The paper examines how Goryeo (918?1392), a medieval Korean state, maneuvered skillfully in and out of the domains of political and economic influence of the Mongol empire, even as the latter imposed its forms of material culture and taxation on its smaller neighbor. The key medium of interaction under analysis is the saugha, the Mongol’s gift culture. The independence of Goryeo within the empire will become clear through comparisons with similar cases in other states subjugated to the Mongols, such as Armenia and Georgia. In the grasslands of Mongolia, there were three actions a monarch could carry out for the sake of effective rule: ideological, violent, and/or economic. The empire’s great Qan demanded massive gifts from Goryeo possibly periodically. William of Rubruck, a Franciscan missionary, noted: “They (Caule and Manse, or Korea and southern China) offered thirty-two thousand tumens of iascot a year provided that the Tartars left them undisturbed (A tumen is a number equivalent to ten thousand).” These gifts must have been a form of Mongol-style either saugha or taxation on Goryeo, meant to help establish new economic and diplomatic relations between the two courts. This caused the Goryeo court to increase its gwaryeom (科斂 k?li?n in Chinese), or levy, on its people. Meanwhile, the Goryeo court wanted to avoid the Mongol’s “massive annual” saugha or taxation. It did so thanks to a defensive logic that helped it to avoid imperial taxation thanks to its weakness due to its narrow territory and small productive capacity. In this way, its people transformed the imperial system within their kingly domain as it reduced burdens and increased benefits.