Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
China was laissez-faire hundred of years before the colonial power come to Asia
Ryu Kyu, Malaca, Vietnam,Korea were china's vassal state. But it is misnomer because China doesn't not interfere in day to day government of the said state.
For the small price of acknowledgement of China's supremacy they are allowed to trade with China and get protection sometime to disastrous result.
Case in point Imjin war where China sacrifice a tremendous amount of man and material practically exhaust their treasury and resulting in higher tax and eventual demise of Ming dynasty. For that the Choson dynasty of korea erect memorial and performed ritual until the modern day of Japanese invasion
"朝明联合军战殁慰灵碑"
This is a memorial stone in Sacheon city, South Korea.
on it write in Chinese character "in commemoration of joint-Choson-Ming army's effort in battle(during Imjin war)"
为怀念"遥远异域土地上,不归的恨客���那些明代盟邦民的深厚战友爱.特立此碑,以表对朝明联合军灵的祭奠."
inscription on the back of this commemorate stele,
in commemoration of "on faraway foreign soil,who will never return(to home land)--- the allied men from Ming dynasty, their friendship as brother in arms. So this stele is erected, to remember those Choson and Ming soldiers who had fallen"
there behind this stele, buried in the hill, are more than 3,6000 fallen Choson and Ming soldiers.
The establishment and enlargement of the Altar of Great Gratitude (Taebodan) was designed to offset the violation' and demonstrate visibly Chosŏn's fulfillment of its righteous obligations to the fallen Ming regardless of the circumstances. The 'post-Ming' Korean kings performed sacrifices for three Ming emperors, with emphasis on Ming Taizu, on the anniversaries of their deaths every year. These sacrifices were regularly performed even after Chosŏn opened up its ports to Western powers in the early 1880's, and continued until Seoul was occupied by the Japanese in the early phase of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894. This suggests that the majority of the Korean elites still lived spiritually under the imaginary Ming order, and thereby could not respond to the new order effectively.
