A New Historical Approach To A Chinese-Written Korean Historical Novel,Story Of Jiang Lu

The Sa Er Hu Battle in which Nurhaci defeated the four branches of the army of Ming Dynasty at Sa Er Hu and the near area happened in February and March,1619. The battle is a strategic one among the whole Liao Dong fights that after the Sa Er Hu Battle Later Jin began to attack Ming instead of being restricted by her and got prepared for building Qing Dynasty.During the Sa Er Hu Battle, Ming Dynasty gave Korea, which was Ming’s vassal, an order to help in order to defeat Later Jin faster. King Guanghae of Korea send13000soldiers with General Gang Hongrip after thoroughly considering about the desperate political,military and economic conditions of Korea In order to sacrifice as little strength of Korean army as he could, General Gang Hongrip eventually surrendered to Later Jin after managing to not let both Ming and Later Jin get upset.There’s a Chinese-written Korean historical novel,"Story of Jiang Lu", which features General Gang Hongrip and describes his life during and after the battle.Gang Hongrip’s image in "Story of Jiang Lu" is a total villain who betrays his country and his king, and this is quite different from the facts which can be deduced from the historical documents. There are various negative judgments about the role, Gang Hongrip, in hundreds of years. The novel also describes the Jeongmyo War which happens between Jater Jin and Korea. A master of Neo-Confucianism, Song Siyeol, his student Lee Jae, Scholar Lee Manbu, chancellor Yun Bongjo etc blamed Gang Hongrip for the war. According to the historical documents and deducement upon today’s understading about the history, this is lack of fairness.Quoting huge amount of historical literature and adopting methods of interdisciplinary study and New Historicism, this essay regards the novel and the historical documents as texts which are produced under certain historical contexts. By analyzing the relationship between the novel and the historical documents, this essay explains the context and the cultural influence under which the novel and the historical documents were produced. The conclusion is that the period when "Story of Jiang Lu" was produced would be the early stage of17th century. According to related historical documents, the power discourse tendency in North Korea is tends to respect Ming and discriminate Later Jin, North Korea’s ruling group have the wrong understanding of the international situation and their own position, plus Chinese on North Korea’s long cultural influence, make many historical documents and literary works have produced serious "Ming respect" inclination.