596 t h e a n n a l s o f k i n g t’a e j o
14th Day (Kisa)
The king paid a visit to T’aep’yŏnggwan Guesthouse and met with Chinese
envoys.16th Day (Sinmi)
The king held a banquet for Chinese envoys at the Kŭnjŏngchŏn Throne Hall.19th Day (Kapsul)
Chinese envoy Song Boluo returned to Nanjing first. Leading all officials,
the king went to Pansongjŏng Pavilion to see him off, and [another] Chinese
envoy Niu Niu accompanied his colleague as far as the [Kaesŏng] Special
Capital Magistracy to bid farewell and then returned [to Seoul].
The king appointed Yi Ŭlsu, director of the Court of Interpreters, as trib-
utary envoy escort (kwanapsa) and had him escort to the Ming court the
officials responsible for drafting or revising the controversial memorials [to
the Chinese emperor]. So he escorted Kwŏn Kŭn, academician of the Office
of Royal Decrees and State Records, Chŏng T’ak, third royal secretary, who
had drafted the memorials and letters of felicitations (chŏnmun), and No
Indo, drafter of Kyŏnghŭng Prefecture who had proofread them, to Nanjing,
China. The king also appointed Ha Yun, chief magistrate of Hansŏng [Seoul],
as envoy to the Imperial Throne and had him submit a memorial that gave a
full account of the controversy related to the [previous] memorials:
“On the eleventh day of the sixth month of the twenty- ninth year of the
reign of Hongwu, imperial envoy Niu Niu, assistant director of the Seals
Office, and others arrived with an official letter from the Ministry of Rites,
and the letter read:
“We received the emperor’s order, which says, ‘In your last memorials
and letters of felicitation submitted to commemorate the New Year, there
were certain words that were frivolous and insulting. So I told you to send
the officials who drafted those memorials, but so far you have sent only
those who drafted the memorial [addressed to the crown prince or the
empress], not the ones who drafted the memorial^4 addressed to the emperor,- The memorials submitted to the Chinese court consisted of three kinds: p’yo m u n ,
chŏnmun, and chamun. The first refered to the one addressed to the emperor; the second, the
one addressed to the crown prince or the empress; and the third, the Ministry of Rites.