Conclusion

This conclusion summarizes the history of the Qing-Chosŏn borderland. The Qing interest in ginseng at the Chosŏn boundary and its commitment to Manchuria are clearly displayed in the Changbaishan investigation and the military guard post at the Yalu River. The two neighbors decided to create and maintain a borderland in which some parts remained undefined and others were kept uninhabited. Later, as ginseng disappeared at the boundary and the supposedly prohibited land was occupied by illegal settlers, the Qing and the Chosŏn had to redefine their boundary with a clearly drawn line. Ginseng and people’s movements in searching for it shaped the nature of the Qing-Chosŏn boundary, causing its transformation from frontier to borderland to border.