With emphasis on the sacrificial performances at the Altar of Great Gratitude (Taebodan), designed to pay tribute to the memory of the three emperors of the fallen Ming, this paper examines the way in which Korean ruling elites struggled to link themselves to Ming China under Manchu dominance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Since the 1500s, Ming China had been honored in Chosŏn Korea as the suzerain-father, with the result that the Ming became the object for Chosŏn filial piety as well as loyalty. With the compromise with the Manchu in 1637, however, the Korean leadership faced an ideological crisis; king and court officials themselves had violated the two primary Confucian values, loyalty and filial piety, on which the ruling mechanism of the dynasty had been based for about 250 years. The establishment and enlargement of the Altar of Great Gratitude in the palace yard was designed to offset the violation and visibly demonstrate Chosŏn’s fulfillment of its righteous obligations to the fallen Ming regardless of the circumstances. The post-Ming Korean kings, such as Yŏngjo (r. 1724-76) and Chŏngjo (r. 1776-1800) performed sacrifices for three Ming emperors on the anniversaries of their deaths every year. These sacrifices were regularly performed even after Chosŏn opened up its ports to Japan (1876) and Western powers (1880s), and continued until Seoul was occupied by the Japanese on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), implying that the majority of Korean elites still lived spiritually under the imaginary Ming order on the threshold of the so-called modern era. It also suggests that Ming China was still serving as a source of authority in Chosŏn Korea even after the Ming disappeared from the scene in 1644.

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