Legend of Ju Su
The Legend of Ju Su (Menghean: 周秀傳 / 주수전, Ju Su Jŏn) is a prominent legend in Menghean folklore. It tells the tale of the female warrior Ju Su, who fell in love with Jin Gŏn (陳騫 / 진건), the last ruler of the Chŏllo kingdom.
Although the story is set in the 1st century BCE, the oldest definitive edition was recorded in the 5th-century Dramatic History of the State of Meng, which embellished the story with magical elements and contemporary themes. The historicity of the legend's events and characters is a matter of some dispute; some characters and events line up with the known historical record, but others were likely invented after the fact.
Today, the Legend of Ju Su is regarded as one of Menghe's foundational cultural works. Menghean nationalist scholars argue that it allegorically symbolizes the union of the Chŏllo and Northern Meng people into the Meng of today, though some southern regionalists see it as a tale of Chŏllo defiance in the face of Meng invasion.
Background
Across all retellings, the legend is set in the 1st century BCE, during the conquest of the State of Chŏllo by the ascendant Meng dynasty. By that time, the State of Meng had already toppled the rival State of Yang to the north, and its rulers bore the title of Emperor. Yet the southern Chŏllo plain, which had also resisted the Yang, remained outside Meng control. Meng-dynasty scholars still regarded the Chŏllo as "semi-barbarian," more civilized than the nomadic tribes beyond the Chŏnsan range but less advanced than the Meng themselves.
During the previous several centuries, the people of Chŏllo had adopted Menghean writing and some aspects of Meng culture, yet they remained proudly opposed to domination from their northern neighbors and refused to pay tribute unless they were given equal tribute in return. Though they had already transitioned from nomadic life to sedentary rice farming, the people of Chŏllo were famous for their excellent horsemanship. In legend and in surviving frescoes, they are shown wearing black and dark-blue uniforms, in contrast to the red and gold of the Meng.
Synopsis
The legend centers on Ju Su (周秀 / 주수), the daughter of the Meng general Ju Sin (周信 / 주신). Her father played a major role in the campaign to defeat the State of Yang, but years of battle wore him down, and he fell ill after returning home at the war's end. When the warrior Gye Po arrived at their manor to proclaim that the new Emperor was preparing a campaign against the State of Chŏllo, Ju Sin replied that he was too feeble to take part, but asked that his daughter be sent to command his troops instead.
By this time, Ju Su had already been trained in martial arts, and had closely studied the records of her father's military deeds in the war with the Yang. Gye Po responded by challenging Ju Su to a duel, confident that he, a famed veteran of the Yang war, would win. Instead, Ju Su knocked the staff from his hand in a single blow, earning her post as the commander of her father's army and winning over the trust of the troops who saw the fight.
In her first battle with Chŏllo forces, Ju Su engaged a force led by Prince Jin Gŏn (陳騫 / 진건), the eldest son of the Chŏllo king. The two generals encountered each other at a decisive moment in the battle, and fought a long and heated duel, which ended only when one of Jin's lieutenants gave the order to retreat.
As the war progressed, Jin Gŏn and Ju Su would cross blades again and again, tracing the Meng army's advance to the Chŏllo capital of Ryuyang, later renamed Insŏng. As they fought, the two warriors came to respect each other as equals, both in swordsmanship and commanding expertise. As the war neared its conclusion, these feelings had grown into a heartfelt fondness. In order to avoid accusations that they sympathized with the enemy, both Jin Gŏn and Ju Su concealed this feeling from their subordinates, but in battle after battle they both came to suspect that the feeling was mutual.
At the end of a long and bloody campaign, the Meng armies laid siege to Ryuyang, where both Prince Jin Gŏn and King Jin Mok (陳穆 / 진목) were trapped. Ju Su volunteered to infiltrate the walled city at night to map out its defenses, explaining that because she was a woman, she would be stealthier and less conspicuous. During this mission, she encountered Jin Gŏn, who was patrolling the walls. Ju Su had come unarmed so that she could pass as a civilian, and at first feared certain death, but Jin Gŏn refused to draw his sword. After Ju Su dared him to fight, reminding him that the punishment for military espionage was death, he confessed his feelings for her, and explained that he could not bring himself to kill her. At this point, Ju Su confessed her love as well, and pleaded for Jin Gŏn to flee the fortress with her and surrender to Meng forces so that they could live together in peace. Jin Gŏn refused, saying that as a member of the royal family, he had sworn an oath to take his own life if the palace fell. As much as he loved Ju Su, he could not bring himself to abandon his kingdom and his father while certain defeat loomed on the horizon. Ju Su begged again, suggesting that the two of them conceal their identities and live in peace as commoners, but Jin Gŏn again steadfastly refused. In the end, Ju Su fled down the side of the wall, but only after pleading that Jin Gŏn promise to promise to stay alive after the war's end.
Two weeks later, Meng forces managed to break through Ryuyang's defenses and overwhelm the city. On hearing that the central palace had fallen, Ju Su abandoned her post and rushed there, hoping to stop Jin Gŏn from carrying out his oath. Yet by the time she arrived, it was already too late: the Chŏllo prince had already committed suicide. Devastated, she held his corpse and sobbed so strongly that the beams of the palace roof shook and collapsed, burying them both.
I Sun, one of Ju Su's lieutenants, saw the scene unfold. Realizing the truth about the two lovers, he dug the bodies out from under the rubble and ordered his soldiers to bury them together so that their spirits could meet in the afterlife. Initially I Sun had the two buried in unmarked graves outside the city and kept their fate a closely guarded secret, but word soon spread among the locals, and eventually it reached the Meng Emperor. Taking pity on Ju Su and Jin Gŏn, he ordered that their bodies be dug up, cremated, and enshrined at a temple where the local people could pay their respects.
Historicity
Most modern historians regard the Legend of Ju Su as a work of fiction, though as with much Menghean historical drama, there is some debate as to how much of its foundation is rooted in reality. Credible records from the Meng dynasty attest that Jin Gŏn was a real prince who lived during the conquest of Chŏllo and died in the fall of Ryuyang. Ju Su's father, Ju Sin, is also mentioned in credible historical texts documenting the war against the State of Yang. The broad timeline of events in the legend is consistent with the historical record, though the many battles between the outset of war and the fall of Ryuyang are not named in the legend or described in detail.
Ju Su's existence is more disputed. She appears in a number of other Meng-dynasty tales, most notably the One Hundred Exemplary Women, as a skilled warrior or military commander who took part in the campaign against Chŏllo. It was not unusual for a woman to command troops during the Warring States period, though Ju Su is the only well-known female commander of the early Meng dynasty, and despite her ubiquity in stories there is very little documentation pointing to her existence in the historical record. The first story in which Ju Su and Jin Gŏn met on the battlefield dates to the late Meng dynasty, some two hundred years after the events themselves are supposed to have taken place, and this story is only preserved in fragmentary form.
Most of the earlier tales also state that Ju Su survived the war and returned home to be buried at the family shrine, and some state that her activities during the war earned her the title "bandit-vanquishing general of the North Chŏllo Plain," suggesting that she would not have been present at the fall of Ryuyang in the center-south. Neither the Ju family manor nor the legendary two lovers' shrine have been uncovered by archaeologists, and both were likely built from wood which would not have survived to the present.
Interpretations
The first definitive retelling of the legend of Ju Su is found in the Dramatic History of the State of Meng, the work of the 5th-century poet Sŏ Wi. Sŏ Wi lived in what is now Ichŏn prefecture, which was then controlled by the State of Tae. For more than a hundred years, the wars between Tae and Later Chŏllo had devastated the central region of the country, and many of Sŏ Wi's poems carry messages of peace and pan-Meng harmony. Thus, the original tale's charitable depiction of the Chŏllo prince and its somewhat negative depiction of the Meng general can be read as a subtle critique of Tae militarism, and the lovers' tragic reunion as a call for peace.
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