Page 331 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

then combine them into a single map. Insofar unquestionably came from Li Zemin's tu, and that this was supplemented or replaced
as the area east of the Liao River and our own Shengjiao guangbei tu. Li is mentioned by the by Yi Hoe. Yi is known to have produced a map
country's territory were concerned, Zemin's Ming cartographer Luo Hongxian (1504-64) as of Korea, called the P'altodo, or "Map of the
15
map had many gaps and omissions, so Yi Hoe a contemporary and possibly as an associate of Eight Provinces," and it was probably a ver-
9
supplemented and expanded the map of our Zhu Siben. Aoyama's careful study of the sion of this that appears today on the Kangnido.
country, and added a map of Japan, making it Chinese place-names on the Kangnido shows It is only through the Kangnido that that map is
a new map entirely, nicely organized and well them in general accord with those on Zhu's map, known today.
worth admiration. One can indeed know the as preserved in Luo's Guang yu tu, but with The last major element of the map to be
world without going out of his door! By variants that would indicate place-name changes supplied, as far as the Koreans were concerned,
looking at maps one can know terrestial made in 1328-1329; this suggests that the was Japan. At this particular moment in time,
distances and get help in the work of govern- Kangnido's source map was made around 1330. Korea's relations with the Japanese were very
ment. The care and concern expended on this Since Zhu explicitly excluded most non-Chinese difficult owing to the continuing problem of
10
map by our two gentlemen can be grasped areas from his map, Aoyama and others have Japanese marauders, who were beyond the abil-
just by the size of its scale and dimension.... reasoned that Li Zemin must have found his ity of the Ashikaga shogunate to control. Dip-
Both Kim Sahyong (1341-1407) and Yi Mu cartographic sources for these areas elsewhere, lomatic initiatives were in progress, and coastal
(d. 1409) held high offices during the formative the only plausible source being Islamic maps, defenses and strategies were undergoing con-
years of the Choson dynasty, although Yi Mu which made their appearance in China under stant development. All this was backed by a
11
fell afoul of King Taejong and was later exe- Mongol rule. Luo Hongxian's probable use of general Korean effort to improve the govern-
cuted for his alleged role in a political plot. Both the Guangbei tu is deduced from his maps of ment's knowledge of Japan, and this involved
went to China on diplomatic business during the southeast and southwest maritime regions; maps in particular. Pak Tonji, a military man
their careers, and it is believed that Kim's trip, and it could well be from the Guangbei tu that and diplomatic specialist in Japanese affairs,
completed in the summer of 1399, was the the Da Ming hunyi tu (Integrated map of Great made at least two trips to Japan, one in 1398-99,
occasion for obtaining the Chinese maps men- Ming), in the Palace Museum in Beijing, de- the other in 1401, and the second visit resulted
6
tioned by Kwon Kun. Both Kim and Yi proba- rives. But for the missing or incomplete detail in a map. A later report quoted his statement
bly had administrative experience with maps, as in the eastern areas of Manchuria, Korea, and that in 1402 he had been given a map by the
they had reported to King Taejong on the Japan, that map bears a very close resemblance "Bishu no kami, Minamoto Mitsusuke." He
progress of the land surveys of the northern to the Kangnido. 12 says: "It was very detailed and complete. The
frontier area in the spring of 1402, just a few Takahashi Tadashi has shown that the entire land area was on it, all but the islands of
7
months before the world map was made. But Kangnido's Chinese transcriptions of place names Iki and Tsushima, so I added them and doubled
as high ministers they probably had little time in southwest Asia, Africa, and Europe come the scale." In 1420, this report states, he for-
for actual cartographical work. Kwon's own role from Persianized Arabic originals. While some mally presented this map to the Board of Rites,
was probably important, even though he insists of Takahashi's matches do not command cre- which was the branch of the Choson govern-
that he only stood in the background and "en- dence in early-modern Chinese phonological ment that handled foreign affairs. 16
joyably watched the making of the map/' But terms, he generally makes a convincing case. It is generally assumed by Korean cartograph-
he was being modest and tactful, since he was One of the more interesting correspondences is ical specialists that this map, brought back in
younger in age and junior in rank to the two the name pl,aced by the mountains near the 1401, was the basis for the representation of
ministers. But the real cartographer, even though Ptolemaic twin lakes that are the source of the Japan on the Kangnido. As maps of Japan go in
Kwon minimizes his role, was Yi Hoe, whose Nile. Though not on the Ryukoku copy of the this period, the outline on this one is unusually
entire career was in rather low-ranking but Kangnido, the Tenri University copy shows the good: the positioning of Kyushu with respect to
often special positions. His map of Korea, which Chinese transcription Zhebulu hama, which Honshu is quite accurate, and the bend north of
was separately known, was almost certainly the Takahashi identifies with Persianized Arabic the Kanto area is indicated better than on many
basis for the Korean part of the world map. Djebel al-qamar, "Mountains of the Moon." 13 of the Gyoki-style maps then current. But for
Judging by Kwon's description of the monk All in all there are about thirty-five names the joining of Shikoku to Honshu, the three
Qingjun's Hunyi jiangli tu, it was probably an indicated on or near the African continent, most main islands (adding Kyushu; Hokkaido, of
ordinary historical map of China, compiled in of them in the Mediterranean area. course, not included at that time) make a very
the late fourteenth century. Qingjun (1328-1392) The European part of the map, which is said decent appearance. But this splendid effort seems
was a close advisor to the Hongwu emperor to contain some 100 names, has not yet been to be vitiated by orienting the Japanese portion
(r. 1368-1398), who was the founder of the the object of an individual study, and no details so that west is at the top. Worse, the whole
Ming dynasty and himself an erstwhile monk. 8 of this section of the Kangnido seem to have ensemble is positioned far to the south, so that
Apart from its use as a source for the Kangnido, been published. The Mediterranean is clearly the first impression of a modern observer is that
nothing is known of Qingjun's map. Its chief recognizable, as are the Iberian and Italian the Philippines, not Japan, is under view. A
contribution to the latter is believed to have peninsulas and the Adriatic, but until the place- possible explanation for this is that the cartog-
been the Chinese historical dimension — the names can be read and interpreted it will be raphers had run out of space on the right (east)
indication of the areas and capitals of the earlier impossible to come to any firm understanding edge of the Kangnido, and so had to place Japan
dynasties, which was accomplished by a combi- of it. 14 in the open sea to the south. But since Japan
nation of textual notes and cartographic de- Kwon Kiin observed in his preface that the had always appeared east of southern China on
vices. Other than that, the main feature that Guangbei tu had only sketchy treatment of the Chinese maps, there was some earlier carto-
stuck on the Korean map was probably its area east of the Liao River and of Korea. His graphic basis for its placement there. As for the
name: it reads Honil kangnido in Sino-Korean. language suggests that some image of Korea, west-at-the-top orientation, it is possible that
The international dimension of the Kangnido however deficient, was on the original Guangbei this was the original orientation of the map Pak

330 CIRCA 1492