Suppressing Domestic Heresy and the Border-Crossing of Ming Legal Practice with Korean Characteristics: The Chinsan Incident of 1791

Abstract The border-crossings between historical China and Korea not only involved the social, political, and economic interactions between the two countries, but also shaped legal practices in the Korean Peninsula. This article reexamines the historical significance of the Chinsan Incident of 1791 by looking into the legal reasoning of Chosŏn ruling elites and the role of King Chŏngjo (r. 1776–1800) in the final adjudication. Given the social and cultural milieu that cultivated reverence to ancestors, the elite's deep understanding and preservation of Ming laws and legal practice, and the potential factional purge in the name of anti-Catholicism, I argue that the king had to strictly stick to written laws, invoke another Korean-invented legal statute in the final judgment, and even deliberately manipulate the definition of “perverse teaching” to settle the case. In such an environment fraught with factional strife, the dynamics then shaped different landscapes of handling Catholic-related legal cases in Chosŏn Korea and in Qing China, forging a hybrid of Ming legal practices and Korean characteristics.