P'ing-jang

Next, the Chinese text says that they set forth from the district of Lo-lang, which is situated not in Leao-tung, but in Corea, and of which the capital is the present city of Pʽing-jang (in d’Auville’s map, Ping-yang), situated upon the northern bank of the Ta-tʽung-kiang, or Pʽai-shue, a river of the province of Pʽing-ngan, which, in great part, in the time of the dynasty of Han, formed the district of Lo-lang.

In A.D. 436 we find from the Kang Kien that Fêng Hung (馮弘) the last “Emperor” of Yen⁶² had to take refuge in the Tungusic (東胡) kingdom of Kao-li,—the very first mention of the new name,⁶³—which had been developing quietly at its capital P’ing-jang.[…] “The Emperor visited east-central China (江與京洛), and enlisted 400,000 soldiers and 500 Wu ships to cross the seas and go to P’ing-jang, (the Kao-li capital).”

Accordingly an army was sent into Corea. It met the Japanese before the walls of Pʻing Jang (平壤), where it was annihilated and its commander, Tsu Chʻêng-hsun, (祖承訓), barely escaped with his life. The next Chinese army under the command of Li Ju-sung (李如松), fresh from a successful campaign against a Mongol rebel in Ning Hsia (甯夏), gained a victory over the Japanese in Pʻing Jang; but, elated by this success, the Chinese general allowed himself to be led into an ambuscade near Seoul and overthrown (1593).

The Japanese defeated the Ming general Tsu Chʻeng-hsün 祖承訓 at Pʻing jang 平壤 in 1592, the first year of Bunroku 文祿 of Japan, and the fighting continued for some years; but at Hideyoshi's death the Japanese troops left Korea.

It was not merely distaste for court life at Ch’ang An that urged the emperor to make war upon this country. China had substantial grievances against the peninsula kingdom. In the year a.d. 642 P’ing Jang, the Korean capital, had been convulsed by a revolution more sanguinary and more successful than that which had menaced the Chinese court.

While both the Northeast and the Korean Peninsula were under the jurisdiction of Ho-pei Province, a Protectorate of An-tung was established at P'ing-jang to supervise the Peninsular states and two High Commanders were stationed at You-chou and P'ing-lu[…]

As the remnants retreated northward to Pengyang (平壤 Pʻing-jang), war was declared and a Chinese contingent from Manchuria went southward to that place.

In ancient times there existed in the region of the Tung-chia River 佟佳江 in present Liaoning a people called Kao-chü-li 高句驪. In the fifth century they moved their capital to P’ing-jang. The name of the country was simplified to Kao-li 高麗 (Korea).

Among investigations of ancient sites made by Japanese scholars in the Korean Peninsula during the past forty yeas, there are some which have attracted the attention of scholars of the world. One of these was the excavation of the Lo-lang sites of the Han dynasty centering about Heijōᵃ (P'ing-jang); the other was the discovery of the Kao-kou-li tombs with wall paintings in the neighborhood of Heijō and in the vicinity of T'ung-kou, Chi-an shêng,ᵇ Manchuria, in the north.

Main places on the route were, with minor changes during the Ch’ing: Seoul, P’yŏngyang (Chinese, P’ing-jang), Ŭiju (I-chou), the Yalu River, Feng-huang ch’eng, Lien-shan kuan, Liao-tung, Shen-yang, Kuang-ning, Sha-ho, Shan-hai kuan, T’ung-chou, and Peking.