Embassy to the Ming Court

In 1539 Gwon Beol, a high dignitary of Joseon, leaves Seoul after the king's farewell banquet. His mission fits in a single sentence and weighs on an entire kingdom: to make the Great Ming Code stop tracing the royal house of Korea back to a certain Yi In-im.

Day after day he records the embassy road. The river festivities of Pyongyang, the wait at Uiju, the crossing of the Yalu, nine days of illness in Liaodong, carts stuck in the snow, a night on foot before Panshan, the closed gates of Guangning. Then Shanhaiguan, the pass between the mountains and the sea, and the temple of Boyi and Shuqi.

In Beijing a different ordeal begins, quieter and more subtle. A disgraced minister of Rites, a court in mourning for the empress dowager, tigers at the Meridian Gate. The interpreter Yi Eung-seong runs from office to office, the clerks demand their gratuities, and the director Xu Lun meets the Korean requests with the Ancestral Injunctions, which no one has the right to amend. There remain allies: three imperial envoys who have known Korea. And a single word changed in a draft will tell the full price of patience.

The sober, precise journal of a scholar-diplomat, this account opens a rare door onto Ming China as seen by its neighbours. How far must one bend to obtain justice?