Balhae's 4th Mission to Japan and Trading in the Form of Presents

     Balhae's 4th Mission to Japan gives us an inhumane example of the trade between Japan and Balhae, or even the triangular trade among Japan, Balhae, and Tang China.

     On December 16, 755, General An Lucian (705-757) finally declared himself emperor, and openly rebelled against the Tang Dynasty of China.  On November 18, 763, Tufan, or the Tibetan Empire, invaded Changan, the capital of the Tang Dynasty, and they stayed there for 15 days.  All in all, in the middle of the 8th century, Tang China was just in chaos.

     In those days, precisely in 752, Fujiwara Kiyokawa (?-?) sailed across the East China Sea to Tang China as an ambassador of Japan.  Next year, he tried to sail back to Japan, only to get shipwrecked as was often the case.  The Japanese central government didn’t know whether he was alive or not.  Tang China was getting in disorder day by day.

     It was Yang Seung-gyeong (?-?), the ambassador of Balhae’s 4th mission to Japan, who brought the information of Kiyokawa’s survival.  Yang had been an officer in the westernmost region of Balhae, a good position to get inside stories of the chaotic society of Tang China.  Obtaining the information, the Japanese central government organized a kind of rescue team.  Ko Gendo (?-?), or Go Jeon-do, who was a naturalized Japanese from Goguryeo, was appointed as an ambassador of the mission.  Yang took Ko to Tang China by way of the Sea of Japan and Balhae, and helped Ko to meet Kiyokawa.  The Tang government, however, didn’t let Kiyokawa go home, ostensibly worrying for the deteriorating public security and the safety of Kiyokawa on his way back to Japan.  Ko came back empty-handed via the East China Sea.  The Tang government might not have been worried over the safety of Ko.

     Yes, Balhae worked as an alternative route to Tang China.  But what I want to talk about here is not about that but about the presents Yang had gotten in Japan for his contribution.

     While Yang Seung-gyeong was staying in Japan, on January 27 in 759 (or March 2 in 759 by the Gregorian calendar), Fujiwara Nakamaro (706-764), who was a prime minister at the time and who was Fujiwara Kiyokawa’s father-in-law, threw a big party for Yang.  On the occasion, Emperor Junnin (733-765) gave Yang personal presents: 300 bunches of cotton and female musicians of the Imperial Court.

     According to the Old Book of Tang, one of 24 orthodox history books of China, Balhae presented 11 Japanese female musicians to the Tang Dynasty in 777.  It is unknown whether the 11 musicians were those who had been presented to Yang or another present from Japan sent by way of Balhae to Tang China.  Anyway, there might have been the slave traffic between Japan and Balhae, or even the triangular slave traffic among the 3 counties, officially in the form of presents.  Could there have been the smuggling of slaves?

     In 777, Ono Iwane (?-778) led the Japanese 16th envoy to the Tang Dynasty as an acting ambassador, reached Yang Prefecture in Tang China across the East China Sea, and got to Changan in 778.  Despite all the attempts, Kiyokawa had died by the time.  He had a daughter, Kijo (?-?), or Xiniang, by his Chinese wife.  Kijo, accompanying Iwane, left Tang China.  The ship got wrecked, and iwane died as was often the case. Kijo clung to the bow, and was washed ashore on Naga-jima Island in Amakusa County, Hizen Province.