Traditonal diplomacy places importance on proper forms and etiquette.
Especially when envoys were representing the ruler of Joseon, proper form
and etiquette became even more important; a great deal of meaning was
attached to each action and every word. When these envoys went in place
of the Joseon king, they represented him via documents on which were
written characters expressing sadae (such as pyo(表), ju(奏), jon(箋), and
ja(咨)); the envoys sent to Ching were represented by documents with the
words jochik(詔勅) and jamun(咨文). Afterwards, the way of scripting
these diplomatic documents became codified and efforts to continuously
organize them ensued. In the late Joseon dynasty, the Joseon government
felt an urgent need to take diplomatic documents it considered canon and
systematically organize them, deal with problems that arose in documents
used in Joseon-Ching relations and rectify them under the cultural policy of
Joseon which were part of a publishing project, take the softening stance of
the Ching towards Joseon into account while doing this, organize the
records of how royal envoys dealt with the Ching, and improve the process
of drafting documents expressing sadae so that errors could be corrected
and not occur again
