Yang Su (diplomat)

Yang Su (梁需, c.1410) was a Korean diplomat and ambassador, representing Joseon interests in a diplomatic mission to the Ashikaga shogunate (Muromachi bafuku) in Japan.[1]

1409-1410 mission to Japan

King Taejong dispatched a diplomatic mission to Japan in 1409-1410.

  • 1409 (Ōei 16, 3rd month): In the 10th year of King Taejong's reign, an ambassador from the Joseon court was received in Kyoto.[2]

This delegation to court of Ashikaga Yoshimochi was led by Yan Yu. The purpose of this diplomatic embassy was to respond to a message sent to the Joseon court by the Japanese shogun.[3] The Joseon envoy conveyed a letter of condolences on the death of the shogun's father; and he also brought gifts, including cotton cloth, tiger skins, leopard skins and ginseng.[4] Yan Yu was empowered to offer to send a copy of a rare Buddhist text to Japan.[2]

The Japanese hosts may have construed this mission as tending to confirm a Japanocentric world order.[5] Yan Yu's actions were more narrowly focused in negotiating protocols for Joseon-Japan diplomatic relations.[3]

Recognition in the West

Yan Yu's historical significance was confirmed when his mission was specifically mentioned in a widely distributed history published by the Oriental Translation Fund in 1834.[2]

In the West, early published accounts of the Joseon kingdom are not extensive, but they are found in Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu (published in Paris in 1832),[6] and in Nihon ōdai ichiran (published in Paris in 1834). Joseon foreign relations and diplomacy are explicitly referenced in the 1834 work.

See also

Notes
  1. 전 해주 목사(海州牧使) 양수(梁需)를 일본(日本)에 보내어 국왕(國王)에게 글을 전하게 하였으니, 보빙(報聘)과 조상(弔喪)을 위함이었다.
  2. Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Anales des empereurs du japon, pp. 325-326.
  3. Kang, Etsuko H. (1997). Diplomacy and Ideology in Japanese-Korean Relations: from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century, p. 275.
  4. Kang, p. 39.
  5. Arano Yasunori (2005). "The Formation of A Japanocentric World Order," The International Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 2, pp. 185-216.
  6. Vos, Ken. "Accidental acquisitions: The nineteenth-century Korean collections in the National Museum of Ethnology, Part 1," p. 6.

References
  • Daehwan, Noh. "The Eclectic Development of Neo-Confucianism and Statecraft from the 18th to the 19th Century," Korea Journal (Winter 2003).
  • Kang, Etsuko Hae-jin. (1997). Diplomacy and Ideology in Japanese-Korean Relations: from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century. Basingstoke, Hampshire; Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-17370-8; OCLC 243874305
  • Titsingh, Isaac, ed. (1834), [Siyun-sai Rin-siyo/Hayashi Gahō, 1652], Nipon o daï itsi ran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.
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