganaらくろうぐん
Transcriptions
RomanizationRakurō-gun
BERJAYA
Lelang Commandery (yellow) alongside the other Han commanderies in the region (100 BCE).

The Lelang Commandery was a commandery of the Han dynasty established in Old Chosŏn after defeating the Wiman dynasty in 108 BCE and lasted until Goguryeo conquered it in 313 CE.[1] The Lelang Commandery extended the rule of the Four Commanderies of Han as far south as the Han River in present-day South Korea.[2][3] South Korean scholars have described its administrative areas as being limited to the Pyongan and Hwanghae regions, whose southern bounds lie roughly 75 miles north of the Han River.[4]

History

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Han dynasty

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BERJAYA
A scene of historic paragons of filial piety, Chinese painted artwork on a lacquered basketwork box, excavated from an Eastern-Han tomb in Lelang Commandery.

In 108 BCE, Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty conquered the area under King Ugŏ, a grandson of King Wiman. The Emperor set up Lelang, Lintun, Xuantu and Zhenfan, known as the Four Commanderies of Han in the northern Korean peninsula and Liaodong peninsula. The Book of Han records Lelang belonged to Youzhou, located in northwestern Old Chosŏn consisted of 25 prefectures, 62,812 houses, and the population was 406,748.[5][6] Its capital, then the prefecture of Joseon (朝鮮縣, 조선현), was located at modern Pyongyang. (Rakrang 樂浪/락랑, a district in central P'yŏngyang today, is named after Lelang.)[7]

After Emperor Wu's death, Zhenfan and Lintun were abolished and Xuantu was moved to Liaodong. Some prefectures of the abolished commanderies were incorporated into Lelang. Lelang after the consolidation is sometimes called "Greater Lelang Commandery". Since Lelang became too large, the Defender of the Southern Section (南部都尉) was set up to rule the seven prefectures which formerly belonged to Zhenfan. Before that, the Defender of the Eastern Section (東部都尉) was set up to rule former Lintun's seven prefectures.[citation needed]

While the Han dynasty was taken over by Wang Mang, Wang Tiao (王調) started a rebellion and tried to secede from China. In 30 CE, the rebellion was stopped by Wang Zun (王遵), whom Emperor Guangwu appointed as governor. The Han dynasty reasserted its authority over Lelang in the late 1st and 2nd centuries.[6] However, the shortage of human resources caused by the turmoil resulted in the abolishment of the seven eastern prefectures. The administration was left to the Eastern Ye natives, whose chiefs were conferred as marquises.

At the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, Gongsun Du, appointed as the Governor of Liaodong in 184, extended his semi-independent domain to the Lelang and Xuantu commanderies. His son Gongsun Kang separated the southern half from the Lelang Commandery and established the Daifang Commandery sometime between 204 and 220.[6] As a result, the Lelang Commandery reverted to its original size.

Cao Wei

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In 236, under the order of Emperor Ming of Cao Wei, Sima Yi overthrew the Gongsun family and annexed Liaodong, Lelang and Daifang to Wei. Sima Yi did not encourage frontier settlers to continue their livelihoods in the Chinese northeast and instead ordered households who wished to return to coastal and central China to do so, evacuating the region of Chinese settlers. The Book of Jin records the number of households in the Korean commanderies of Lelang and Daifang as 8,600 households, less than a sixth of the figures given in the Book of the Later Han for Lelang (which included Daifang). Liaodong would be out of Chinese hands for centuries due to the lack of Chinese presence there as a result of the policies the Wei court adopted for the commanderies after the fall of the Gongsun family.[8]

Jin dynasty

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As the only remaining territory in Korea, Lelang was then inherited by the Jin dynasty. However, due to constant civil wars within China and the geographical isolation of the commandery, Jin was unable to control its holdings within the northern section of the Korean peninsula at the beginning of the 4th century and was no longer able to dispatch officials to the frontier commanderies, which were maintained by the dwindling local population of remaining Han Chinese residents. The Zizhi Tongjian states that Zhang Tong (張統) of Liaodong, Wang Zun (王遵) of Lelang and over one thousand households decided to break away from Jin and submit to the Xianbei warlord of Former Yan Murong Hui. Murong Hui relocated the remnants of the commandery to the west within Liaodong.[9][10]

Goguryeo

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In 313, the territory of Lelang was annexed by Goguryeo under King Micheon, ending China's rule over the northern part of the Korean peninsula after the fall of Old Chosŏn. With the collapse of the commanderies after four centuries of Chinese rule, Goguryeo and the native Korean polities in the south that became Paekche, Kaya, and Silla began to grow and develop rapidly, heavily influenced by the cultural impact left by the Four Commanderies of Han.[11][10]

Goguryeo absorbed much of what was left of Lelang through its infrastructure, economy, local inhabitants, and advanced culture. Unable to govern the region directly and form a new political center immediately, Goguryeo began to consolidate authority by replacing previous government administrators with its own appointed officials, many of whom were refugees and exiles from China, the most famous being Dong Shou (冬壽) who was entombed at Anak Tomb No. 3, overtly retaining the previous administrative system of Lelang. In 334 Goguryeo established the fortress and city of Pyongyang-song within the center of the former commandery.[12]

The nature of Dong Shou's relationship to Goguryeo is disputed. According to one side, Dong Shou was an émigré official subservient to Goguryeo. However this is disputed by Minku Kim, who notes that the textual evidence of Goguryeo's conquest of Daifang Commandery, which was listed as one of Dong Shou's territories, rests on a single line that King Micheon attacked it in 314. Later events during Dong Shou's life point to a weakening of Goguryeo's control. Micheon's tomb was ransacked by Murong Huang's invasion of Goguryeo and his corpse was taken back to Former Yan as ransom. In 355, Former Yan enfeoffed the Goguryeo king as a duke of Lelang, which is the same tier of title attributed to Dong Shou in his epitaph. Furthermore, the epitaph uses the defunct Eastern Jin dynasty's regnal date (Yonghe) rather than Goguryeo's. Accordingly, Kim argues that Dong Shou ruled the region autonomously independently of Goguryeo.[13]

Towards the end of the 4th century, in order to focus on the growing threat of Paekche and having checked the power of Former Yan in Liaodong, Goguryeo began to actively strengthen and govern the city. In 427 Goguryeo moved its capital to Pyongyang from its former capital of Gungnae as the new political center of the kingdom in order to administer its territories more effectively.[12]

Wang clan

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The Wang clan was particularly prominent in Lelang.[14] According to the Book of Later Han, Book of Wei, and Book of Zhou, Wang Jing hailed from Danhan county near Lelang. He was descended from the family of Wang Zhong, who were originally from Shandong. They fled to Pyongyang around 180 BCE due to political turmoil. Wang Jing's father was given an official position during the Wang Mang Interregnum and Wang Jing became member of the Lelang elite due to cooperating with Han bureaucrats.[15]

In 25 CE, Wang Tiao, a Chinese born in Lelang, seized power in Lelang and killed the governor. Han government trooops restored direct control over Lelang in 30 CE. After Wang Tiao, another clan named Han seems to have become just as prominent as the Wang as mentions of them increased, but this may have been due to a shift in power south to Daifang Commandery. The Wang clan remained influential for some time until its final fall with the incorporation of Daifang Commandery into Goguryeo in the fourth and fifth centuries CE.[16]

Inscriptions on lacquer and gold objects bearing the name "Wang" are among the earliest instances of Hanja found in Korea. The Book of Later Han mentions a certain "Wang" whose forefathers hailed from Lelang in the records of Emperor Guangwu of Han (r. 25-57). Wang Cun was the taishou of Lelang during the reign of Guangwu. The name "Wang" has been found on numerous pieces of lacquerware, seals, and bricks from the wealthiest graves in Lelang.[17] The tombs of Wang Xu and Wang Guang are among the Lelang tombs that have survived intact and free from the hands of looters.[18] The grave of a certain "Wang Qing" is also mentioned on brick inscriptions. He was buried in Hwanghae and was chief of Changcen county at the site of Ponghwang-ni.[19] Seven brick inscriptions bearing the name "Wang" have been found dating from the third century CE to early 5th century CE.[20]

Within five multi-chambered Lelang graves, there were 14 seals, 9 of which belonged to the Wang family. The five other seals each represented a different name - Han, Jing, Huang, Meng, and Gao - but only the names of Wang and Gao are identified as holding bureaucratic positions between the first century BCE and second century CE.[21]

Historical revisionism

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In the North Korean academic community and some parts of the South Korean academic community, the Han dynasty's rule in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula has been denied. Proponents of this revisionist theory claim that the Lelang Commandery actually existed outside of the Korean Peninsula, and place them somewhere on the Liaodong Peninsula instead.[22]

The characterization of Japanese historical and archaeological findings in Korea as imperialist forgeries owes in part to those scholars' discovery of the Lelang Commandery—by which the Han dynasty administered territory near Pyongyang—and insistence that this Chinese commandery had a major impact on the development of Korean culture.[23] Until the North Korean challenge, it was universally accepted that Lelang was a commandery established by Emperor Wu of Han after he defeated Old Chosŏn in 108 BCE.[24] To deal with the Han dynasty tombs, North Korean scholars have reinterpreted them as the remains of Old Chosŏn or Goguryeo.[23] For those artifacts that bear undeniable similarities to those found in Han China, they propose that they were introduced through trade and international contact, or were forgeries, and "should not by any means be construed as a basis to deny the Korean characteristics of the artifacts".[25] The North Koreans also say that there were two Lelangs, and that the Han actually administered a Lelang on the Liao River on the Liaodong Peninsula, while Pyongyang was an "independent Korean state" of Lelang, which existed between the 2nd century BCE until the 3rd century CE.[24][26] The traditional view of Lelang, according to them, was expanded by Chinese chauvinists and Japanese imperialists.[24]

These hypotheses are considered authoritative in the North Korean academic community, which is supported by some historians in South Korea, but this theory is not recognized at all in the academic circles of the United States, China and Japan.[note 1] The majority of Korean scholars from the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties considered the location of Lelang county somewhere around today's Pyongyang area based on the Korean history record Samguk sagi which referred to the Chinese records on the Han commandries. However, Pak Chiwŏn, a Silhak scholar who visited Qing dynasty in 1780, claimed that the location of commanderies were in Liaodong area in his The Jehol Diary.[27][better source needed] Ri Ji Rin (Lee Ji Rin), a North Korean historian who obtained his Ph.D. in history from Peking University in China, suggests in Research on Ancient Korea that based on the initial records of Chinese texts and archaeological findings in Liaodong area, the Han commanderies were located in Liaodong Peninsula.[28] South Korean historian Yoon, Nae-Hyun also suggests that the Han commanderies were not in Korean peninsula, claiming that there is no archaeological evidence.[29]

Maps

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See also

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Notes

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  1. ↑
    • United States Congress (2016). North Korea: A Country Study. Nova Science Publishers. p. 6. ISBN 978-1590334430.
    "Han Chinese built four commanderies, or local military units, to rule the peninsula as far south as the Han River, with a core area at Lolang (Nangnang in Korean), near present-day P'yongyang. It is illustrative of the relentlessly different historiography practiced in North Korea and South Korea, as well as both countries' dubious projection backward of Korean nationalism, that North Korean historians denied that the Lolang district was centered in Korea and placed it northwest of the peninsula, possibly near Beijing."
    • Connor, Edgar V. (2003). Korea: Current Issues and Historical Background. Nova Science Publishers. p. 112. ISBN 978-1590334430.
    "They place it northwest of the peninsula, possibly near Beijing, in order to de- emphasize China's influence on ancient Korean history."
    "Immediately after destroying Wiman Chosŏn, the Han empire established administrative units to rule large territories in the northern Korean peninsula and southern Manchuria."
    "When material evidence from the Han commandery site excavated during the colonial period began to be reinterpreted by Korean nationalist historians as the first full-fledged "foreign" occupation in Korean history, Lelang's location in the heart of the Korean peninsula became particularly irksome because the finds seemed to verify Japanese colonial theories concerning the dependency of Korean civilization on China."
    "At present, the site of Lelang and surrounding ancient Han Chinese remains are situated in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. Although North Korean scholars have continued to excavate Han dynasty tombs in the postwar period, they have interpreted them as manifestations of the Kochoson or the Koguryo kingdom."
    "But when Emperor Wu conquered Choson, all the small barbarian tribes in the northeastern region were incorporated into the established Han commanderies because of the overwhelming military might of Han China."

References

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  1. ↑ Historical Atlas of the Classical World, 500 BC--AD 600. Barnes & Noble Books. 2000. p. 2.25. ISBN 978-0-7607-1973-2.
  2. ↑ Carter J. Eckert, el., "Korea, Old and New: History", 1990, pp. 13
  3. ↑ "Early Korea". Archived from the original on 2015-06-25. Retrieved 2015-06-15.
  4. ↑ Yi Pyong-do, 《The studies of the Korean history》 Part 2, Researches of problems of the Han commanderies, PYbook, 1976, 148 p
  5. ↑ 前漢書卷二十八地理志第八 "樂浪郡，武帝元封三年開。莽曰樂鮮。屬幽州。戶六萬二千八百一十二，口四十萬六千七百四十八。有雲鄣。縣二十五：朝鮮，讑邯，浿水，水西至增地入海。" Wikisource: the Book of Han, volume 28-2
  6. 1 2 3 Barnes 2001, p. 40.
  7. ↑ ROBERT WILLOUGHBY (2008). BRADT TRAVEL GUIDE NORTH KOREA, THE. Bradt Travel Guides. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-84162-219-4. Retrieved 2011-01-09.
  8. ↑ Gardiner, K.H.J. "The Kung-sun Warlords of Liao-tung (189–238)". Papers on Far Eastern History 5 (Canberra, March 1972), p. 173
  9. ↑ Kwon, O-Jung. "The History of Lelang Commandery". The Han Commanderies in Early Korean History (Cambridge: Harvard University, 2013), p.96-98
  10. 1 2 Barnes 2001, p. 46.
  11. ↑ Kwon, O-Jung. "The History of Lelang Commandery". The Han Commanderies in Early Korean History (Cambridge: Harvard University, 2013), p.96-98
  12. 1 2 Yeo, Hokyu. "The Fall of the Lelang and Daifang Commanderies". The Han Commanderies in Early Korean History (Cambridge: Harvard University, 2013), p. 191-216
  13. ↑ Kim 2020, p. 38-39.
  14. ↑ Pai 2000, p. 132, 196.
  15. ↑ Pai 2000, p. 195-196.
  16. ↑ Pai 2000, p. 196.
  17. ↑ Pai 2000, p. 132, 192.
  18. ↑ Pai 2000, p. 170-171.
  19. ↑ Pai 2000, p. 178, 195.
  20. ↑ Pai 2000, p. 195.
  21. ↑ Pai 2000, p. 194.
  22. ↑
  23. 1 2 Pai 2000, p. 127-129.
  24. 1 2 3 Ch'oe, Yŏng-ho (1980), "An Outline History of Korean Historiography", Korean Studies, 4: 23–25, doi:10.1353/ks.1980.0003, S2CID 162859304
  25. ↑ Ch'oe, Yŏng-ho (1980), "An Outline History of Korean Historiography", Korean Studies, 4: 509, doi:10.1353/ks.1980.0003, S2CID 162859304
  26. ↑ Armstrong, Charles K. (1995), "Centering the Periphery: Manchurian Exile(s) and the North Korean State" (PDF), Korean Studies, 19: 11–12, doi:10.1353/ks.1995.0017, S2CID 154659765
  27. ↑ 熱河日記 卷一 渡江錄 [The Jehol Diary Chapter 1. Dogangnok - 高氏境土之在遼東者。唐雖得之。不能有而復歸之高氏。則平壤本在遼東。或爲寄名與浿水。時有前郤耳。漢樂浪郡治在遼東者。非今平壤]. Wiki E-text.
  28. ↑ "CHINA'S IMPACT ON KOREAN PENINSULA UNIFICATION AND QUESTIONS FOR THE SENATE". U S Government Information.
  29. ↑ True Understanding of Old Choson." Korea Journal 27:12 (December 1987): 23-40

Bibliography

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  • Barnes, Gina L. (2001), State Formation in Korea: Historical and Archaeological Perspectives, Routledge
  • Kim, Minku (2020), Early Paintings of Korea, Wiley Blackwell
  • Pai, Hyung Il (2000), Constructing "Korean" Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State-Formation Theories\publisher=Harvard University Asia Center
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