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Joseon Tongsinsa refers to diplomatic missions the king of the Korean kingdom Joseon officially sent to the chief ruler of Japan. How did Tongsinsa begin and what role did it perform as relations between the two countries went through change? The year of 2019 will mark the 590th year since the first Tongsinsa mission was sent in 1429, so this series called Tongsinsa Stories will review Joseon Tongsinsa as a cultural delegation representative of the Korean dynasty's diplomatic history with Japan.

The First Tongsinsa Mission in Nearly 140 Years

Tongsinsa missions signified diplomatic relations between equals. Joseon used to send Tongsinsa missions to Japanese shoguns during the Muromachi Period. However, such missions became discontinued since 1443. And then Toyotomi Hideyoshi put an end to the extensive Sengoku period of Japan. In 1587, Hideyoshi’s conquest of Kyushu became imminent. The Shimazu clan’s domination over the region eventually succumbed to Hideyoshi, which left the Hojo (北条) clan of Odawara (小田原) about the only forces in Japan going against Hideyoshi. Once Hideyoshi entered Kyushu, the So (宗) clan governing Tsushima surrendered to him. Hideyoshi thereby ordered Tsushima domain to make arrangements so that the king of Joseon would come over to Japan and pay his respects as loser to the victor Hideyoshi.

Congratulating Enthronement and Joseon’s Surrender

At the time, relations between the king of Joseon and the Japanese bakufu shogun had long been severed. So, if relations were to be reestablished, it had to be under equal terms. This meant there was little chance Joseon was going to allow its king to go over and surrender to Japan. The Tsushima domain was well aware of this, which is why it tried to persuade Joseon by asking instead for congratulations to be extended to Japan’s newly enthroned king. Joseon was rather flustered by Japan’s sudden request for a mission to be sent. Moreover, the request had not been made by a shogun of the Muromachi bakufu with which Joseon used to have relations. Besides, there were rumors that Toyotomi Hideyoshi had usurped the throne. As such, Joseon politely declined the request.

However, Tsushima was not quite ready to give up. Two years later in 1589, the Tsushima daimyo So Yoshitoshi (宗義智) personally traveled to Joseon to engage in negotiations. He managed to get Joseon to agree to sending a mission after promising to repatriate a Joseon leader of pirates that pillaged the coasts of Joseon as well as other Joseon captives taken away to Japan. Hwang Yun-gil was to head the mission as chief envoy with Kim Seong-il serving as deputy chief envoy and Heo Seong serving as secretary. The mission departed from Joseon’s capital Hanyang in March 1590.

Meeting with Hideyoshi

Although the mission Joseon sent arrived in the Japanese capital Kyoto by July 1590, it failed to deliver their sovereign’s message for months. The reason was because Toyotomi Hideyoshi had been away in Odawara to quell the remainder of forces resisting him. Only after the Hojo clan’s surrender did Hideyoshi return to Kyoto and the mission was finally able to deliver their sovereign’s message in November.

The mission was granted an audience with Hideyoshi and became the only people from Joseon to have actually witnessed the Japanese king. According to the description left by the mission, Hideyoshi was a small, ugly man with dark, wrinkly skin that made him look like a monkey, except for his shining eyes that would glare at people. Moreover, the Tongsinsa mission was not accustomed to meeting a Japanese leader in the form of an audience. A plate of rice cakes and a bowl of rice wine was all that was offered as food and the audience skipped the formality of sharing drinks to exchange greetings. Hideyoshi appeared with his baby in his arms and when the baby urinated on his clothes while he was listening to Joseon musicians perform, he handed the baby over to a servant as if it wasn’t a big deal. Such behavior seemed disrespectful of the mission’s idea of diplomatic etiquette and Joseon people later came to use the expression Bangyak muin (傍若無人), which means ”as if nobody is around,” to describe similar behavior.

Report on the Threat of War

Once it handed the king’s message from Joseon to the Japanese king, the mission set out on its way back home. The Japanese king’s reply to the Joseon king’s message was not handed to the mission before it left Kyoto and instead reached the mission a few days later in Osaka. Its wording delivered quite the shock by addressing the king of Joseon as “your excellency” rather than “your royal highness” and using the term “trinkets” instead of “gifts of appreciation” as if Joseon had sent the gifts to pay tribute to Japan. The reply’s content itself was even more shocking. It described Joseon’s surrender to Japan as a fait accompli and demanded that Joseon assist Japan in its invasion of Ming China. At his own discretion, Hideyoshi had understood the mission as Joseon’s gesture of surrender.

The Tongsinsa mission demanded that Hideyoshi’s reply be revised and it took a lengthy discussion to receive a revised message from the Japanese sovereign to take back home. However, the mission had become all too familiar with what Hideyoshi’s original reply communicated. As soon as it arrived in Busan in February 1591, the mission immediately headed to Hanyang to report that Toyotomi Hideyoshi was planning to go to war. While chief envoy Hwang Yun-gil and most of those who went on the mission displayed agitation from being convinced that a war was imminent, the mission’s deputy chief envoy Kim Seong-il was the only one to dismiss the possibility of war by saying that “Hideyoshi is not someone to be feared for his eyes are like those of a rat.” When Yu Seong-ryong later asked Kim Seong-il why he had dismissed the possibility of war, he said, “How could I have guaranteed that we would not be attacked by Japan? I was just trying to calm everyone down and prevent people from growing too alarmed and bewildered.” In a poem he composed in Kyoto, Kim Seong-il warned that despite its splendid buildings and abundant supplies, the city will get caught up in the flames of war should it continue to go to war. Instead of relying entirely on Kim Seong-il’s optimistic forecast, Joseon tried to get its defense system prepared and reported to Ming China about its situation with Japan. Everyone had been aware that the flames of war were burning. It was only a matter of when and where Japan would launch its attack.