International sea routes of the South Chŏlla Province during the Unified Silla period

Abstract

This study analyzes the international routes that Silla established and operated in the area that corresponds to current-day South Chŏlla Province, and it reveals that this region, which is commonly regarded as a peripherical area in Silla history, played an important role in the history of sea exchanges. Silla first entered South Chŏlla Province in the late 7th century, during the war for the unification of the Three Kingdoms, and it opened and utilized three types of international routes: the T’amna Coastal Route, the Tang-Japan Linked Route, and the Tang Yellow Sea Slant Route. Firstly, the T’amna Coastal Route, which connects the Kangjin region to the northern region of Cheju Island, was established in the early days of the Middle Silla period, and the two countries used this route to conduct official exchanges. Then, in the first half of the 9th century, Chang Pogo established and operated a new Tang-Japan Linked Route in the Wando region. Although this route was only operated for a short period of about twenty years, it was utilized more densely than any other international route in Silla, contributing greatly to the human and material exchanges in Northeast Asia in the first half of the 9th century. Lastly, in the late 9th and early 10th centuries, a new route that crossed the Yellow Sea and reached the Jiangnan region in China, called the Yellow Sea Slant Route, was actively operated around the Hoejin region.