Sejong and feudalism

By Mark Peterson

Last time I wrote about how "feudalism" was not a major stage in Korea's historical development. After Korea was occupied by Japan it fell under historical points of view based on those of the Japanese. Japan had a strong feudal era, from the 12th to the mid-19th century. It assumed a superior intellectual position, as well as superior military and industrial positions in its domination of Korea in the early 20th century. The Japanese historical ideal coincided with the European tradition of feudalism, thus reinforcing the idea of an evolutionary superiority. But that is not the only way to look at history and historical stages.

To illustrate today's point, let me engage you in one of my favorite fantasies. I really admire King Sejong. He was a true renaissance man, a true genius. We praise him for the invention of the Korean alphabet, but he did lots of other things in lots of other fields ― science, agriculture, astronomy, mapping, medicine, pharmacology, law, literature and many others.

I blame Korea's fall to the Japanese in the late 19th century, although formal annexation didn't take place until 1910, on the inept leadership of the time. Gojong didn't have a clue. I like to think that if Sejong, or someone of his ability, were king in the mid-to-late-19th century, things would have been different.

King Sejong would have learned that the outside would was impinging on China, and he would have set out to learn all about it. He would have sent ambassadors to Europe and the United States in the 1850s. Commodore Perry would have heard about this avant-garde king in East Asia, and rather than taking his expedition to Japan in 1853, he would have gone to Korea!

Perry would have shown the Koreans the quarter-size miniature railroad and all the armaments and technical things he showed the Japanese, and the Koreans would have modernized first and eventually been far ahead of Japan in modernization. Japan would have been slow to catch on, to Westernize, and Korea would have been in the lead.

In my scenario the question of feudalism would have come up and the Japanese, by comparison would have looked backward by comparison. "Feudalism is a primitive form of government, and the centralized government is much more advanced and efficient." "You Japanese have been trapped in a backward system with so much fighting and destruction that it's no wonder you have not progressed as rapidly as we Koreans." The shoe would have been on the other foot.

Tragically, that was not the case. Gjong and those around him had their blinders on and were trapped intellectually in the "sadaejuui" (loyally following China) syndrome. They looked down their noses on the Japanese and didn't see what was happening ― that Japan, thanks to Commodore Perry, was "woke" to the changes in the world and the industrialization that was taking place in Europe and North America. Blindly, the Korean court followed China, and the corruption and ineptitude of the court prevented them from seeing the freight train that was about to hit them.

Even Korea's first attempt to figure out what was happening turned sour when the inept Gojong did not believe the delegation he sent to Japan to learn what was happening. Stubbornly, and pushed by his conservative in-laws, Gojong ignored what was going on in the world, following only China, that also did not realize that it was being left behind. They didn't see it coming ― the tragedy that was the end of the Joseon Dynasty and the takeover by the Japanese which followed. And with it, the intellectual baggage that supported Japanese "superiority" ― their history of feudalism, that mirrored Europe. And the racist and ethnic bias that granted them a higher rung on the perceived evolutionary scale.

And Korea, until very recently, and even some people today, will refer to Korea's "feudalistic past". They'll talk about feudalism as if it were a stage in Korea's development, when it was not. Or if it was, it was such a minor blip on the radar screen of history that it is hard to find ― somewhere in the late Silla, early Goryeo period.

No, on Japan's evolutionary scale, Korea is far ahead of Japan in historical development. The centralized state was Korea's pride and joy for over 1,000 years, about the same time that Japanese warlords, daimyo and shogun, were killing each other and thousands and thousands of people to protect a decentralized system where a feudal lord would shed blood to protect his piece of the pie. The Shogunate came, and the Shogunate left in bloody war after bloody war. One, in 1592, even spilled over onto Korean soil and killed more people than in any war up to that point in world history.

Forget the glories of feudalism. Korea was fortunate and farther advanced in its 1,000 years of centralized power, when access to power and position in the centralized government was available by taking a scholarly exam. Not by the sword of the feudal lord.

Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.