Kang Hao (Department of World History, Shanghai Normal University)
In the first few articles of this series, the author briefly introduced the background and impact of the two "Mongol attacks". After the "Battle of Hong'an" in 1281, although the war was over, the threat of war was not lifted. For Kublai Khan, the monarch of the Yuan Dynasty, since the second conquest of Japan had not yet been successful, it was still necessary to launch the third war of conquest of Japan, so he continued to order the reorganization of armaments and the collection of grain and grass. The Yuan dynasty distributed weapons to the coastal counties of Goryeo and other counties, and Goryeo set up a townside wanhufu on the southern coast. In addition, the monarch of Ōmoto also insisted on continuing to send envoys to Japan.
In October of the fifth year (1292), the Goryeo envoy Kim You-sung arrived in Japan, and as before, he came on behalf of Kublai Khan to present the Goryeo King's Letter of Kingdom and persuade Japan to submit to the yuan dynasty's emissaries. In this letter of state, King Wang Ofe of Goryeo stated the historical facts of Japan's long-term good relations with Goryeo, and took advantage of the opportunity of the Japanese merchant ship drifting to Tamra to send someone to return the floating Japanese, and then told the Japanese king about "having to Chen" by the way. King Zhonglie warned the Japanese monarch in a serious tone that after Goryeo submitted to the Yuan Dynasty, "do not lose the name of the country, do not lose the name of the country, do not submit to the society, the relics of the ceremonial music, the name of the clothes, everything is still the same, the people are blocked, the happiness is safe, and the truth is also the reason for the great loss of sincerity." The Song Dynasty, on the other hand, was obstinate and stubborn in front of Kublai Khan's "Heavenly Soldiers", "Nine temples, a hundred officials destroyed, no ceremony to restore the monarch, three hundred years of accumulation of the foundation, once overturned." Then he praised Kublai Khan for his "sacred civilization, merit and abundance, benevolence and generosity, good life and evil killing", hoping that Japan would remember the lessons of the Song Dynasty and send envoys as soon as possible to "go to the Great Yuan". The document does not mention the two wars, but patiently analyzes the benefits of the Yuan Dynasty for Japan. However, the result was not unexpected, after receiving this letter of state, the Kamakura shogunate sent Hojo Kenshi and Hojo Toki to Kyushu to strengthen the "alien thief police" and "foreign defense", and ordered the Jitou Family and the "Honsho Ichiji" armed forces to jointly strengthen their combat readiness. The Kamakura shogunate had almost a fixed response model for dealing with the Yuan Dynasty and Goryeo – that is, ignoring it and reorganizing the armaments. This made the envoys of the Yuan Dynasty and Goryeo still futile.
Yuan Chengzong
In fact, after the "Battle of Hong'an", before Jin Youcheng's arrival in Japan, the Yuan Dynasty had many other attempts to send envoys to summon. Kublai Khan found that the envoys sent by Goryeo had repeatedly failed to return, so in the twentieth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1283), he planned to send people from the Jiangnan region to Japan. Perhaps because of his understanding of more than ten years of dealing with Japan, Kublai Khan knew that the Japanese believed in Buddhism, especially in recent years, the Kamakura shogunate was particularly interested in Zen Buddhism, so he selected Yuxi Ruzhi, the abbot of Baotuo Temple in Putuo Mountain, Zhejiang Province, as an envoy, and sent him to go to Japan with Wang Junzhi. In August, Yuxi Ruzhi and Wang Junzhi set out according to the holy will, and when they were moored at sea for a long time, they encountered a storm when crossing the Black Water Ocean, and the ship drifted outside Putuo Mountain. The following year (1284), the year of Hojo's death, Kublai Khan again ordered Yuxi Ruzhi and Wang Jiweng (formerly Southern Song Dynasty bureaucrats, after the demotion of the Yuan Dynasty, they were envoys to Fujian Province, Hubu Shangshu, and Jiangxi Province) to Japan as messengers. On May 13, the ship departed from Ningbo, passed through Tangla and Hepu in Goryeo, and arrived on the Japanese island of Tsushima on July 14. When Wang Ji Weng went to sea, he forcibly requisitioned four ships of the ship director A, and during the voyage, Ren Jia was worried that the itinerary was probably dangerous and unwilling to move forward, Wang Ji Weng was flogged, and Ren Jia took revenge, and finally drunk everyone in the Tsushima Island, and then killed Wang Ji Weng and 50 other people. As a result, yuxi ruzhi and Wang Jiweng's mission ended in failure.
Kublai Khan, the most talented ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, died in early 1294. At the end of his life, he was still ordering Goryeo to prepare for the conquest of the ships and food needed by Japan, but this plan was finally terminated by the assumption of the new monarchy. In the second year of Emperor Yuanchengzong's reign (1298), the government of Pingzhang in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces also quickly reached the new emperor Yuan Chengzong to make three marches to Japan, and Chengzong Tiemu'er replied that "now is not the time" and rejected the proposal to cross the sea for the third time. At this time, Yuan Chengzong had already begun to change the strategic policy of foreign conquest since Kublai Khan, and also adopted a relatively gentle policy towards southeast Asian countries that did not submit to the Yuan Dynasty, and for a time more than 20 countries came to the dynasty, and Yuan Chengzong's line change was effective. Similar to his policy toward Southeast Asia, Emperor Yuanchengzong intended to summon Japan to korea through diplomacy rather than war. Recently, the Japanese scholar Yumoto has re-established the experience of Motonari's envoy to Japan through the examination of various historical materials. According to Yumoto's research, the person in charge of the Japanese edict of Emperor Yuancheng was Yan Gongnan (1241-1302). Yan Gongnan was a native of Jianchang Prefecture, Kanglu, Southwest Jiangxi, who served as a general judge in Ganzhou at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, and began to work for the Yuan Dynasty after the Yuan Dynasty occupied Jiangnan, and later gained the trust of Kublai Khan and was also given the Mongolian name "Saiyin Nang belt". In the final stage of Kublai Khan's reign, Yan Gongnan's position was to participate in the government affairs of Jianghuai Province and to act as the Chief Secretary of Agriculture. After that, he successively served as the right minister of Henan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Huguangxing Provinces. In June 1292, three Japanese merchant ships were damaged by wind and waves, and only one of them arrived in Qingyuan (Ningbo) smoothly, and Yan Gongnan, who was then the governor of Jianghuai Province, took this opportunity to send them a letter to the Japanese authorities when the Japanese merchant ships returned home. During his time in Jiangnan, Yan Gongnan was responsible for foreign trade and other matters, and was responsible for the reform of the city system, and also had a good reputation among merchants from Japan (note: japanese merchants are not necessarily Japanese). When Emperor Yuanchengzong made up his mind to abandon the plan of three conquests of Japan, Yuan Chengzong thought of this Jiangnan official who was good at foreign affairs. Therefore, Emperor Yuancheng appointed Yan Gongnan as the right minister of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, ordered him to prepare matters related to the Japanese edict, and selected a suitable person to serve as a diplomatic envoy. The person who was finally selected by Yan Gongnan was the famous yuan dynasty messenger and Zen monk Yishan Yining.
One mountain and one ning
At that time (summer 1298), a Japanese merchant ship arrived in Qingyuan. Therefore, Yan Gongnan planned to use this opportunity to let the yuan dynasty messenger take a Japanese merchant ship to Japan. At first, the chosen envoy was the Putuo Mountain Zen monk Yuxi Ruzhi, who had experience in envoys. However, Yuxi Ruzhi was old at this time and embarrassed by his great responsibility, so this burden fell on Yishan Yining, the successor of Yuxi Ruzhi and the new abbot of Baotuo Temple in Putuo Mountain. Yishan Yining is a native of Linhai County, Taizhou, Zhejiang, who was ordained in Mingzhou when he was a teenager, and then studied in Mingzhou (Ningbo) Yanqing Temple, Hangzhou Jiqingyuan and other places, and then studied Zen Buddhism at Tiantong Temple, and after enlightenment, he studied in many famous mountains such as Tiantai, Yandang, and Yuwang, but basically the scope of activities was not out of Zhejiang. In May of the 21st year (1284), he became the abbot of Zuyin Temple in Changguo (Zhoushan), and in the 30th year of the Yuan Dynasty (1293), he was appointed abbot of Baotuo Temple on Putuo Mountain under the recommendation of Yuxi Ruzhi and others. It can be said that in the Zhejiang area at that time, Yishan Yining was still a well-known middle-aged Zen monk, but his footprints almost never stepped out of Zhejiang, let alone go to Japan. This sudden responsibility is undoubtedly a huge test for Yishan Yining. What's more, in view of the experience of several previous envoys sent by the Yuan Dynasty, the Kamakura shogunate in Japan has never abided by the rule of "two armies fighting and not cutting off", and this mission is likely to come and go.
Under the planning of Yan Gongnan, Yuan Chengzong gave Yishan Yining great preferential treatment. The Yuan Dynasty appointed Yishan Yining as the president of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and awarded him the title of "Master of Miaoci Hongji", and also gave him a piece of gold robes, and also gave Baotuo Temple a hundred and two golds, two years of treasure coins (one is one thousand yuan), and 2,000 acres of official land. The position of "President of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Buddhism" originated from the "President of Jiangnan Buddhism" during Kublai Khan's time, and was the highest official who ruled the Buddhist circles in Jiangnan at that time, and Yang Lianzhenjia, who was notorious for stealing the imperial tombs of the Southern Song Dynasty, held this position. However, when Yishan Yining was appointed as the envoy of the state, the posts and institutions of "President of Jiangnan Interpretation" or "President of Jiangsu and Zhejiang" had been abolished, and the actual official office for religious affairs in Jiangnan was the Jiangnan Xingxuanyuan (established in Hangzhou in 1291), so this "president" position of Yishan Yining was nothing more than a nominal honorary title. When appointing Yishan Yining as the messenger of the state, Yan Gongnan also personally brought Yuan Chengzong's edict to Hangzhou as an envoy to Hangzhou, and then Zhejiang Dongdao Xuanwei sent 50 officials such as Qingyuan Prefecture judges, monks and sizhishu, and Changzhou Zhizhou to baotuo temple to announce the emperor's orders, and also sent 5 people to accompany Yishan Yining on the mission (it can also be considered to prevent Yishan Yining from escaping). In the biography of Ichizan, written by the Japanese Zen monk Tiger Guanshi, "The Journey of the Ichizan National Master", Ichiyama Kazunin's attitude towards the envoy is not very positive.
Zhoushan Zuyin Temple
Eventually, Ichiyama accepted the orders of the imperial court and set off from Mount Putuo to Qingyuan, and then boarded a Japanese merchant ship. After going to sea, Ichizan Andhinai and his party encountered wind and waves, and after repairs, they arrived in Goryeo and then arrived in Hakata, Japan in August of the first year of the first year of Zheng'an (1299). The Hojo Nine Dynasties Chronicle of October 8 of that year recorded that "Ichinin participated in Kamakura, and Ichinin held the DaigenkokuShu". The Kamakura shogunate held a meeting after receiving the YuanCheng Emperor's letter held by Ichizan Ichinin, but as in the results of several previous missions, the Kamakura shogunate refused to give a reply to the Yuan Dynasty. Not only that, the Kamakura shogunate once had the idea of executing yuan dynasty envoys, but in the end, given that Ichizan Ichinin was a zen monk of high moral standing and was also a high-ranking monk of Putuo Mountain, which was very familiar to maritime merchants, it decided to let Ichizan Ichinin go, but did not allow him to return to China. Eventually, Ichiyama remained in Japan to serve the Kamakura shogunate and the imperial court in Kyoto, becoming Japan's "Ichiyama Kunishi". A large number of famous Zen monks emerged under his disciples, and since then, the "craze for studying monks in Japanese history" has begun.
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Koji Saeki: Japan's Relationship with Goryeo after the Invasion of Mongolia, Historical Fuchi, No.153, 2016
Noguchi, Yoshitaka: Transition of The Right to Appoint a Resident in Former Gangnam, Study of the History of The Former Zen Buddhism, Kyoto: Institute of Zen Culture, 2006
Nishio, T.: Former Morning Kokushin Ennin Ningichizan, Medieval Japan-China Exchange and Zen Buddhism, Xinkyo: Yoshikawa Hirofumi, 1996
Akira Enomoto: Temur's Japanese Invitation and Ichiyama Kazune and Tsubame Kogusu, Historical Studies, No.300, 2018
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