Journal of a Journey to Beijing

In the autumn of 1669, Min Jeong-jung, a high dignitary of Joseon, takes leave of his king and sets out from Seoul at the head of the winter solstice embassy. His mission: to carry the Korean tribute to Beijing, to the Qing, whom his country serves only reluctantly.

Day after day, he keeps his journal. Farewell cups on the road to Goyang, an ancestor's stele at Pyeongsan, a reunion with his brother in Pyongyang, then seven days at Uiju waiting for the Yalu to freeze. At last they cross it on a bridge laid over the ice, and conquered China begins: nights under the open sky, Manchu guards to be won over at the Fenghuang palisade, the ruined houses of Ming generals, tablets of Confucius that he has cleaned through an entire night at Ningyuan. Beijing greets him in a black fog. There he rehearses the three kneelings and nine prostrations before the New Year audience, under a fifteen-year-old emperor.

But what matters most is said without a word. With the brush, the pen standing in for the tongue, a retired scholar and a Fujian magistrate born the same year as Min confide what no one dares say aloud: the fate of the last Ming, corruption, and Zheng Jing still holding out against the Qing.

What remains of an empire when its loyal subjects speak only in hints?