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Understanding the Military Supplies of Northern Territory through historical manuscript in the 18th Century

Hyokyoung Kim 1,  Hye-Eun Lee 2

1국립중앙도서관
2숙명여자대학교

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ABSTRACT

This study was conducted to survey the munitions history of the northern territory and to investigate the military preparedness of that time through haeyu documents of North Hamkyoung Province, written in 18th Century. It contains the military supply list of the army in the northwestern region, munitions of bo, separately secured munitions called byeolbi, and rice. The first items of the military supply list of the army in the northwestern region are inshin and byeongbu and they seemed to be recorded first because they are the most important military supplies when mobilizing the army. According to the list of items transferred recorded in the haeyu documents, they possessed three types of bows (heukgakgung, sanggakgung, and gyojagung) and two types of arrows (jangjeon and pyeonjeon). Considering that the amount of pyeongjeon owned by the army of the northwestern region was similar to the amount of jangjeon, the forward unit of North Hamgyoung Province is assumed to use pyeonjeon a lot. As for explosive weapons, they possessed 62 guns of seven types including daeseungja-chongtong. Firearms were widely used in North Hamgyoung Province since the early Joseon Dynasty. It was found that rifles such as seungja-chongtong were made and supplied to the north territory until the era of King Jeongjo. Critical weapons including swords and spears were found to be very small in quantity, compared to bows/arrows and explosive weapons. As for signal equipments used for military signals, the army of the northwestern region was found to have flags of various colors and musical instruments for sound signals such as drums, gongs, and bugles. In case of defensive equipments, they had shields and caltrops (caltraps). According to the haeyu documents, the army of the northwestern region had 4,998 caltrops which account for more than half of the total quantity of 8,000 caltrops owned by giljumok. In addition to weapons, the haeyu documents contain records of clothes, weapon materials, and military books. Approximately 100 items of the haeyu documents of the Joseon Dynasty are still left. Among them, only seven documents of regional officials are left. In this study, the haeyu documents of regional officials, which are very significant materials as the haeyu documents of Hamkyoung Province, were surveyed. This study is significant because the military status, scale, and military preparedness of the northwestern region of the Joseon Dynasty, especially in the 18th century, could be empirically investigated.

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