A History of Korea

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R O W M A N & L I T T L E F I E L D P U B L I S H E R S , I N C . Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

A History of Korea

From Antiquity to the Present

Michael J. Seth

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Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com

Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2011 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Seth, Michael J., 1948– A history of Korea : from antiquity to the present / Michael J. Seth. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7425-6715-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7425-6716-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7425-6717-7 (electronic) 1. Korea—History. 2. Korea—Civilization. I. Title. DS907.18.S426 2011 951.9—dc22 2010032330

� ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

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v

List of Primary Source Readings xi

Maps xiii

Introduction 1

1 The Origins 9 The Koreans 9 Early Inhabitants 10 The Age of Rice Farming Begins 13 Sources for Early Korea 16 Chosǒn 16 The Chinese Commanderies 18 Chinese Commanderies and Their Neighbors: The Northern Peoples 20 Chinese Commanderies and Their Neighbors: The Southern Peoples 22 Politics of the Third Century 23 Korea in Global Perspective: 5,000 Years of History 24

2 The Period of the Three Kingdoms, 4th Century to 676 27 The Emergence of the Three Kingdoms 28 The Wa and the Mimana 31 Korea and Northeast Asia in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries 32 Culture and Society of the Three Kingdoms 34 The Bone-Ranks, the Hwabaek, and the Hwarang 39

Contents

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vi Contents

The Changing Environment of the Late Sixth and Seventh Centuries 42 The Unification of Korea under Silla 44 Korea in Global Perspective: State Formation 46

3 Late Silla, 676 to 935 49 The Peninsular Kingdom 49 Consolidation of Central Monarchical Rule under Silla, 676–780 50 Silla and the Chinese Model 52 Supporting the Silla State 53 Silla Society 57 Silla and Its Neighbors 64 Parhae 67 The Decline of Silla 69 The Later Three Kingdoms 70 Korea in Global Perspective: Silla’s Rise and Fall 73

4 Koryǒ, 935 to 1170 77 The New Koryǒ State 77 Koryǒ in East Asia 85 Internal Politics, 935–1170 88 Koryǒ Culture 90 The Samguk Sagi 93 Koryǒ Society 95 Korea in Global Perspective: Koryǒ’s Examination System 98

5 Military Rulers and Mongol Invaders, 1170 to 1392 103 Military Rule 103 Sǒn Buddhism 107 Korea, Japan, and Feudal Europe 108 The Mongol Invasions 110 The Legacy of the Mongol Period 113 Late Koryǒ Society 115 The End of the Koryǒ 116 Late Koryǒ Culture 118 The Rise of Neo-Confucianism 120 Korea in Global Perspective: The Mongols and Korea 123

6 The Neo-Confucian Revolution and the Chosǒn State, 1392 to the 18th Century 127 Establishing the Yi Dynasty 127 The Chosǒn State 131 The Censorate and the Classics Mat 133 Historians 134

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Contents vii

The Examination System 135 Education 139 Agricultural Improvements and the State 141 Military and Foreign Affairs 142 The Japanese and Manchu Invasions 146 Competition for Power among the Elite 150 Chosǒn Politics in Perspective 154 Korea in Global Perspective: Chosǒn as an Ideologically Driven State 154

7 Chosǒn Society 157 The Family 158 Women during the Yi Dynasty 161 Social Structure 165 Slaves and Outcastes 167 Crime and Punishment 172 Religious Beliefs and Practices 174 Philosophy 176 Arts, Literature, and Science 179 Technology and Inventions 184 Korea in Global Perspective: Women in Korea 184 Korea in Global Perspective: Chosǒn’s Social Hierarchy 186

8 Late Chosǒn, Early 18th Century to 1876 189 The Politics of Late Chosǒn 190 Late Chosǒn and the Confucian World Order 191 Korean Travelers to China and Japan 194 Taxation and Reform 197 Agriculture 200 Commerce and Trade 201 Cultural Flowering of Late Chosǒn 204 Sirhak 210 Everyday Life 212 Korea in the Nineteenth Century: The “Hermit Kingdom” 215 Internal Problems in the Nineteenth Century 216 Korea in Global Perspective: The Hermit Kingdom? 221

9 Korea in the Age of Imperialism, 1876 to 1910 225 Early Contacts with the West 225 The Opening of Korea 230 Early Reforms, 1876–1884 234 The Chinese Decade, 1885–1894 240 The Tonghak Rebellion 243 Kabo Reforms 246

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viii Contents

The Russian Ascendency and the Independence Club 249 The Russo-Japanese War and the Protectorate 252 The Protectorate, 1905–1910 254 Korea in Transition 257 Korea in Global Perspective: Korea in the Age of Imperialism 259

10 Colonial Korea, 1910 to 1945 265 The March First Movement 267 The Post–March First Period 269 Cultural Ferment of the 1920s 271 Moderate and Radical Nationalism 272 Economic Development 280 Modernity and Social Change 282 Rural Society 289 Wartime Colonialism, 1931–1945 292 Forced Assimilation 296 A Society in Turmoil: The Legacy of Colonial Rule 297 Korea in Global Perspective: The Korean Nationalist Movement 299 Korea in Global Perspective: Korea’s Colonial Experience 300

11 Division and War, 1945 to 1953 305 The End of Colonial Rule in Korea 308 North Korea under Soviet Occupation 309 South Korea under U.S. Occupation 311 Trusteeship 312 Establishing a Separate Regime in the North 313 The Beginnings of a New Regime in the South 314 Toward Division 316 The Republic of Korea 317 The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 320 On the Eve of the Korean War 321 The Korean War 324 The Impact of the Korean War 332 Korea in Global Perspective: Divided Countries 333 Korea in Global Perspective: The Korean War 334

12 North Korea: Recovery, Transformation, and Decline, 1953 to 1993 339 The Divergent Paths of the Two Koreas 339 North Korea’s Recovery 340 Political Consolidation 344 The Changing International Situation 347

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Contents ix

Confrontational Stance toward the South and the United States 350 Relentless Militarization 353 The Ideology of Self-Reliance 355 The Cult of the Kim Family 358 Society 362 Economic Problems 365 Korea in Global Perspective: North Korea as a Communist Country 368

13 South Korea: From Poverty to Prosperity, 1953 to 1997 373 The Syngman Rhee Years, 1953–1960 373 The Democratic Experiment, 1960–1961 376 The Military Coup 378 Economic Transformation 381 Economic Growth under Park Chung Hee 383 Chaebǒls 389 Transformation of the Countryside 392 Economic Development in the 1980s 394 Explaining South Korea’s Economic Miracle 395 Education 398 Korea in Global Perspective: Educational Development 400 Korea in Global Perspective: Economic Development 401

14 South Korea: Creating a Democratic Society, 1953 to 1997 405 Military Authoritarianism 405 The Yushin Era, 1971–1979 407 Seoul Spring, 1979–1980 411 The Fifth Republic 414 1987: A Political Turning Point 415 Transition to Democracy 418 Understanding the Democratic Turn 422 Student Activism 426 Organized Labor 428 Social and Cultural Transition 431 Korea in Global Perspective: Democratization 434

15 Contemporary North Korea, 1993 to 2010 437 In Decline 437 A Period of Crisis 439 Under Kim Jong Il 441 Ideology 442 Famine 444 Crisis and Summitry 446

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x Contents

Tentative Reforms 448 Confrontations and the Policy of Survival 451 Korea in Global Perspective: North Korea’s Famine 457 Korea in Global Perspective: North Korea as a Failed State 458

16 Contemporary South Korea, 1997 to 2010 465 Return to Civilian Government 465 Economic Crisis and Recovery 469 Domestic Politics 471 Foreign Policy 477 Rethinking Reunification 480 A Society Undergoing Rapid Change 481 Changing Gender Relations, Changing Families 485 Ethnic Homogeneity 487 Facing History and Preserving Heritage 489 New Crises and New Problems 491 Korea in Global Perspective: South Korea’s Place in the World 492

Conclusion 497

Appendix: Romanization 503

Notes 507

Glossary of Korean Words 529

Annotated Selected Bibliography 539

Index 555

About the Author 573

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xi

The Tan’gun Myth 25 Origins of the Hwarang 47 King Hǔngdǒk’s Edict on Clothing, Carts, and Housing 47 Sǒl Kye-du 74 Great Master Kyunyǒ: Eleven Poems on the Ten Vows of

the Universally Worthy Bodhisattva 74 Wang Kǒn: Ten Injunctions 99 Manjǒk’s Slave Rebellion 124 Yun Hoe: On the Harmfulness of Buddhism 156 Sin Ch’ǒjung: On the Deceitfulness of Buddhism 156 The Creation of the Han’gǔl Script 187 Regulating Marriage 223 Inaugural Message of the Independent, April 7, 1896 261 Chang Chiyǒn, “We Wail Today” 262 Son Pyǒnghǔi et al., Declaration of Independence 302 Summary of the Instructions of Commanding General

Chistiakov at the Meeting of the Five Provinces 336 Kim Il Sung, from “Report on the Work of the Central Committee

to the Fourth Congress of the Workers Party of Korea” 370 Kim Il Sung, from “Socialist Construction in the Democratic

People’s Republic of Korea and the South Korean Revolution” 371 Park Chung Hee, from The Country, the Revolution and I 402 Kim Chi-ha: Five Thieves 435 “Publishing Comrade Kim Jong Il’s Brief History” 460 An Account of the Famine 461 Kim Dae Jung, from Prison Writings 494

Primary Source Readings

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Physical Map of Korea

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Physical Map of East Asia

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Korea in the Fifth Century

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Silla and Parhae Kingdoms

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Koryǒ in the Eleventh Century

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Chosǒn Korea

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Modern Korea

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1

Korea is an ancient land with 2,000 years of recorded history and a rich and distinctive cultural tradition. The various peoples that lived in the peninsula gradually forged a society characterized by cultural homogeneity and political unity. Korea today is divided into two rival states, but this is a fairly recent development. Before being effectively partitioned by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1945, Korea had been one of the oldest continuously unified states in the world. The pen- insular heartland of what is today Korea was united in 676, and except for one brief period, remained so until the end of World War II. It had also become one of the most homogeneous societies in the world. A number of peoples entered the peninsula in antiquity, but gradually all merged into a single ethnicity, sharing one language and participating in one political system. In modern times there have been no significant ethnic minorities.

Binding Koreans together and distinguishing them from their neigh- bors has been their language. Korean, while showing some similarities to Japanese and to the Altaic languages of Inner Asia, is also quite distinct from them. In modern times all Koreans spoke the Korean language, which since the fifteenth century has been written in a unique alphabet. Before the twentieth century, there were no significant Korean-speaking groups outside of Korea. Thus, Korea became one of the few lands where ethnicity, membership in a language community, and a state were coter- minous. This unity and homogeneity that emerged over the centuries has become an important part of Korean identity.

In the late nineteenth century few if any states could match Korea’s ter- ritorial and institutional stability, its historical continuity, its ethnic unity

Introduction

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2 Introduction

and its isolation. The last earned it the sobriquet “the hermit kingdom.” As with so much of the non-Western world Korea became a victim of the age of imperialism. Its colonial experience was atypical, however, in that it was ruled by Japan, another non-Western society, a familiar neighbor with which it shared many cultural affinities. But what makes Korea’s modern history unique was its division in 1945 by the United States and the Soviet Union at the thirty-eighth parallel. Korea was divided along a totally arbitrary line that had no historical, geographical, cultural, or economic logic; just a line that conveniently separated the country into roughly two halves—dividing provinces, valleys, and families. A nation that was arguably the most ethnically homogeneous in the world, with thirteen centuries of political unity, with national and provincial bound- aries older than almost any other state, was cut into halves by the two superpowers.

While in theory this was only a temporary measure, almost imme- diately two separate regimes emerged. In 1948, the United States and the Soviet Union set up their client states: the Republic of Korea, better known as South Korea, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea. The two “Koreas” had different leaders, different political and economic systems, and different external orientations. Both saw the division as an unacceptable and temporary condition, but the attempts to unify the country led to one of the bloodiest conflicts since the end of World War II. Despite horrific destruction and loss of life, both regimes survived and continued on their markedly different trajectories of devel- opment. North Korea evolved into one of the world’s most totalitarian and militant states, ruled by a family with a cult of personality unequaled in its extreme intensity. It was the world’s most closed and enigmatic state, with a leadership busy developing missiles and nuclear weapons while millions of the nation’s children were stunted from malnutrition. South Korea, by contrast, after a rocky and uncertain start evolved into an open, democratic society, whose spectacular economic growth and in- ternationally competitive industries made it an outstanding success story among the postcolonial states.

Nowhere else was a nation so arbitrarily divided and the peoples of the two halves so effectively isolated from each other; nowhere else did such radically different political and social systems emerge. The boundary between the two Koreas is not only the world’s most heavily armed and until recently most hermetically sealed, it marks two different living stan- dards and lifestyles. Nowhere else is there such a sharp contrast between two contiguous states—one rich, democratic, and cosmopolitan; the other impoverished, totalitarian, and isolated. And arguably the history of no other society in the past century offers such contrasting examples of how societies can undergo modern development. Korea’s modern history is

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Introduction 3

both a remarkable story and an incomparable example of how the inter- play of historical contingency, policy choices, and cultural heritage can shape societies in contrasting ways.

Korea is also a fascinating land with a rich and distinctive culture that continues to evolve in interesting and even surprising ways. Yet Korea and its history have often been overlooked in the past. Except for the Korean War it has not, at least until recently, drawn much attention from the rest of the world. Partly this is due to the fact that it has been over- shadowed by it larger neighbors, China and Japan.

Today Korea is emerging from its past obscurity. On the negative side there is the notoriety of Kim Jong Il and the North Korean nuclear threat. But South Korea has become a major world economy whose corporate names LG, Samsung, and Hyundai are globally recognized and whose popular culture has a huge audience among its Asian neighbors and is beginning to be known beyond Asia. Yet its remarkable history, with its important implications, is still not widely known or appreciated.

Geographically, Korea is a mountainous peninsula about 600 miles long and an average of 120 miles wide with a mixture of maritime and continental climates. The mountains are not high, reaching only 9,000 feet with Mount Paektu on the border between North Korea and Manchuria. Yet no place in Korea is not within sight of them.

Arable land is limited but well watered and fertile. Winters vary from short and mild in the south to long and bitter cold in the north; summers are wet and humid almost everywhere. The wet, humid summer and dry autumn are ideal for growing rice, and except in the far north where it is too cold to cultivate, rice has been the staple crop for several millen- nia. Wet rice agriculture is labor intensive but produces high yields per acre. Therefore, despite the limited amount of land suitable for farming, Korea has been for centuries a densely populated country and until quite recently an overwhelmingly rural, agricultural one.

No part of Korea is far from the seas. The seas, however, while filled with abundant fish and seafood, important components in the Korean diet, are not friendly to navigation. The east coast on the Sea of Japan (or “East Sea” as the Koreans call it) has few good harbors and is cut off from the major population centers by rugged mountains. Navigation on the western Yellow Sea coast is made difficult by shifting sandbars and some of the world’s highest tides. Confined to a geographically well-defined peninsula with ample resources to support a fairly populous agricultural society Korea developed its own distinctive society and identity while borrowing heavily from China.

Korea is a modest-sized country surrounded by much larger neighbors: China, Japan, and Russia. The fact that it has been lodged between the im- portant and culturally rich Chinese and Japanese societies helps account

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4 Introduction

for the lack of attention its history has attracted. It has been difficult for Koreans to emerge from the shadow of their East Asian neighbors and to make their presence and their culture known to the rest of the world. Yet Korea, small as it seems next to its neighbors, is not all that small. The area of North and South Korea combined is 84,000 square miles, about the same as Utah. This sounds unimpressive, but it is also the same size as the United Kingdom and a little smaller than another peninsular society, Italy, which it roughly resembles in shape. In population today North Korea has about 23 million inhabitants and South Korea 47 million for a total of 70 million, a little larger than that of Britain, France, or Italy, and a little smaller than that of Germany.

Korea has been a part of an East Asian civilization centered in China. China was one of the earliest homes of agriculture, urbanization, state structures, and literacy. As long as three and a half millennia ago a culture emerged in northern China that was recognizably Chinese. This culture profoundly influenced its neighbors, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan, to the extent that the cultures of these societies can be viewed as offshoots of Chinese civilization. Literate states emerged first in Korea and then Japan in the early centuries of the first millennium CE. From China the Koreans received their writing system. Although in the fifteenth century the Ko- reans invented their own unique alphabet, Chinese characters were the main means of writing until the twentieth century. The Korean language borrowed much of its higher vocabulary from Chinese, much as English borrowed most of its educated vocabulary from Latin and Greek. Kore- ans then brought literacy farther eastward to their Japanese neighbors. Written classical Chinese was studied by all educated Koreans before the twentieth century, and it served as the means for communicating with their Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese neighbors.

China provided the model for literature, art, music, architecture, dress, and etiquette. From China Koreans imported most of their ideas about government and politics. They accepted the Chinese worldview in which China was the center of the universe and the home of all civilization, and its emperor the mediator between heaven and earth. Koreans took pride in their adherence to Chinese cultural norms. For most of the period from the seventh to the nineteenth century they accepted their country’s role as a subordinate member of the international hierarchy in which China stood at the apex, loyal adherents of Chinese culture such as Korea ranked next, and the barbarians outside Chinese civilization stood at the bottom. Close adherence to civilized standards was a source of pride. But this did not result in a loss of separate identity. On the contrary, in adapting Chinese culture to their own society Koreans defined their own cultural distinctiveness. Nor did Korea’s membership in the “tributary system” in which the Korean king became a vassal of the Chinese emperor mean that

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Introduction 5

Korea was less than fully independent, as was sometimes misunderstood by Westerners. In fact, Koreans were fiercely independent. Much of their history has been the story of resistance to outside intruders. Korea’s posi- tion as a tributary state was usually ceremonial, and for Koreans it did not imply a loss of autonomy. Chinese attempts to interfere in domestic af- fairs were met with opposition. Indeed, some today view the Korean past as a saga of the struggles of a smaller society to resist control or assimila- tion by larger, more aggressive neighbors: the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Inner Asian peoples that border them on the north, the Russians being the successors of the last.

Missionaries from China and Central Asia introduced Buddhism to Korea. For much of its history Korea was a Buddhist land. Millions of Koreans are still adherents to Buddhism, which until recently has been the most influential religious tradition. Buddhism originated in India from where it spread throughout most of Asia, coming to Korea via China. When it reached Korea it had absorbed a number of Chinese and other Asian traditions. Buddhism had a profound impact on Korean art, music, and literature. Buddhism inspired the earliest sculptures and the first monumental architecture other than tombs, and importantly, its missionaries brought literacy. It included the idea of reincarnation, that the suffering in life is inevitable, but escape from the cycle of births and rebirths is possible. For many Koreans it meant a hope for a future life of bliss through faith in the Buddha. It also taught a respect for all forms of life. Buddhist practices of meditation and the escape from daily concerns that temples provided were an important outlet for those who found the obligations and pressures of everyday life too strong.

Confucianism had an especially profound impact on Korean society, forming the basis for ethical standards and for ideas about govern- ment, society, and family relationships. Confucianism was a tradition of thought in China, a dynamic tradition that evolved over the centuries. It taught that the world was a moral universe, that all humans were con- nected to the universe and to each other. For Koreans it was important in that it made the family, and the roles and responsibilities of each member of the family, the foundation for morality. Each individual had the duty to adhere to his or her role as mother, father, son, daughter, elder brother, and so on. These relations were given cosmic significance. At a political level Confucianism emphasized the importance of loyalty, hierarchy, and authority. It made obedience to a ruler a moral duty and correctly carry- ing out rulership a moral obligation. It also influenced the Korean concern for social rank. Koreans viewed the world as a hierarchical order in which everyone has a place. The young were subordinate to their elders, women to men, commoners to members of the upper class, and subjects to the ruler. Yet in each of these relations both were bound by moral obligations.

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6 Introduction

While Buddhism and Confucianism came to Korea from China, the Korean love and respect for nature has indigenous origins. Koreans have looked to the natural world—the mountains, rivers, trees, rocks, flowers, animals, and seashores—as sources of artistic and spiritual inspiration. The changing of the seasons and the beauties of nature have always been among the most popular topics of painting, poetry, and song. Prominent features of nature, especially mountains, but also rocks, trees, and riv- ers, have been seen as sources of spiritual power. This took the form of directly worshiping the spirits of nature, spirits that were not personified as gods and goddesses but accepted as part of nature. Nature worship blended with geomancy, the belief imported from China that certain top- ographical settings are auspicious. The location of buildings, the layout of cities and towns, and the placement of graves, as well as architecture and everyday activities, took note of their natural settings.

While in general the Koreans adhered to Chinese models more closely than did the more distant Japanese, Chinese culture imports did not erase indigenous cultural traditions and beliefs. Shamanism and nature worship remained a strong component of religious life, particularly for the non-elite. Folk dances, folk art, and craft traditions drew upon do- mestic sources. Koreans often selectively borrowed and adapted from China. Korean homes, for example, with their heated paper floors, were unlike those of their neighbors. Their cuisine took on its own style, evolving into a highly spiced culinary tradition in sharp contrast to the blander fare of the northern Chinese and Japanese. The social system evolved differently from that of China. Korea retained a fairly rigid hi- erarchical tradition, with an aristocracy made up of families who often could trace their ancestries back many generations, in contrast to the Chinese ruling class with its greater social mobility and lesser stability. Yet the Korean aristocracy gradually moved from a warrior aristocracy to a civilian one that held military skills in contempt in contrast to the Japanese warrior elite. In many ways, such as ritual practices, marital customs, the role of women, the structure of the family, and the patterns of governance, Korean society provided a distinctive variant within East Asian civilization.

Another way Korean history was distinctive was its remarkable con- tinuity. From the seventh to the twentieth century only three dynasties ruled Korea. The second ruled for almost five centuries and the third for more than five centuries; both were among the longest-ruling dynasties in history. The two dynastic changes that did take place did not bring about a vast upheaval. Elite families as well as institutions were carried over from one dynasty to another. This, along with a Confucian concern for examining the past, contributed to a strong sense of historical conscious- ness among Koreans.

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Introduction 7

This history traces the origins and development of the Korean people and their culture from the varied tribal peoples who settled in the penin- sula to the two Koreas today. The first chapter deals with the origins of the Korean people, from the earliest human inhabitants to the emergence of indigenous literate states in the third century CE. The second chapter deals with the “Three Kingdoms” period, in which three states—Silla, Paekche, and Koguryŏ—competed for supremacy in the peninsula, and ends with the unification of most of the peninsula under Silla in the sev- enth century. The next six chapters deal with the evolution of Korean society and culture under a unified state structure. The third chapter examines developments during Late Silla (676–935); the fourth and fifth during Koryŏ (935–1392), the second dynastic state; and chapters 6, 7, and 8 survey the social, political, and cultural evolution of Korea during the third and longest dynastic state, Chosŏn (1392–1910). Chapter 9 looks at the entry of Korea into the modern world and the age of imperialism in the late nineteenth century and traces its loss of independence to Japan. The tenth chapter surveys the thirty-five-year period of colonial rule, from 1910 to 1945, and its impact on later Korean history. Chapter 11 nar- rates the division of Korea, the development of two separate regimes and the horrendous Korean War. Chapter 12 examines the evolution of North Korean society from the end of the Korean War in 1953 to the early 1990s. Chapters 13 and 14 cover South Korea’s development during this time. More attention is given to South Korea than to the North since not only does it contain a majority of the Korean people, its history is far better documented. Chapters 15 and 16 deal respectively with North and South Korea since the late 1980s.

To place Korean history into global perspective one or two short essays entitled “Korea in Global Perspective” appear at the end of each chapter. This is followed by one or more short primary sources. Korean names and terms are transliterated according the modified McCune-Reishauer sys- tem used by the Library of Congress and most English-speaking scholars (see appendix). Most dates for premodern Korea are based on the lunar (Chinese) calendar. Since the lunar calendar usually begins between mid- January and mid-February they may vary slightly with our solar calendar.

The remarkable continuity of Korea’s social and political history, its turbulent modern history, the creation of two Koreas, and the radically divergent paths they followed offer many insights for understanding economic, social, and political development. Korea is also an important part of the global community, with a rich and dynamic culture. That alone makes its history worthy of study.

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9

THE KOREANS

The Koreans today are one of the world’s most ethnically homogeneous peoples. In recent times there have been no significant ethnic or linguistic minorities. Ethnicity is a very difficult term to define, but language is simpler. All Koreans speak Korean as their native tongue, and all people who speak Korean as their first language identify themselves as ethnically Korean. No other language is known to have been spoken by any large group on the peninsula in recent centuries.

Korean is not closely related to any other language. Most linguists clas- sify it as related to Japanese and remotely related to the Altaic languages of Inner Asia, which include Mongolian, the Turkic languages, and the Tungusic languages such as Manchu. Korean shares a grammatical structure with Japanese and the Altaic languages. All are agglutinative, that is, one adds components to a root to form words that are often long. This linguistic relationship, if accurate, is often interpreted as meaning that the ancient ancestors of modern Koreans came from Central Asia and entered the peninsula through Manchuria, with some of them going on to occupy the Japanese archipelago. According to one current theory, the ancestral Koreans spoke Proto-Altaic, one branch of which evolved into the Tungusic languages and another into Proto-Korean-Japanese, which eventually became the modern Korean and Japanese languages.1 Korean shares many similarities in sentence structure with Japanese, and it is probable that the two languages are genetically related, but linguists differ on whether both languages are related to the Altaic languages. A

1

X

The Origins

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10 Chapter 1

recent linguistic theory places Korean and Japanese along with Ainu in its own language group and does not see a direct connection between this proposed Japanese-Korean-Ainu language family and those of any other. Genetic evidence lends some support for both theories. Analysis of Y-chromosome DNA suggests that at least some of the ancestors of Koreans entered from Manchuria and Northeast Asia, and that after a long period in the peninsula some of their descendents moved into Japan. The migration into Japan may have taken place 4,000 years ago. Koreans and Japanese share a cluster of genetic markers that is uncommon among other Asians. Whatever the origins of Koreans and their relations with their neighbors, in the 2,000 years of Korean history that can be supported with written records, no documented large-scale migrations of people into the peninsula took place.

Although most probably related to Japanese, the unusual sound system of Korean and most of its native vocabulary are very different. Korean consonants make a distinction between aspiration and nonaspiration, and between tense and lax sounds, but do not make phonemic distinc- tions between voiced and unvoiced consonants. This means that Korean has no initial b, d, hard g, or j sounds but has three p, three t, three ch, and three k sounds. This plus the complex system of sound changes makes it a difficult language for most nonnative speakers to pronounce. It is highly inflected and has no tones. Although modern Korean is filled with many Chinese loanwords it does not resemble Chinese at all. The distinctive- ness of Korean native vocabulary and phonology is a source of pride to some modern Korean nationalists who like to emphasize Korean unique- ness. For the historian it presents a linguistic puzzle, making it hard to trace Korean origins. It should be added that historians do not know much about how the language sounded before the invention of the Ko- rean alphabet in the fifteenth century and can only guess at its structure in ancient times.

EARLY INHABITANTS

Humans have lived on the Korean peninsula since very early times. Re- mains of Paleolithic hominids have been found at Kulp’ori in Unggi-gun in the extreme northeast of Korea that have been tentatively dated back 400,000 years. North Koreans have claimed to have found evidence of hu- man habitation as early as 600,000 years ago. Stone implements and evi- dence of the occupation of caves by Paleolithic people have been reported at a number of sites in South Korea. The dating of these early inhabitants is uncertain. It is also unclear if the peninsula was continuously inhabited

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since these early times. At the minimum, we can say that human activity in Korea goes back hundreds of thousands of years.

The search for the origins of Korean culture begins during the post- Pleistocene climatic optimum, 6000 to 2000 BCE. This period of warming climate roughly coincided with the early Neolithic period in Korea. Our chief source of information on Neolithic peoples in Korea comes from pottery. The earliest pottery is found on top of layers of pre-pottery sites. This, along with a continuity in the stone tools, suggests that the pottery cultures may have emerged from the preexisting cultures rather than be- ing the product of new peoples entering the peninsula.2 The earliest pot- tery dates back to perhaps 6000 BCE and is found in connection with shell middens along the Korean coasts. This early pottery is known as chŭlmun, or comb-patterned pottery (also known in Korean as pitsal munŭi), after the characteristic decorative pattern that consisted of incised parallel lines. The early forms show considerable regional variation. After 3500 BCE the classic chŭlmun emerged in the Han and Taedong River basins on the west coast. Regional variations in pottery remained. Along the east coast a flat-based pottery has been found, while on the south coast, pottery vessels are typically round-based vessels with wide mouths. The early cultures associated with these pottery remains appear to have had a subsistence base that was heavily dependent on fishing. In addition to shell middens, the importance of fishing is apparent from the abundant stone net sinkers and fishhooks that have been found at these early Neo- lithic sites.3

Villages associated with chŭlmun pottery resemble earlier ones, being small clusters of semisubterranean dwellings made by digging a pit into the ground and covering it with wood, mud, and thatch. A central hearth lined with stones provided heat. This was a practical adaptation to the climate, since the homes would likely be cool in summer and relatively warm in winter. The complex relationship between the peoples of the peninsula and their relationship with their regional neighbors China, Manchuria/Siberia, and the Japanese archipelago are apparent in this early period. Pottery in Korea shows some similarity to that of Japan and the Yellow Sea region of China. Some scholars have also noted some resemblances in regional Korean styles to Siberian pottery. Similarity in pottery styles suggests these early inhabitants of Korea were part of a larger complex of Northeast Asian peoples and cultures. Some scholars see a distinctiveness in the pottery of Korea from what has been found in either the Asian mainland or in Japan. Others, however, find the evidence for a distinctive Korean culture at such an early date unconvincing.

The chŭlmun period, which lasted until about 2000 BCE, is a period of transition from hunting, fishing, and gathering to agriculture as the basis

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of subsistence. To understand this transition, we can best see develop- ments in Korea as part of a worldwide change in human patterns of existence. About 10,000 years ago, people in various parts of the world shifted from economies based on specialized hunting with minor subsid- iary gathering of plants and some fishing to a broad-spectrum strategy for existence. This involved hunting a wider variety of game, including many smaller animals, and relying more on fishing and on plant collec- tion for food. In many parts of the world this was followed by the gradual domestication of plants and animals until societies became sedentary and once again specialized, relying on one to several species of cultivated plants or livestock. The reasons for this development remain somewhat mysterious, although the transition to agriculture is possibly related in some complex way to the end of the most recent glacial period about 10,000 years ago and the subsequent global warming.

Archaeological evidence shows Korea fitting very much into this pattern. During the Neolithic, the peoples of the peninsula lived by fishing; shellfish collecting; hunting deer, wild pigs, and oxen; and collecting wild plants. The forests of Korea, especially during the post- Pleistocene climatic optimum from 6000 to 2000 BCE, contained great bounties of edible plants: acorns, chestnuts, arrowroots, turnips, green onions, garlic, and Japanese camellia. The stone implements left behind show that these foods became increasingly important in the diet.4 In the fourth millennium, the beginnings of agriculture appear. Millet, native to Korea, was probably the first major domesticated plant, and by the end of the chŭlmun its cultivation was widespread, as was the domestication of the pig. Evidence for plant domestication is found in the existence of grinding stones, hoes, and stone sickles at archaeologi- cal sites. Agriculture is extremely important for historical development, for it makes possible dense populations of sedentary communities, transforms the landscape, and creates the possibilities for more com- plex forms of social organization to emerge. But agriculture developed slowly as the basis of subsistence, and settlements remained small. Hunting, fishing, and wild plant collecting were still important. The changes brought about by the chŭlmun peoples were laying the founda- tion for the future developments in Korea, but who these peoples were and what their relationship was to the peoples and cultures outside the peninsula or to the later Korean peoples are unclear. Early agriculture was probably introduced into the peninsula from what is now central and southern China, perhaps brought by migrations of people into Korea. A cluster of genetic markers has been linked with the spread of Neolithic agriculture from southern China to the rest of East Asia including Korea and Japan.

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THE AGE OF RICE FARMING BEGINS

Rice has been a staple crop in Korea for the past several millennia.5 Korea is well suited for rice cultivation. There are two main varieties of rice: Oryza sativa indica and Oryza sativa japonica/sinica, both of which were cultivated in the Yangzi basin in central China by the third mil- lennium BCE. Oryza sativa japonica/sinica is best suited for Korea, since it germinates and ripens at lower temperatures and is more resistant to cold weather. Rice can be grown on dry fields, but the best yields are in wet paddies. During earlier times, most rice was grown in dry fields, but after the sixteenth century wet rice farming emerged as the domi- nant form of agriculture in Korea. In wet rice farming, water is kept in small reservoirs or diverted from small streams to flow into fields. Rice seedlings are first planted in seedbeds and then transplanted into the main field. In Korea the transplanting is usually done in June just before the start of the summer monsoon season. Weather patterns in Korea are ideal for this type of rice cultivation. The summer monsoon brings most of the year’s rainfall, which amounts to about sixty inches a year in the southern areas and about fifty inches in the central Han River basin and declines further as the monsoon proceeds northward. Rice grows fast in Korea’s warm, humid, tropical-like summers and ripens in the bright, cloudless, dry autumns. Although there are no broad plains in Korea, the many river valleys provide rich alluvial soils, and the numerous streams that trickle down the mountainsides into the valleys make for a ready supply of water for the paddies.

A number of other crops, such as soybeans, barley, and millet, have been important components of the Korean diet, but rice occupies a place in the culture unrivaled by any other food source. The word for meal, pap, means “cooked rice.” Most Koreans from the beginnings of recorded history 2,000 years ago until the mid-twentieth century were rice farmers. The rhythms of rice production have been dictated by the planting and harvesting of rice. Rice production has been the prime determinant of the population distribution. The majority of Koreans in historical times have lived in the warmer and moister regions of southern and central Korea; the northern regions, less suitable for rice, have been less populated and more marginal. The elite derived their wealth primarily from their own- ership of good rice lands and their control over those that farmed them.

It is not yet clear when rice farming began in Korea. Between 2000 and 1500 BCE the chŭlmun pottery culture gave way to the mumun, or plain, pottery style, so named after the characteristic undecorated double-rimmed vessels. It was during this period that agriculture clearly emerged as the dominant way of life. During the early mumun culture,

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hunting, fishing, and foraging were still important, and archaeological evidence suggests that cultivation of rice was not extensive until the first millennium BCE, indicating not an abrupt change but a slow transition as the peoples of the peninsula adapted to rice farming.6 But by the late first millennium, a great transformation had taken place, as rice cultivation was beginning to be the basis for the Korean way of life, which it would continue to be until the twentieth century. The impact of rice cultivation on the peoples and cultures of Korea was profound. Rice cultivation made it possible to support dense populations. It bound this expanded population to the soil and to the seasonal rhythms associated with the cultivation of rice. Collecting wild plants, the planting of a variety of veg- etables, the raising of pigs and oxen, fishing, shellfish collecting, and the cultivation of barley and millet as secondary crops were also important, but only as supplements to rice farming.

Some archaeological evidence suggests that the early peoples of Korea were influenced by developments of China. Around 700 BCE, or perhaps a little earlier, the use of bronze began in Korea. Western scholars, im- pressed by the impact of technology on social and cultural change, have tended to regard the arrival of bronze tools and weapons as of epochal significance. In the case of Korea, however, the appearance of bronze knives and tools was in itself probably of only minor significance. During the Bronze Age, some graves are accompanied by bronze mirrors, dag- gers, and bells, which are sometimes found in stone cists. These would appear to be precious goods, setting off their possessors from those whose graves had simpler, more common stone burial possessions. Characteris- tic among Korean bronze artifacts are a dagger shaped like a pip’a (Chi- nese lute) and a multiknobbed mirror; both are found in adjacent areas of Manchuria, and the dagger is also found in Shandong and parts of north- ern China. Neither appears to be of Chinese origin, and these may be indicators of a broad Northeast Asia cultural zone.7 Interestingly enough, not a single bronze ritual vessel, which is characteristic of China’s Bronze Age, has been found in Korea. This suggests that although bronze metal- working most probably spread to Korea from China, where it developed around 1800 BCE, Korea remained culturally different from the Chinese mainland. Also interesting is the fact that bronze was not associated with state formation in Korea as it has been elsewhere. Despite efforts by some nationalist Korean historians to claim bronze artifacts as evidence of early states, it is unlikely that any organization above the tribal level existed at this time. Iron also probably came to the peninsula from China some- time before 300 BCE. Iron is important not only because it is superior to stone for cutting trees, clearing fields, and eliminating enemies, but also because it contributed to economic specialization and the development of trade. Both are key elements in the creation of complex societies.

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Another artifact that suggests Korea was part of a Northeast Asian cultural zone distinct from most of China is the megalith. About 10,000 dolmens have been found in Korea, most probably built in the first mil- lennium BCE. These are not unique to Korea but are found in Manchu- ria, northern Shandong Province of China, and northern Kyushu. They usually mark grave sites and consist of two basic types. The northern type, called t’akcha (table) style, has typically three or four stones cov- ered by a large stone; the southern paduk (Korean name for the game of go) type consists of a large capstone resting on a number of much smaller stones or directly on the ground. Less is known about them and the people who constructed them than is known about the more fa- mous megaliths in Western Europe. The construction of elaborate stone megaliths suggests formation of social stratification and of social units larger than simple villages. Presumably it took large numbers of people, more than would inhabit a small village, to construct the megaliths, and burials there would be for persons of high or important status.8 Many mysteries remain about the megaliths. For example, why do the artifacts found in stone cists and dolmens vary considerably? Do they represent different ethnic groups or social strata? If the latter, then why are bronze artifacts more likely to be found in the stone cists than in the more im- pressive dolmens?

Early peoples in Korea lived in small self-sufficient communities, originally hunting bands and later farming or fishing settlements. It was most probably only in the late first millennium BCE that larger political units were formed. By the middle of the second millennium BCE states appeared in northern China. The formation of states and later empires in the north of China had a profound impact on Korea. The emergence of early kingdoms in Crete and mainland Greece was influenced by the more ancient societies of Egypt and the Near East. Likewise, state formation in Northeast Asia—Manchuria, Korea, and Japan—occurred under the influence of the earlier and more complex societies of China. This, however, does not mean that Northeast Asian state formation was always and only the product of the direct impact of Chinese developments. For throughout the history of Korea cultural processes took place that were often very different from those in China, indicating a high degree of autonomous development based in part on cultural roots and ecological factors that were quite distinct. From the beginning of Korean history, proximity to the great Chinese civilization was one of the main determining factors in the evolution of Korean culture. Consequently, the absorption of Chinese cultural patterns and their adaptation to indigenous and non-Sinitic patterns have been a major part of the process that created a clearly definable Korean culture and society.

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SOURCES FOR EARLY KOREA

Our knowledge of the early Korean states comes from several sources: written records, archaeological evidence, and myths and legends. The earliest Korean written sources are inscriptions; the earliest of these dates from 414 CE. The most important written sources are two histories, the Samguk sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms) (see chapter 4) and the Samguk yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms) (see chapter 5). But these were compiled in 1145 and 1279 respectively, centuries after the events they describe. Although they are based on earlier sources that are no longer extant and remain extremely important for our understanding of ancient Korean history, their usefulness is greatly enhanced when they can be confirmed and supplemented by other sources. Chinese sources also bring considerable light to early Korean history. During the Han dynasty, the first great dynasty that unified all of China on a long-term basis (202 BCE–220 CE), the first detailed accounts of events on the Korean penin- sula appear. The most important of these are the Chinese history Shiji (Historical Record), written by Sima Qian around 100 BCE, and the Don- gizhuan (Account of the Eastern Barbarians) section of Sanguozhi (Record of the Three Kingdoms), compiled in 297 CE. The latter is probably the single most important contemporary document on ancient Korean history. Ar- chaeologists have also provided valuable information that is no less im- portant in understanding this period. And although it seems unlikely that major new written sources will be found, new archaeological evidence is providing a continuously better picture of early Korea.

Still another source is the myths and legends associated with this period. The study of myths for historical information is a difficult and controversial field, but it too can yield clues about the past. The most famous myth is that of Tan’gun. In this myth a celestial deity mates with a compliant bear that gives birth to Tan’gun (Sandalwood Prince), who in turn establishes the first Korean state of Chosŏn in 2333 BCE. While this story was not recorded until the thirteenth century, it is probably of much more ancient origin. It hints of animal totems; mountain worship, since most of the action takes place on a sacred mountain; and perhaps at the semidivine claims for early ruling families. In the twentieth century, the Tan’gun myth would be interpreted by nationalist writers as supporting claims for the antiquity and uniqueness of the Korean people.

CHOSŎN

An early recorded name associated with Korea is Chaoxian (Korean: Chosŏn). The name is derived from the Chinese characters chao, meaning

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“dawn” or “morning,” and xian, meaning “fresh” or “calm.” Often trans- lated in English as “Land of the Morning Calm,” it is one of the names Koreans call their country. The name comes from the geographic position of Korea in relation to China. Korea was to the east of China; hence it was an early morning country in the same way that Japan, still farther east, was later designated Riben (anglicized as Japan) or “sun origin” land.9 By the second century BCE, Chinese works such as the Zhanguoce (Strategies of the Warring States) and the Shangshu dazhuan (Commentary on the Esteemed Documents) refer to an area called Chaoxian. Although some later Korean histories would assert that the state was founded by Tan’gun in 2333 BCE, the earliest uncontested date for a political entity called Chosŏn is 109 BCE10 At that time, the Chinese, under Emperor Han Wudi, attacked and conquered Chaoxian, or Chosŏn. Almost everything about the origin and nature of this Chosŏn is obscure. It was likely to have been more a tribal federation than a state. Perhaps originally located in southern Manchuria, it fell after the Chinese besieged a fortress located in northern Korea, probably near P’yŏngyang.11 The people of the Chosŏn were most likely illiterate. Modern Koreans see ancient Chosŏn as an ancestor to their nation, but there is no clear evidence linking it with any particular ethnic group or culture. Its chief historical importance is that it brought the Chinese into direct involvement in Korea.

In 221 BCE the Qin unified all China for the first time, although only briefly. After 210 BCE the Qin Empire began to fall apart, and in the struggle for power that ensued Liu Bang emerged and reunified China, establishing the Han dynasty that lasted from 202 BCE to 220 CE, an empire comparable to its contemporary, the Roman Empire, in area and population. Liu created a number of wang (kings) to function as vassals; the king of Yan was one of these. In 195 BCE, the Yan king revolted and went over to the Xiongnu, a steppe nomad people. One of his lieutenants, Wiman (Chinese: Weiman), is recorded in the Shiji as having fled with 1,000 followers to Chosŏn, where the ruler Chun appointed him a frontier commander. Wiman, however, seized power with the aid of Chinese who had already settled in Chosŏn and set himself up as king. This occurred sometime between 194 and 180 BCE. His descendants ruled until 108 BCE.

Wiman and his successors probably served as foreign vassals of China, perhaps acting as middlemen between the tribal peoples in the area and the Chinese. But if this was so, Chosŏn’s relationships with China were often uneasy. It had become a place of exile for dissidents in the north- eastern part of the empire. The rulers of Chosŏn also blocked attempts by tribal groupings in the area to directly contact and trade with tribal peoples to the south. When the Han emperor Wu (141–87 BCE) sought to bring the frontier regions of his empire under direct control, he conquered this troublesome neighbor. During 109–108 BCE Emperor Wu launched

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a land and sea invasion. Following initial setbacks, the Chinese occupied the Chosŏn capital of Wanggŏm, and the last king, Ugŏ, a grandson of Wiman, was killed by his own ministers. For the next four centuries a northwestern part of the Korean peninsula was directly incorporated into the Chinese Empire, the first and only time the Chinese exerted direct rule in Korea.

THE CHINESE COMMANDERIES

The Chinese, having conquered Chosŏn, set up four administrative units called commanderies (Chinese: jun; Korean: kun). The Taedong River basin, the area where the modern city of P’yŏngyang is located, became the center of the Lelang (Korean: Nangnang) commandery. Three other commanderies were organized: Xuantu (Korean: Hyŏndo), Lintun (Korean: Imdun), and Chenfan (Korean: Chinbŏn). The locations of these commanderies are not altogether certain, but most likely Xuantu origi- nally was farther inland from Lelang, and Lintun was just south of it in the area inhabited by a people known as the Okchŏ. The site of Chenfan is less easy to determine but was probably south of Lelang. After Emperor Wu’s death in 87 BCE a retrenchment began under his successor, Emperor Chao (87–74 BCE). The remote Chenfan commandery was abandoned in 82 BCE, the Lintun commandery was merged with Xuantu in 75 BCE, and Xuantu in the same year was relocated farther east, most probably in the Yalu River basin. Thus, the history of the Chinese presence in Korea was mainly the story of Lelang and Xuantu, with the former being the more populous and prosperous of the two outposts of Chinese civilization.

The creation of the Chinese commanderies is important in the devel- opment of Korean history. It brought the peoples of the peninsula into direct contact with the advanced civilization of the Chinese, launching the process of the sinicization of the Korean peoples. With the establish- ment of the commanderies, the various peoples of the peninsula became involved in a web of trade and cultural ties that connected them with the vast empire of the Han. The Han Empire radiated out from its base in the North China Plain to the Yangzi and southward to Vietnam, and from the Pacific coast to the oases of Central Asia. Thus Korean history became a part of a larger history of East Asia.

These Chinese commanderies have been likened to colonies. However, the commanderies were not foreign territories, but were an integral part of the Han Empire, with the same administrative structure that character- ized the rest of China. The inhabitants included many Chinese settlers. Just how many is not known, nor is it possible to estimate the percentage of the population that was ethnically Chinese. In any case, a good deal

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The Origins 19

of intermarriage and cultural assimilation is probable. The Chinese pres- ence was not a sudden break in the history of the region, for Chosŏn had already absorbed Chinese refugees, and the ruling house of Chosŏn was, at least according to the recorded accounts, of Chinese descent. The Le- lang commandery produced textiles and fine Chinese ceramics locally. It imported silk, lacquerware, jade, and gold and silver jewelry, and the elite rode in carriages made from imported equipment. The way of life main- tained by the elite at the capital in the P’yŏngyang area, which is known from the tombs and scattered archaeological remains, evinces a prosper- ous, refined, and very Chinese culture.12 The existence of imported goods in large numbers from all over the Han Empire testifies to the prosperity of Lelang.

The prosperity of the commanderies was derived from trade. Lelang, and to a lesser extent Xuantu, sat in the center of a network of trade that incorporated the peoples of Manchuria and of northeastern Korea and the tribes in the southern peninsula, and even extended to the peoples and polities of the Japanese archipelago. Bronze mirrors, silk brocade, jade, vermillion, and gold seals from China were exchanged for the hardwood timber, fish, salt, iron, and agricultural produce of the region. Many of the imports into Lelang from the surrounding peoples were locally consumed, but the wealth of goods that were imported from the Chinese mainland suggests that any local products may have been re-exported to the rest of China. Many of these goods were of symbolic nature: caps, robes, seals, and precious items that were status goods enhancing the prestige and au- thority of native elites. This policy was termed heqin, “peace and kinship,” buying peace with nomadic and settled peoples along the frontiers with entertainments and sumptuous gifts.13 In the time-honored practice of successful imperialists, the Chinese extended their authority beyond the territory they physically occupied by incorporating surrounding indig- enous peoples into the imperial system. Tribal and clan leaders received prestige goods, along with Chinese titles and symbols of authority, and were able to engage in a profitable trade in return for their loyalty and cooperation. In this way, most of the peoples of Korea became tied to the Han Chinese imperial system.

Economic considerations may have entered into the original conquest; however, it seems clear that the primary concern was strategic, to protect the eastern flank of China’s northern frontier with often warlike and ag- gressive tribal peoples. Tribal leaders were required to come to the Xu- antu or Lelang capitals to “pay tribute,” that is, to trade and receive the caps, gowns, seals, and titles that were bestowed upon them by Chinese officials as vassals of the emperor. Throughout Korean history this use of the Chinese emperor as a source of authority would prove mutually ad- vantageous to the Chinese and to Koreans. In return, tribal leaders were

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called upon to aid in fighting other tribal groups beyond the control of the Chinese. In the southern part of the Korean peninsula, tribal groups appear to have generally been militarily less formidable and perhaps less organized. Their relationship with the Chinese may have been more ruthlessly exploitative, and tribute goods, food, timber, iron, and other resources may have been forcibly extracted from local peoples. But even if this was the case, the tribute relationship still held many of the same advantages for the elite groups among the southern peoples.

CHINESE COMMANDERIES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS: THE NORTHERN PEOPLES

Chinese sources from the time of the commanderies provide us with the earliest written descriptions of Korean societies and cultures. What is now Korea was inhabited by a confusing array of tribal groups that had not merged into a single culture. The Chinese sources refer to the Dongyi (the “Eastern Barbarians”), a general term for the non-Chinese people of the northeast region. According to the third-century Sanguozhi there were nine Dongyi: Puyŏ (Chinese: Fuyu), Okchŏ, Ŭmnu (Chinese: Yilou), Eastern Ye (Chinese: Hui), Koguryŏ (Chinese: Gaogouli), the three Han tribes of southern Korea, and the Wa of Japan. The actual classification of peoples is a complex matter, as different tribes were called by different names, peoples moved about, and groups split off from other groups. Trying to sort out these groups and their relationships to each other has been a problem for historians of early Korea.

Along the northern borders of the Chinese commanderies were several major groups, among which the Puyŏ were the first to be recorded by the Chinese. The Puyŏ, who attracted the notice of the Chinese in the third century BCE, lived in the plains and valleys of the upper Sungari River basin in central Manchuria. Although very much on the fringe of the Chi- nese world, they were influenced by Chinese culture and often served as allies against the warlike Koguryŏ, who lived south of them. They were not organized as a state but were ruled by tribal chiefs who apparently met to elect a supreme chieftain for all the Puyŏ. This Puyŏ tribal confed- eracy emerged by the second century BCE as the most powerful force in the region.

South of the Puyŏ lived the Koguryŏ, a people who according to the Chinese spoke a similar language and had similar customs but who dif- fered from the Puyŏ in their emotional and volatile temper. The Koguryŏ may have originally been a branch of the Puyŏ who settled farther into southern Manchuria in the region of the Yalu headwaters. Not only were they linguistically and culturally related to the Puyŏ, but their legends

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The Origins 21

as well suggest Puyŏ origins. Unlike the Puyŏ, the Koguryŏ appear in Chinese records only in 12 CE, by which time a long-standing client re- lationship had been established between them and the commandery of Xuantu. Living in marginal lands less suitable for agriculture than the fertile plains the Puyŏ occupied, the Koguryŏ were more dependent on hunting for their livelihood and maintained a more aggressive and war- like way of life that caused considerable concern for the Chinese. In fact, the principal function of the Xuantu may have been to attempt to control the Koguryŏ. The Koguryŏ were in frequent conflict with the Chinese after 12 CE, which no doubt accounts for the more negative assessment of them as an emotional and volatile people.

From 75 BCE to 12 CE the Koguryŏ paid tribute to the Chinese. Then they established a tribal federation, in the Hun River, a tributary of the Yalu; and the ruler began to call himself wang, or king, a sign that he no longer accepted subordinate status as a mere marquis but wished to be treated as the ruler of a sovereign state.14 The Koguryŏ began a territo- rial expansion that included establishing a suzerain relationship with the Okchŏ on the eastern coast of Korea. From there they launched frequent raids against their neighbors, including many clashes with the Chinese. Our information on the culture of the Koguryŏ in this period is limited. The religion of the Koguryŏ appears to have had an astral element similar to that of more nomadic steppe peoples from which they themselves were most probably descended. It also included a “Spirit of the Underground Passage,” and worship of rivers and other natural features. We also know that they were divided into five main tribes or clans: the Yŏnno, Chŏllo, Sunno, Kwanno, and Kyeru. The next several centuries saw the gradual evolution from a loose confederacy of these five tribes into a centralized state (see chapter 2).

In terms of the future history of Korea the Koguryŏ were by far the most important of the northern peoples; however, several other groups played an active role during this period. The Ŭmno were a people sub- ordinate to the Puyŏ who never organized themselves into a state. From their home in Manchuria, they conducted raids during the summer into northeastern Korea; the peoples along the coast appear to have been their chief victims. Famed as archers and as pig breeders, the Ŭmno were prob- ably less closely related to modern Koreans. They may have been related to the Suksin (Chinese: Suzhen), another people based in Manchuria who earned a reputation for their use of poison arrows. Two other groups that lived in what is now Korea were the Eastern Ye (Tongye) and the Ok- chŏ. The Puyŏ, Koguryŏ, the Okchŏo, and the Eastern Ye are collectively known as the Yemaek; most were associated with Manchuria as much as they were with the modern boundaries of Korea.

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CHINESE COMMANDERIES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS: THE SOUTHERN PEOPLES

To the south of Lelang were the Han tribes.15 Present-day South Koreans generally trace their ancestry to the Han tribes. In South Korea the of- ficial term for the Korean nation is Han’guk, “country of the Han.” Since they were farther away from the center of Chinese civilization, less was recorded about these peoples. Much of the knowledge we do have about them comes from the Sanguozhi, written at the end of the third century. It describes the Samhan (the three Han): the Mahan, the Chinhan, and the Pyŏnhan. These terms refer not to states or organized groups but to three related peoples that lived in different regions of Korea south of the Han River. Collectively their homeland roughly covered the area of modern South Korea. They were organized into petty statelets of varying size, ruled by chiefs. By the middle of the third century the Mahan inhabited the rich farmlands of the southwestern part of Korea, which have been the rice basket of Korea. Not surprisingly they were listed as the most numer- ous of the Han, constituting fifty-four of the statelets, what the Chinese called guo (countries). The guo varied in size. Some were reported as hav- ing up to 10,000 households, and the total number of households was said to be 100,000.16 The Chinhan, who lived in the middle and upper Naktong basin in southeast Korea, constituted twelve guo. Along the lower Nak- tong River basin and along the southeast coast were the Pyŏnhan, who also lived in twelve guo.

It would be inaccurate to regard the guo as states. Their small size and the lack of any clear archaeological evidence of organized states confirm the observations made by the ancient Chinese that the rulers of the guo were not wang. Most probably these were chiefdoms, that is, small polities ruled by hereditary chiefs who controlled at least a few villages but lack- ing any state administrative structure. Although most were farmers, an elite stratum existed who, the Chinese recorded, wore silk garments and leather shoes, in contrast to the common people, who wore hemp clothes and straw shoes. The elite were also fond of earrings and necklaces. The Mahan, who lived in earthen huts, were an agricultural people. As with most agricultural peoples they held festivals in the spring and at harvest time in which sacrifices were made. The Chinese sources describe the Ma- han as backward people who did not value horses or money. The Mahan traded with an island people called Hoju who lived on a large island in the western sea, perhaps referring to Cheju Island.

The Chinhan lived in settlements, the Chinese reported, enclosed by wooden stockades; they practiced sericulture and used oxen and horse carts. Of particular note is that they traded in iron, which appears to have been an important export from the southeastern region. The Chinhan

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The Origins 23

were reported to have been fond of dancing and drinking, an observation that has been made by many subsequent foreign observers to the Korean countryside. The Mahan and the Chinhan spoke the same (or similar) languages, but the Pyŏnhan, who shared the same dwellings and customs as the Chinhan, were said to have spoken a different language.17 The gen- eral assumption has been that the languages spoken by the Samhan were directly ancestral to the modern Korean language. And while there is no proof of that assertion, it seems a reasonable one. Thus in terms of eth- nicity and language the Samhan can be said to be early Korean peoples. Most lived in semisubterranean homes in little villages near river terraces where they were able to grow rice, barley, and other crops. These villages were likely to have been largely self-sufficient. Sustained contact with the Chinese commanderies was probably a key factor in stimulating organi- zational development among the people of the peninsula, especially the southern folk.

Further to the south of the Han were the T’amna of Cheju Island, cattle and pig breeders who spoke a language different from the Samhan. Far- ther still were the Wa peoples, long considered to be the earliest reference to the Japanese. The first contact with the Wa was in 57 CE, when an embassy arrived in Lelang. Another was recorded in 107, and four were recorded from 238 to 248. Evidence indicates that the Wa had close con- nections with the Pyŏnhan and probably imported iron from the Kimhae area. A regular trade between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago must have existed, since Korean and Chinese artifacts from this period are frequently found there. The Sanguozhi, the first detailed description of both the Samhan and the Wa, makes a clear distinction between the two peoples, whose customs are described as very different. Who were the Wa? In traditional accounts they are simply equated with the Japanese. It is highly unlikely, however, that a definable Japanese ethnic group existed at such an early date. Rather, the peoples of both the peninsula and the archipelago consisted of various tribal cultures. The Wa probably lived in western Japan and perhaps on both sides of the Ko- rean Strait. Just as tribal peoples in southern Manchuria and Korea over- lapped, so the peoples along the southern coast of Korea were probably linked with those of western Japan. Only later did separate and distinct Korean and Japanese peoples emerge.

POLITICS OF THE THIRD CENTURY

The fortunes of the Chinese commanderies fluctuated with those of the Chinese heartland. Toward the late second century the Han dynasty went into decline. In 220 CE, the Han Empire broke up into three states. Wei,

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the northernmost, controlled the North China Plain, the heartland region of ancient China and the region closest to Korea. As part of the efforts by the Wei to consolidate their power, they launched a series of campaigns against the belligerent peoples of the northeast from 238 to 245, which be- came one of the most impressive displays of Chinese power in the history of Korea. A main target of the campaign was Koguryŏ, which the Chinese defeated, destroying its capital in 244. The revival of Chinese authority, however, did not last long, and the Jin dynasty that temporarily reunited the Chinese Empire rapidly declined in the early fourth century. A civil war broke out in northern China in 301. In 311, the Xianbei, a steppe no- mad people, sacked the imperial Chinese capital, Luoyang. Six years later, the Jin relocated their capital to the lower Yangzi region and all effective administration in northern China collapsed. This inaugurated a period of Chinese history whose troubled nature is exemplified in the conven- tion of referring to it as the Period of the Five Dynasties and the Sixteen Kingdoms (317–589).

The Lelang and Taifang commanderies, the latter created south of Lelang, cut off from the rest of China by a series of nomadic intruders who had overrun northern China, continued a shadowy existence. By tradition, Lelang was conquered by a resurgent Koguryŏ in 313 and its southern outpost Taifang by the emerging kingdom of Paekche in 316. It appears, however, that some sort of rule by local Chinese elites continued well into the fourth century.18 After four centuries the Chinese presence in Korea disappeared. One reason for the lack of a continued Chinese presence was the geographic remoteness of Korea. The commanderies in Korea were distant outposts of the empire that could not be maintained in troubled times. With the withdrawal of China, the people of the Korean peninsula had several centuries to develop their societies without direct Chinese intervention. It was during these centuries that the first literate indigenous states emerged.

KOREA IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: 5,000 YEARS OF HISTORY

Modern Koreans have been proud of their “5,000 years” of history. A rather arbitrary figure based on the idea that their history began with Tan’gun in the third millennium BCE. In proclaiming an ancient national lineage, they resemble other twentieth-century nationalists, from the Chinese, with their “4,000 years of history,” to the Turkish historians of the 1920s and 1930s, who established a new national history tracing the Turkish nation to earliest antiquity.

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The Origins 25

How old is Korea? The question cannot be answered because it sup- poses that the modern concept of Korea, of a nation of people with a com- mon heritage and a common destiny living as an autonomous unit within a global community of nations can be connected back in time in linear fashion. But this is misunderstanding history. Korea, although politically divided today is still thought of as one nation by the people of North and South Korea. As a state that has occupied most of the Korean Peninsula, it has existed since 676, making it one of the oldest continuous political units in the world. No modern state in Europe, and few if any in Africa or in Southwest and Southeast Asia, can be so clearly traced in recogniz- able form from such an early period as this. Only China and Japan are comparable. China, far older, was a vast multiethnic empire rather than a geographically compact state. Yet all the historical evidence suggests that no distinctive “Korean” ethnic group or culture existed before this, and even after political unity in 676 there is no clear evidence that all within the state shared the same language and identity. Moreover, the cultural and ethnic boundary between peninsular Korea and Manchuria was still a blurred one at best.

It is a common tendency for modern peoples to project their strong sense of national identity further back into the past than can be reason- ably supported by historical evidence. While Koreans can justifiably point to a long history as distinctive peoples existing within a single political framework, when they interpret the varied peoples and polities that existed in ancient times as “Koreans” in the modern sense, they too are projecting their own identity on the past in an unrealistic manner.

I

The Tan’gun Myth The Wei shu tells us that two thousand years ago, at the time of Em- peror Yao, Tan’gun Wanggŏm chose Asadal as his capital and founded the state of Chosŏn. The Old Record notes that in olden times Hwanin’s son, Hwanung, wished to descend from Heaven and live in the world of human beings. Knowing his son’s desire, Hwanin surveyed the three highest mountains and found Mount T’aebaek the most suitable place for his son to settle and help human beings. Therefore he gave Hwanung three heavenly seals and dispatched him to rule over the peo- ple. Hwanung descended with three thousand followers to a spot under a tree by the Holy Altar atop Mount T’aebaek, and he called this place the City of God. He was the Heavenly King Hwanung. Leading the Earl of Wind, the Master of Rain, and the Master of Clouds, he took charge

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of some three hundred and sixty areas of responsibility, including agriculture, allotted life spans, illness, punishment, and good and evil, and brought culture to his people.

At that time a bear and a tiger living in the same cave prayed to Holy Hwanung to transform them into human beings. He gave them a bundle of sacred mugworts and twenty cloves of garlic and said, “If you eat these and shun the sunlight for one hundred days, you will as- sume human form.” Both animals ate the species and avoided the sun. After twenty-one days the bear became a woman but the tiger, unable to observe the taboo, remained a tiger. Unable to find a husband, the bear- woman prayed under the altar tree for a child. Hwanung metamor- phosed himself, lay with her, and begot a son called Tan’gun Wanggŏm.

[Tan’gun later was often considered the first Korean and/or founder of the first Korean state. This account goes on to say that in the “fiftieth year of the reign of Emperor Yao,” on a date calculated as October 3, 2333 BCE, Tan’gun was said to have established the state of Chosŏn. This date has become a national holiday in South Korea. Koreans today often refer to the “5,000 years of Korean history,” a phrase based on this legendary date.]

—from the Samguk yusa 1:33–3419

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27

The fourth century is an important period for Korean history. It was a time when the welter of peoples, polities, and imperial outposts that had characterized Korea was replaced by three large, well-developed states: Koguryŏ, Paekche, and Silla. The next three centuries saw the de- velopment of Korean society and culture within the frameworks of these three states and their struggle for the mastery of the peninsula.

The term Three Kingdoms is somewhat misleading, for in addition to Silla, Koguryŏ, and Paekche, there were a number of small states in the southeast that are collectively known as Kaya, and Puyŏ. However, the states of Kaya failed to consolidate themselves into a centralized politi- cal unit and as a result were swallowed up one by one by their northern neighbor Silla, a process that was completed in 562 CE, while Puyŏ disap- peared earlier, in 494. For about a century there were only three states on the peninsula. In 660, Silla and its Chinese ally conquered Paekche, and in 668 Silla and the Chinese destroyed Koguryŏ. Silla then drove the Chi- nese out of southern Koguryŏ and by 676 emerged as the sole peninsular power.1 The origins of the three kingdoms are somewhat obscure. The traditional dates for the founding of the Three Kingdoms as recorded in the Samguk sagi, the oldest extant Korean history, are 57 BCE for Silla, 37 BCE for Koguryŏ, and 18 BCE for Paekche. And these dates are dutifully given in many textbooks and published materials in Korea today, but their basis is in myth; only Koguryŏ can be traced back to a time period that is anywhere near its legendary founding.

2

X

The Period of the Three Kingdoms,

4th Century to 676

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28 Chapter 2

THE EMERGENCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS

The Koguryŏ peoples, most probably a branch of the Puyŏ, were living in the Hun River basin just north of the Yalu from 75 BCE to 12 CE. The early Koguryŏ kingdom was more of a tribal federation than a centralized state. From 12 to 207 CE it was independent of China, and it was a formidable military power that conducted frequent raids on its neighbors. In 207, af- ter suffering a series of retaliatory attacks by the Liaodong commandery, Koguryŏ relocated to the Yalu valley. Its leaders set up a stone-walled capital at Hwando (Chinese: Wandu) in the Tonggou region of what is now Jilin Province in Manchuria. From there the kingdom expanded to the mouth of the Yalu, gaining an access to the Yellow Sea. When China in the third century became divided into three rival dynasties, Koguryŏ carried out diplomatic relations with the southern dynastic rivals of the northern Chinese state of Wei. In retaliation the Wei state of north China destroyed the capital in 245. After disappearing from the histori- cal record, Koguryŏ reemerged as a strong state during the reign of King Mich’ŏn (reigned 300–330).2 The rise of Koguryŏ at this time coincides with the decline of Chinese power in the region, and the two are no doubt related. Koguryŏ’s rise was probably aided by the fact that it was able to move into a power vacuum that existed at the time.

Paekche emerged from the area of the Mahan in southwestern Korea. According to tradition, it was founded in 18 BCE by the two sons of Chumong, Onjo and Piryu, who were given some land by the Lord of Mahan. Onjo then became the first king of this new state, and his descen- dants ruled until 660 when the last king, Ŭija, was defeated by his Silla rivals and their Chinese allies. The foundation legend places the found- ing of Paekche much too early; nonetheless, many historians assume that Paekche grew out of one of the fifty-four guo mentioned in the Sanguozhi, although the ruling family may have been of Manchurian Puyŏ origin. Evidence suggests that there may have been a migration into the Mahan region by some Puyŏ or related Manchurian peoples; however, the links between the Paekche and Puyŏ are not well understood. Whatever its origins, unlike Koguryŏ, Paekche appears rather suddenly in the histori- cal records with the reign of Kŭnch’ogo (r. 346–375), who ruled a state that inaugurated diplomatic relations with the Chinese state of Jin in 372. The first capital of Paekche was Hansŏng, believed to have been in the Han River area.3 This served as the capital until 474. The inhabitants of Paekche were probably ethnically and linguistically Han and thus more closely related to the people of Silla and Kaya than to Koguryŏ or Puyŏ. But it is hard to untangle the ethnic and tribal links between the peoples within the peninsula and the peoples in Manchuria and the Japanese ar- chipelago at this time.

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The Period of the Three Kingdoms, 4th Century to 676 29

The emergence of the Paekche kingdom coincides with the crumbling of Chinese power in Northeast Asia. The Chinese appear to have con- ducted a divide-and-rule policy in the peninsula, bestowing honors and status on local chieftains but intimidating them from extending their power. The collapse of Chinese authority led to a power vacuum, in which indigenous polities were left to contend for mastery of the region. In the decades after 290, when the Chinese position in Korea began to decline, consolidation of Korean states proceeded rapidly, with Koguryŏ in the north making a strong revival after 300. Quite possibly the rise of Paekche begins at this time as well.

Located in the southeastern part of the peninsula farthest from direct contact with China, Silla was last to receive influences from the continent, and its institutional development showed a time lag compared with Koguryŏ and Paekche. But Silla was the state that unified most of the Ko- rean peninsula and whose language, customs, and institutions dominated the subsequent historical development of Korean society and culture. The Silla state began in the Kyŏngju basin, a small fertile area sheltered by surrounding hills. The nucleus of the state was Saro, one of the twelve Chinhan guo. According to tradition, Silla was founded in 57 BCE by Pak Hyŏkkŏse, who was miraculously born from an egg. His name Pak was perhaps derived from palk, meaning “bright,” since sunlight shone from his body. In the recorded legend, Saro prior to Pak had been made up of six villages. It was their headmen who unanimously chose this strange youth as their leader.4 Subsequently, the villages were under his united rule. The date 57 BCE is far too early for the likely founding of the Silla state. It is of symbolic importance for later Silla historians who established this traditional chronology because it makes their state older than its two neighbors. The date itself is derived by counting back twelve sixty-year cycles (these cycles were the principal unit of measuring years in East Asia) from 663 CE, the year that Paekche was finally destroyed.

The legend does suggest that Saro was formed by a voluntary union of the six villages/descent groups: Kŭmyang, Saryang, Ponp’i, Maryang, Hanji, and the Sŭpp’i. The Pak kings came from the Kŭmyang, and the queens, starting with Pak Hyŏkkŏse’s bride, Aryŏng, came from the Sary- ang. This legend would appear to hint that the founder of Saro or at least its first major ruler was an outsider, since he arrived mysteriously when an egg was discovered. His supernatural birth could also be a means of justifying the elevated status of the later rulers of Silla, since they could lay claim to being descendents of no ordinary men. The Paks, however, were not the sole ruling family, for the Sŏk and the Kim families supplied rulers as well. The Sŏk founder was also born from an egg and is re- ported to have come from the east coast. When in the fourth century Silla emerges as a fully historical state, the ruling family was from the Kim

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descent group and would remain so until the tenth century. Several mil- lion Koreans today claim membership in this royal Kim descent group (the Kyŏngju Kim). The Kim rulers chose their consorts from the Pak family.

The first fully documented ruler of Silla was Naemul (r. 356–402), who held the title of maripkan, a word that denotes an elevated ridge.5 In 377, Silla is recorded as having sent envoys who accompanied a Koguryŏ em- bassy to the former Qin rulers of northern China. It is not clear, however, how far state development had proceeded in Silla at this time, or to what extent it ruled or dominated the former Chinhan territories. The adoption of a new title (previous Silla rulers are said to have called themselves isagŭm, “successor princes”), and its active role in international politics, would suggest that Silla was undergoing a new phase in its history. Most probably Silla was still in the process of completing its consolidation of the former Chinhan guo in the late fourth century. As it did so, it began as- sociating itself with Koguryŏ and competing with Paekche and the Kaya states for mastery of the entire Samhan region, roughly the region that makes up what is now South Korea.

The fourth century also saw the emergence of a loose federation of small states collectively known as Kaya. The Kaya states may have evolved out of the Pyŏnhan peoples who inhabited the fertile middle and lower Naktong basin and the southeast coast. They actively engaged in commerce and iron production. Despite their prosperity and apparent commercial sophistication, the Kaya states were never consolidated into a large kingdom. The price they paid for this was their gradual annexa- tion and absorption by Silla. Yet, Kaya had a distinctive culture that ex- erted considerable influence on its neighbors, as illustrated by its pottery, which became the basis for both Silla pottery and Japanese sue ware, as well as the kayagŭm, a kind of zither that is still one of the most popular of traditional Korean musical instruments. There were six main loosely confederated Kaya polities. The two most important were Pon Kaya (Original Kaya) and Tae Kaya (Greater Kaya). Pon Kaya, also known as Kŭmgwan Kaya, was located near Kimhae. Iron slags dating to at least the first century BCE testify to the long importance of this area as a center of commerce and industry. Tae Kaya was located in the rich farmlands of the middle Naktong River valley.

The origins of the Kaya states are best known from the eleventh- century work Karak kukki. In the legend it records, the kings of the Kaya states emerged from golden eggs that descended from heaven to Mount Kuji (Turtle Mountain) during a festival. This occurred as local chief- tains sang a song about a turtle at the command of a strange voice from the mountain. As with Silla, we have dynastic founders emerging from supernatural origins (eggs again).6 The Kaya had close connections with the Wa of Japan, probably involving trade based on the Kaya area’s rich

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The Period of the Three Kingdoms, 4th Century to 676 31

iron deposits. Recent archaeological excavations of the royal tombs of Tae Kaya reveal a wealthy state. The size of the mounded tombs and the considerable wealth of the royal family indicate a highly developed soci- ety where the kings were not merely local chieftains but rulers of exalted status with considerable power to command labor and resources.7 The fertile rice land, the existence of iron deposits, and its location on an an- cient trade route that reached from central Japan to northern China were the sources of this wealth. Despite their prosperity, the Kaya states were too small to remain viable political entities. Consequently, they fell victim to an expanding Silla that absorbed Pon Kaya in 532 and Tae Kaya in 562.

THE WA AND THE MIMANA

Another political presence in fourth-century Korea was the Wa. If little is known for certain about the formation of states in Korea before the late fourth century, even less is known about what transpired in Japan. The peoples of Japan were an important factor in northeast Asian politics even in this early period, yet information about them is sparse and almost any- thing that is said is bound to be caught up in controversy. Both the Japanese and Korean peoples are proud of their uniqueness and concerned about their origins. Furthermore, the bitter legacy of Japan’s twentieth-century conquest of Korea has made the study of the relationship between the two peoples an emotionally laden topic. In the late nineteenth and early twen- tieth centuries Japanese expansionists cited the evidence that Wa peoples were in Korea to support their claims that in ancient times Korea was ruled by Japan. Much of this was based on the existence of the territory of Mi- mana, also identified with Kaya. According to the eighth-century Japanese history Nihon shoki (The Chronicles of Japan), Empress Jingu in the fourth century conquered a region in southern Korea and set up the Mimana ter- ritory, which was administered by a Japanese official. Later the territory was turned over to Yamato’s ally Paekche and then lost to Silla. Japanese imperialists used this historical claim to justify imperialist expansion into the peninsula. When the Japanese annexed Korea in 1910 they could claim to be “restoring” the ancient unity of the two countries.

Most historians today regard the story of Empress Jingu’s conquests with skepticism, and many question whether Mimana ever existed at all. Some scholars have suggested that rather than Japanese peoples con- quering Korea, horse riders from the peninsula invaded and subdued the peoples of Japan.8 The “horse rider theory” has been used to account for the appearance of weapons, armor, and tomb decorations found in Japan from the fourth and fifth century that are similar to those found in Korea. More likely, the peoples on both sides of the Korea Straits were related and interacted with each other.

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32 Chapter 2

Evidence suggests that between 300 BCE. and 300 CE large numbers of peoples migrated from the Korean Peninsula to the Japanese archipelago, where they introduced rice agriculture, bronze and iron working, and other technologies. Thus rather than the existence of Korean and Japanese peoples there was a continuum of peoples and cultures. The Wa of west- ern Japan, for example, may have lived on both sides of the Korean Straits, and they appeared to have close links with Kaya. It is even possible that the Wa and Kaya were the same ethnic group. The fact that Japanese and Korean political evolution followed similar patterns is too striking to be coincidental. On both sides of the straits the collapse of Chinese author- ity at the end of the third century and in the early fourth century was followed by the formation of large and durable states. In Japan the rise of Yamato apparently began during or shortly after the formation of the three kingdoms. Its rise was probably related to influences, and possibly migrations, from the peninsula. Northeast Asia formed an interacting and intermingling complex of peoples and cultures. The task of historians to sort out the links and patterns within this complex has been made more difficult by the strong nationalist sentiments that prevail in the region to- day, and by the tendency to project modern notions of national and ethnic identity anachronistically onto these early times.

Thus, by the second half of the fourth century a number of clearly de- fined states emerged. These are no longer tribal units or chiefdoms but strong centralized states that were ruled by kings who governed through administrative officials and who were cut off from ordinary subjects by their supernatural origins and their exalted status. They possessed considerable territory and something else as well: literacy. For in the confusion that entailed the fourth-century collapse of Chinese authority north of the Yangzi River valley, Chinese scribes and officials found their way into the courts of these “barbarian” states. They supplied a veneer of sinicization (Chinese cultural influence) as they tutored their masters in the use of Chinese characters, a development that would ensure that these newly rising states and their successors would have the means of sophisticated recordkeeping that is needed by advanced civilizations. The use of Chinese characters as the basic form of writing also meant that the Korean people would be linked by a shared written medium with the civilization of China.

KOREA AND NORTHEAST ASIA IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES

The fourth-century events of the Korean peninsula developed in the larger context of Northeast Asia and beyond. For reasons that historians

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The Period of the Three Kingdoms, 4th Century to 676 33

are still trying to determine, the fourth century was a period of profound upheavals in much of Eurasia. In Europe, the Roman Empire, weakened by demographic and economic decline, split into two halves, abandoned its traditional panoply of gods, and adopted a new religion of other- worldly salvation: Christianity. In the next century it saw its western half crumble and lapse into semibarbarism. The other great Eurasian empire, the Chinese, similarly went into economic and military decline and saw half its empire, the northern half, collapse under the strain of nomadic invaders who, like their European equivalents, set up a number of ephemeral semibarbarian successor states. And the Chinese too accepted a foreign religion of otherworldly salvation: Buddhism.

The collapse of the Chinese imperial authority in the north gave the pen- insular peoples breathing space for purely indigenous forces to come into play; this led to the rise of large-scale centralized native states. The process was assisted by the diaspora of Chinese who, fleeing turmoil in north China or its Northeast Asian commanderies, took refuge in the newly emerging Korean kingdoms. Korean rulers, in turn, sought the skills of the Chinese as a means of strengthening their own states. Although there was no direct Chinese intervention into Korea for several centuries, all three states sought trade and diplomatic support from the various states of divided China during this period. They were also greatly influenced by Chinese culture. The chief avenue for Chinese influences was Buddhism. Buddhist missionaries from China converted all three kingdoms. In 372, the former Qin sent a monk, Sŏndo, to introduce Buddhism to the Kogu- ryŏ court, and Buddhism became a state religion. Buddhism was adopted by Paekche in 384 when the Jin state of China sent the Indian monk Ma- rananda to the Paekche court. In more remote Silla, another century and a half would pass before the rulers converted to Buddhism.

Koguryŏ was a Manchurian-based power that moved into the penin- sula in the fifth century. Under Kwanggaet’o (r. 391–413), Koguryŏ won an impressive series of victories known chiefly through the Kwanggaet’o Inscription, a stele put up by his son and successor Changsu (r. 413–491) in 414 to commemorate his father’s achievements.9 This is the earliest dated Korean inscription. Kwanggaet’o defeated the Murong tribal peo- ple that had emerged as a power in Manchuria; expanded his domain to the Liao River; conquered the Yilou, a tribal people in the northeast; and captured 64 walled towns and 1,400 villages. He also boasted of inflicting a defeat on the Wa. Kwanggaet’o, whose name means “broad expander of the realm,” took on a reign name, Yŏngnak (“Eternal Rejoicing”), an act that symbolically placed him on terms of equality with the rulers of China, since in Chinese practice only the Chinese emperor could hold a reign title. His successor, Changsu (“Longed Lived”), moved the Koguryŏ capital from the Yalu to P’yŏngyang on the Taedong River in 427, and

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thus planted the center of the kingdom firmly in the Korean peninsula. This provided Koguryŏ with a large area of fertile rice lands as a reli- able economic base. Changsu continued to press southward, and in 474 Paekche was forced to move its capital from Hansŏng on the Han River south to Ungjin (modern Kongju) in the Ch’ungch’ŏng region. Koguryŏ then gained control of the Han River basin.

The expansion of Koguryŏ threatened the survival of the southern states and led to the alliance between Paekche and Silla in 433. The next 120 years was largely the drama of Paekche and Silla fighting the attempts at further southern encroachments by Koguryŏ. Despite this alliance, Paekche, which experienced the main brunt of the Koguryŏ advance, suf- fered a series of setbacks, including the death of King Kaero (r. 455–474) in battle as Changsu took Hansŏng. But by the sixth century it was Silla that began to go on the offensive. The period from the middle sixth century until 676 saw Silla’s emergence as master of the Korean peninsula.

CULTURE AND SOCIETY OF THE THREE KINGDOMS

During the period from the late fourth to the mid-fifth century, a process of political and cultural change occurred in each of the Three Kingdoms. Selectively borrowing from the states that ruled China, the Korean states carried out administrative reforms, adopted Buddhism as a state- protective cult, and acquired bits of Chinese cultural forms and learning. Chinese models were adopted because these were the only models of state organization available to the peoples of the region. These proved useful to the growth of state power and appealed to the elites as forms of cultural enrichment. Yet Chinese culture was introduced to Korea at a time when China itself was politically weak and divided and much of the northern heartland was ruled by alien dynasties of Inner Asian origin. Chinese states were useful sources of cultural ideas and practices, but during this period of political disunity in China they were not in a position to threaten the existence of the Korean states. Nor was there any great empire with universalistic pretensions and the ability to dazzle its neighbors with cultural brilliance or intimidate them with military might. As a result, the process of state building during the Three Kingdoms period was largely an indigenous development, and Chinese cultural borrowing was done on a purely voluntarily basis. A process of sinicization occurred, but the native institutions and cultural forms were still dominant in this period.

Another feature of this time was the armored mounted warrior. In East Asia, the appearance of these horse-riding warriors with coats of bone or iron, similar to the medieval knights of the West, began around the fourth and fifth centuries. Impressive bone armor has been discovered

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The Period of the Three Kingdoms, 4th Century to 676 35

in Paekche and elaborate iron armor has been uncovered in Kaya dating from at least the fifth century.10 Surviving depictions of Korean warriors show them formidably outfitted in armor and deer antler helmets. Ar- mored warriors fought for all three kingdoms, and this style of warfare spread to Japan, where it formed the basis for the elaborately attired horse warrior of medieval Japanese samurai lore.

The earliest of these three kingdoms, Koguryŏ, was a society dominated by a warrior aristocracy. Rulers and high-ranking nobility built elaborate tombs during this time, which are one of the main sources of informa- tion about this period. Most of Koguryŏ’s tombs have been looted, but tomb paintings provide some information about this society. One of the best-known of these is the Ssangyŏng-ch’ong (Tomb of the Twin Pillars) that depicts broad streets, and rouge-faced ladies dressed in skirts and three-quarter-length coats engaged in conversation with upper-class men. Other tombs show hunters, mounted archers, dancers, and wres- tlers engaged in what appears to be an early form of ssirŭm, Korean-style wrestling. Paintings show people in the kinds of activity expected to be found in a warrior aristocracy: horse-riding, hunting, vigorous sports, and warfare. This artistic style, so different from later Korean art, shows less Chinese influence; instead it shares more traits with the art of the peoples of Central Asia, Manchuria, and Siberia. The murals, such as those in the Tomb of the Four Spirits in South P’yŏngyang Province, which contains pictures of a dragon, tiger, phoenix, tortoise, and snake, were probably of religious and cosmological significance. Interestingly, tomb paintings show little Buddhist influence. The name of one Koguryŏ artist, Tamjing, who went to Japan, has been recorded, but generally the producers of some of the most splendid works of art in Korean history are anonymous. The Koguryŏ are recorded to have been fond of music and dance. The most renowned of Koguryŏ musicians was Wang San-ak, master of the hyŏnhakkŭm (black crane zither), a modified Chinese seven- string instrument.

Buddhism was the official state religion, but its influence on Koguryŏ society was initially limited as indicated by the tomb murals. By the sixth century, however, the dominant Vinaya (Rules) school of Buddhism had become a major institution that provided learned advisors to Koguryŏ rulers. In the sixth century, Koguryŏ was able to act as a point of disper- sal for the spread of Buddhism. In 551, a Koguryŏ monk was appointed by the king of Silla to head that kingdom’s monastic organization, and in 594, the monk Hyeja went to Japan, where he became an advisor to Prince Shōtoku (573–621). A generation later, in 628, the monk Hyegwan introduced the important Samnon (Three Treatises; Japanese: Sanron) school of Buddhist philosophy to Japan. No Koguryŏ Buddhist temples have survived, but a gilt bronze statue of Tathagata Buddha and a gilt

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bronze half-seated Maitreya testify to the high level of Buddhist art that flourished by the sixth century.

Koguryŏ gradually adopted elements of Chinese culture in a pattern that Paekche and Silla repeated. To promote learning and train govern- ment clerks, an official academy, the T’aehak, was established in 372, where the curriculum included the study of Confucian learning. This is the first known center where Confucianism was studied in Korea. The Han histories Shiji and Hanshu (Book of Former Han) were studied as well as the Chinese literary anthology the Wenxuan (Literary Selections). Knowl- edge of the Chinese literary tradition may not have been very deep or pro- found, but the aristocratic class had some exposure to it. Little is known of the popular religion or customs except that the tenth lunar month was a time of harvest festivals, as it was in all three kingdoms. Although the ar- istocracy practiced Buddhism, it probably remained only a marginal part of the spiritual life of the people, who sought shamans rather than monks when dealing with the supernatural. One Koguryŏ institution worthy of notice was the kyŏngdang, communal bodies of unmarried men, presum- ably of aristocratic background, who were organized in each locality, trained in archery, and given instruction in Chinese texts.

Paekche, too, was a state dominated by a warrior aristocracy and a monarch who had by the end of the fourth century developed a cen- tralized administration. As with the case of Koguryŏ, much of what we know of Paekche culture comes from the tombs of Paekche rulers and high-born aristocrats. Paekche tombs show a strong affinity with those of Koguryŏ that may be due to the fact that both were derived from the Puyŏ or perhaps from the geographic proximity of Paekche to Koguryŏ. By the fifth century, large mounded tombs with horizontal passageways leading to stone-walled high-ceilinged burial chambers were constructed. Since these proved rather easy to pillage, the contents have long since been looted. The discovery of the undisturbed Tomb of Muryŏng (r. 501–523) in the 1970s near Kongju, however, provides a glimpse of the splendid and refined culture of the Paekche kingdom. The tomb murals are more refined and less animated than those of Koguryŏ. They were a product of a gentle culture more removed from the rough nomadic influences of Manchuria and Central Asia and in closer con- tact with the maritime courts of southern China. Paekche bronzes, with their thin, elongated bodies, are perhaps the most famous product of the kingdom’s artistic tradition. The best example is the Kudara (Paekche) Kannon in the Hŏryūji Temple in Nara, Japan. The cultural high point of Paekche is considered the reign of King Sŏng (r. 523–553). It was at this time that the famous Paekche mission to Japan took place (either in 538 or 552) that has traditionally been credited with introducing Buddhism to that country.

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The Period of the Three Kingdoms, 4th Century to 676 37

Buddhism played the same role in Paekche as it did in Koguryŏ, as a state-protective cult patronized by the court. The most influential form of Buddhism before the seventh century was Vinaya, which emphasized monastic discipline and, as its meaning (“rules”) implies, systematic organization. The Vinaya-trained monks offered an array of practical in- formation about administration, law, and systematic procedure as well as knowledge of literacy and the traditions of other lands. This was a valu- able aid to early Korean rulers as they attempted to consolidate their rule and strengthen their states.

Our knowledge of Buddhist architecture in the Three Kingdoms period is limited, but we do know that Paekche pagodas were highly regarded in medieval times. Of the many Buddhist temples that must have dotted the landscape only a few stone pagodas remain; the most famous was the Nine Story Wooden Pagoda of the master craftsman Abiji that was de- stroyed by the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century. As with Kogu- ryŏ, it is questionable how deeply the influence of Buddhism penetrated among the peasant majority, but at least among the court it was profound. Paekche king Pŏp (r. 599–600) went so far as to ban killing animals and hunting. He ordered the release of all domestic animals and the destruc- tion of hunting weapons. Not surprisingly, he was soon deposed. It is clear, however, that by the end of the fifth century Buddhism as a way of life was being taken seriously by some.

Although the last to emerge in recorded annals, Silla is today the best known of the Three Kingdoms, for it was Silla that unified the peninsula and implanted its language and culture as the dominant element in the evolution of Korea. Most of our knowledge of this period comes from histories written by later historians who saw themselves as heirs to the Sillan tradition. As a result, there is an inherent pro-Silla bias in most Korean history. Also, because Silla became the dominant power, its tradi- tions have been best preserved and have served as the models for later Koreans. Thus more is known about Silla and its culture than of Paekche and Koguryŏ. It would be wrong, however, to regard Silla as the most advanced of the states; rather the opposite is closer to the truth. Archaeo- logical evidence suggests that Silla, tucked in the southeast corner of the Korean peninsula out of direct contact with the East Asian heartland, developed somewhat later than Koguryŏ and Paekche in terms of social stratification, the creation of institutions of a centralized state, and the adoption of literacy. And it maintained its indigenous cultural traditions longer. Compared to Koguryŏ, Silla was very much a latecomer as an organized state, and compared to Paekche, Sillan culture was less refined and sophisticated. Yet this does not mean that Silla remained a primi- tive backwater, for it developed into one of the medieval world’s more sophisticated societies. Its cultural legacy, which can be seen today in

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the museums of South Korea, is impressive by any standard. The Sillan mounded tombs, a prominent feature of modern Kyŏngju, differed some- what in their design from Koguryŏ and Paekche mounded tombs.11 This indicates the cultural autonomy of Silla, which appears in general to show less pronounced Manchurian influences. These tombs were less easy to loot, and as a result, vast cultural treasures have survived to the present. Not all tombs have been opened by modern archaeologists, but those that have reveal a splendid artistic heritage.

As with Paekche and Koguryŏ, a major theme in the early history of Silla was the emergence of a centralized monarchical state. The concept of kingship had to contend with strong local, tribal, and aristocratic tradi- tions. Buddhism was important in strengthening the power of the early kings. Under Pŏphŭng (r. 514–540) Silla adopted Buddhism. Silla resisted the alien religion long after Buddhism had been accepted in Koguryŏ and Paekche, a testimony to the comparative remoteness of the state and the strength of its indigenous culture. In 527, a noble, Ich’adon, was martyred for his beliefs. According to later tradition, a set of miracles followed this event and the Silla king converted to Buddhism, adopted the name Pŏphŭng (“rising of the dharma”), and officially sponsored the new faith. Buddhism was initiated by the Silla monarchs, as it provided a source of religious sanction to the monarchy and an impressive ritual tradition that when closely aligned with its royal patrons served to greatly enhance the majesty and prestige of the royal house and of the state. In Silla, Bud- dhism would retain a close association with the state.

Silla kings borrowed Chinese institutional practices to add to their power and prestige. Pŏphŭng’s reign also saw the first code of adminis- trative law, issued in 520. The content of this code is unknown, but it is believed to have included a seventeen-grade official rank system with dif- ferent ranks distinguished by distinctive attire. The kolp’um, or bone-rank system, the basis of Silla’s social structure, may have been formalized around this time. To further add to monarchical prestige Pŏphŭng in 536 took on an independent era name, “Kŏnwŏn” (Initiated Beginning). In the Chinese tradition, an era name was given only to the emperor and it sig- nified his role as a mediator between heaven and earth. An era name by a ruler other than the Chinese emperor was a declaration of equality. In times when China was united and strong this would be a direct challenge to the authority of the Chinese emperor. At this time, of course, China was politically divided; nevertheless, the adoption of an era name was at the very least a sign of the growing influence of Chinese culture and the pretensions of the Silla monarchs.

Pŏphŭng expanded his domain by conquering Pon Kaya, the largest of the Kaya states, in 532. His successor, Chinhŭng (r. 540–576), expanded the state further, making Silla a serious contender for control of the

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The Period of the Three Kingdoms, 4th Century to 676 39

entire peninsula. With Silla’s ally Paekche, Chinhŭng launched an inva- sion of the Han River basin during the years from 551 to 554. Under his general Kŏch’ilbu, the Silla forces and their Paekche allies were success- ful in driving Koguryŏ out of the Han valley. Then turning against his erstwhile partner and severing a 120-year alliance, Chinhŭng attacked Paekche, whose King Sŏng perished at the battle of Kwansan in 554. The Han River basin was now part of the Silla state. This gave Silla access to the Yellow Sea and brought Silla into direct contact with China. It also separated Paekche from Koguryŏ, making cooperation between the two states more difficult. Perhaps most importantly, the Han River basin with its rich farmlands and its iron deposits enriched the kingdom. Chinhŭng then conquered Tae Kaya in 562, ending the independent existence of the Kaya states and bringing the entire Naktong valley under Sillan con- trol. This step excluded direct Japanese influence in Korea for over 1,000 years. Silla forces then invaded the former territory of the Okchŏ along the Hamgyŏng coast, inflicting another defeat on Koguryŏ. Chinhŭng celebrated his military triumphs by erecting what are known as the Four Chinhŭng Stelae. These were placed at strategic points in his domain at Chungnyŏng Pass, at Pukhansan in north Seoul, and in the Hwangch’o and Maullyŏng passes in Hamgyŏng Province and have survived to the present, providing us with among the earliest Sillan written documents.

THE BONE-RANKS, THE HWABAEK, AND THE HWARANG

Silla’s strength was drawn in part from its three prominent social and political institutions: the bone-rank system, the Hwabaek (Council of No- tables), and the hwarang (flower boys). The kolp’um (bone-rank) was a sys- tem of hierarchical ranks in Silla corresponding to hereditary bloodlines. Each rank conferred a variety of special privileges such as qualification for office or the right to possess certain kinds of material goods.12 The two top bone-ranks were the sŏnggol (sacred bone), which was confined to the main branch of the royal Kim descent group, and the chin’gol (true bone), whose members were the cadet branches of the royal family, perhaps members of the Pak and Sŏk royal consort families, and the royal house of Pon Kaya. These made up the highest level of the aristocracy. Originally the chin’gol may have been formed by those lineages that were related to the royal family through marriage and were probably expanded to in- clude the Kaya royal descent group that was absorbed into the bone-rank system. The chin’gol held the highest offices and served on the Hwabaek council. The sŏnggol line, however, died out when King Chinp’yŏng left no male heir and was succeeded by his daughter Sŏndŏk (r. 632–647) and her female cousin Chindŏk (r. 647–654). Thereafter the royal family was

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drawn from the chin’gol line. The name sŏnggol, which can be translated as “hallowed” or “sacred,” implies a sacred or priestly authority for the Silla kings, a role that is also hinted at by the term ch’ach’aung, used by an early ruler and believed to refer to a shaman or priest. It is possible that the Silla royal line may have been evolving in a pattern similar to the imperial line of the Yamato in Japan, where the ruling family took on a sacerdotal (priestly) function. With the extinction of the royal line, the Silla kings became merely first among chin’gol equals. Silla kings after 654 were frequently challenged by powerful aristocrats, their throne never entirely secure. The extinction of the sacred bone line then may have been a factor contributing to the less exalted status of the Silla and later Korean kings. Throughout Korean history, the position of the monarch was more humble than in many premodern Asian societies.

Beneath the two bone-ranks was a system of tup’um (head-ranks), of which there were theoretically six; but only the head-ranks six, five, and four, the three highest, appear to have functioned as meaningful group- ings. The most important was the yuktu-p’um (head-rank six), which was the highest aristocratic ranking after the chin’gol. Head-rank-six members held many of the middle-level offices and provided a sizeable portion of the country’s scholars. The bone-rank system was an early manifesta- tion of the propensity toward hierarchical social structure with sharply defined status distinctions and a stress on hereditary bloodlines that were to characterize Korean society throughout its history. While little is known about women in this period, in later Silla at least, social status was determined by the maternal as well as the paternal lines, and women of the upper classes appeared to have considerable freedom of movement. Burials also suggest the Silla queens had high social status and perhaps wielded considerable power.13

A Silla institution of particular importance was the Hwabaek or Council of Notables. The Hwabaek was a council headed by the single aristocrat who held “extraordinary rank one” and was composed of those of “ex- traordinary rank two,” all of whom are thought to have been of true-bone lineage. Its function was to deliberate on the most important matters of state, such as succession to the throne and the declaration of war. The decision to formally adopt Buddhism also was made by the Hwabaek. The principle of unanimity governed the Hwabaek, which convened at four sites of special religious significance around Kyŏngju. Significantly, the Hwabaek typified another feature of the political process of Silla that was to characterize most Korean governments: political decision making by councils of high aristocrats. Throughout most of Korea’s history, rulers shared power with aristocratic families who governed through various councils or committees.

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The Period of the Three Kingdoms, 4th Century to 676 41

Another key Silla institution was the hwarang, a state-supported organi- zation of aristocratic adolescents. It served as a way of educating youths to prepare for adulthood and to perform their duties to the society. The hwarang were originally connected with native cults and rituals, and pre-Buddhist religious practices remained a part of their ceremonies. Later their education gradually became more linked with Buddhism and eventually Confucianism as these belief systems penetrated Silla. Boys just beyond puberty would meet at sacred sites outside the Silla capital, swear oaths of loyalty to each other, and participate in initiation ceremo- nies. According to a later recorded tradition, they were selected for their beauty, and they painted their faces.14 Whatever the sexual connotations these ceremonies may have had, it is clear that the institution was useful for the state. It taught an attitude of defiance toward death that prepared the members for service in warfare and taught moral values that the state was promoting. Only sons of the elite could be hwarang. These young men traveled around the country getting to know the land and each other before later serving as the elite warrior-aristocrats who would govern the state. Some hwarang went on to distinguish themselves in battle. Silla’s aristocrats were first of all warriors, and the greatest honor for a parent was to have a son die a hero in battle. An example of this is the story of General P’umil, whose sixteen-year-old son, Kwanch’ang, later venerated as an exemplary youth, died in battle against Paekche. Upon hearing of his son’s death the general is reported to have remarked that he regretted having only one son to give his kingdom. Most of the prominent military and political figures of Silla, such as the famed general Kim Yu-sin, served in their youth as hwarang warriors. Although as much an institution to teach moral values as to train warriors, twentieth-century Korean nation- alists would later glorify the military bravery of these hwarang and extol the hwarangdo (the way of the hwarang) as an example of dedication to the nation.15

The bone-ranks, the Hwabaek, and the hwarang do not appear to have been unique to Silla; similar institutions are known to have existed in Koguryŏ and Paekche. Each was dominated by warrior-aristocracies ranked in sharply defined status hierarchies. The Hwabaek had its paral- lel in the Paekche chŏngsa-am, and councils of high aristocrats are known to have made decisions in Koguryŏ. The hwarang had a parallel in the kyŏngdang of Koguryŏ. But less is known about these social institutions. It is principally in Silla that we see clearly the patterns of rigid status hi- erarchy and councilor governance that characterized later Korean social and political history.

Silla kings and queens were buried in luxurious style. There is no sign of human sacrifice as in ancient Chinese royal burials, although royal

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members were interred with the emblems of their authority. These in- cluded the Silla crown, whose shape is derived from deer antlers, and the kogok, or curved jewel, stylized bear claws that also served in Japan as symbols of royal authority. Both the crowns and the kogok suggest totem- ism and Manchurian and Siberian religious influences. In addition to the tombs, a gilt bronze statue of a meditating half-seated Maitreya Bodhisat- tva shows a more linear style of sculpture than the more famous Paekche statue. Painting was apparently prized, and the names of a few masters have survived but not their works. In Kyŏngju, the stone-brick pagoda of the Punhwang-sa temple and the Ch’ŏmsŏngdae observatory hint at the architecture of this period, but not enough has survived for us to make sound evaluations of the nature of Silla architecture.

One of the main purposes of the Silla state was to make war, so it is not surprising that the military organization of the state was well developed. Each of the six pu contained a chŏng (garrison) headed by a general of the chin’gol bone-rank. In 583 a more centralized sŏdang (oath banner) system was organized. Somewhat resembling the banner system of later Qing China, the sŏdang were named after the different-colored fringed banners that each of the six military groups had. Each banner had specialized units of armored troops, catapult teams, ladder teams, teams for breach- ing walls, composite bow units, and crossbow units. After Silla’s conquest of Paekche and Koguryŏ, three additional banners were formed contain- ing troops of those former kingdoms. Commoners were allowed to serve in the banners, and they swore an oath to its commanders.

THE CHANGING ENVIRONMENT OF THE LATE SIXTH AND SEVENTH CENTURIES

The late sixth and seventh centuries saw important changes throughout East Asia. In 589, after more than three centuries of division, China was reunified under the Sui dynasty (581–618). The new Chinese rulers sought to strengthen the tributary system. Under the imperial order of the Han, the tributary system was fully developed and functioned in East Asia as the main method of handling foreign affairs. According to the usual practice, foreign peoples would be granted permission to establish trade and diplomatic and cultural contact with China on the condition that their ruler or the ruler’s representatives demonstrate their subservience to the Chinese emperor by personally bearing him tribute. This was usually in the form of local products or of rare precious goods. The presentation of tribute was accompanied by ceremonies in which the ruler or his repre- sentatives offered to accept Chinese suzerainty in an exchange of seals and patents of authority, and he was presented with a Chinese calendar

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The Period of the Three Kingdoms, 4th Century to 676 43

that symbolically incorporated his state into the Chinese cosmological scheme. The seals of ranks, robes, caps, and paraphernalia of authority were important symbols of the tributary’s legitimacy and status. New rulers, when they came to power, were expected to present themselves or their representatives to the imperial court to be formally enfeoffed. Besides the symbolic value this offered them, the tributaries received permission to trade. Much of this trade was under the guise of an of- ficial exchange of gifts, but in practice this often amounted to a lucrative trade for the tributary state. It also provided an opportunity to travel and study in China and participate in China’s rich cultural life. During the fourth through sixth centuries the Korean states regularly sent tribute missions to states in China. While this in theory implied a submission to Chinese rulers, in practice it was little more than a diplomatic for- mality. In exchange, Korean rulers received symbols that strengthened their own legitimacy and a variety of cultural commodities: ritual goods, books, Buddhist scriptures, and rare luxury products. Different Korean states, however, had paid tribute to different Chinese states. Now the Sui wanted to bring the whole peninsula into its diplomatic orbit.

The second Sui emperor, Emperor Yang, was determined to bring the northeast frontier under control and to match the achievements of the Han by controlling all the lands that were once part of the Han Empire, including Liaodong and northern Korea. But Koguryŏ was an obstacle to resurgent Chinese expansionary plans, and Yang directed his attention at subjugating the northern Korean state. In 612, after an unsuccessful naval attack, he embarked upon a major campaign against Koguryŏ. This was a large-scale undertaking that involved forces and resources from across the Chinese Empire. A confident Emperor Yang, fresh from successful campaigns against the Turks, sent a reported 1,130,000 men 1,000 li into Koguryŏ.16 About 300,000 troops were detached from the main force and unsuccessfully besieged P’yŏngyang. On their return, they were ambushed by Koguryŏ general Ŭlchi Mundŏk at the Salsu (Ch’ŏngch’ŏn) River, a defeat that only 2,700 Chinese forces are reported to have survived. The size of the forces and the magnitude of the defeat were recorded by Tang China historians, who no doubt inflated these figures to discredit their Sui predecessors. Nonetheless, Koguryŏ won an impressive victory that became part of Korean legend. Ŭlchi Mundŏk later became a symbol of national resistance for modern Koreans. Em- peror Yang made two more unsuccessful attempts on Koguryŏ in 613 and 614, and those costly defeats were a major factor in the collapse of the Sui and the rise of the Tang.

The newly established Tang dynasty (618–907), one of the most brilliant in Chinese history, inherited the same foreign policy objectives of its pre- decessors—to secure the northern frontier and bring all the former Han

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lands under its control. When in 628 the Tang defeated the Turks, it began to reconsider Silla’s appeals for assistance. Silla, seeing an opportunity to deal a fatal blow to its northern rival, justified its need for Chinese inter- vention in much the same way that Han chieftains may have called for Han help in overcoming Wiman’s Chosŏn blockade of the overland route to China. Tang emperor Taizong (r. 626–649) attacked Koguryŏ and was defeated at Ansi Fortress by Koguryŏ general Yang Man-ch’un. Taizong was again defeated in 648, and his successor, Tang Gaozong (r. 649–683), launched unsuccessful attacks in 655 and in 658–659. Koguryŏ’s consis- tent success against the world’s mightiest military force was an impres- sive achievement in Korean annals. It also shielded the states of Paekche and Silla from the brunt of Chinese expansionism, allowing them time for autonomous development.

While Koguryŏ was engaged in its wars of resistance, Paekche fought Silla. In 642, it seized forty border forts. Silla, seeking assistance, sent the official Kim Ch’un-ch’u on diplomatic missions to Japan, to Koguryŏ, and twice to China. In 650 he presented the Tang emperor with a poem writ- ten by Queen Chindŏk requesting Tang military aid against Paekche. At the same time, Silla sought to move culturally closer to Tang. In 649, the state adopted Tang court dress, and in 651, it reorganized its administra- tion closer to the Chinese model. This cooperative policy toward China continued when in 654 Kim Ch’un-ch’u, known by his posthumous title Muyŏl (r. 654–661), was elected by the Hwabaek as king.

THE UNIFICATION OF KOREA UNDER SILLA

In 660, the Tang, frustrated by their inability to overcome Koguryŏ resis- tance, decided on a plan to invade Paekche by sea, and after subduing Paekche, to invade Koguryŏ from the south. This plan was implemented, with Admiral Su Dingfang, who had recently defeated the Turks, leading the Chinese forces. His ships sailed up the Kŭm River while Silla forces under General Kim Yu-sin crossed the Sobaek range that separates the Kyŏngsang heartland of Silla from the Chŏlla and Ch’ungch’ŏng regions of Paekche. On the Hwangsan Plain, the Paekche forces under General Kyebaek were defeated. Paekche king Ŭija surrendered at Ungjin, and in the seventh lunar month of 660 the Tang forces were in control of most of Paekche.

Tang now concentrated on its major goal of destroying Koguryŏ. In 668, Tang land and naval forces, and Silla forces under Kim In-mun, captured P’yŏngyang. As a result, Koguryŏ fell. It was clear that Tang efforts were now aimed at directly controlling the entire Korean pen-

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The Period of the Three Kingdoms, 4th Century to 676 45

insula, with the former Koguryŏ and Paekche territories to be directly incorporated into the empire and Silla to survive only as a satellite state. The Chinese emperor proposed that Silla become the Great Com- mandery of Kyerim—in essence a Chinese territory—and offered to ap- point the Silla king as its head. The Silla monarch Munmu (r. 661–681) rejected the offer and instead invaded the Chinese-controlled territory in Paekche. Sillan forces drove out the Chinese by 671, and then moved north into Koguryŏ. In a series of battles in the Han River basin in 676 Silla forced the Tang into retreat, gaining control of all the territory south of the Taedong River, that is, almost all of peninsular Korea. Although Chinese and Korean accounts of this period vary, it is clear that Silla emerged as the victor.17 Most of the peninsula was now un- der Silla’s control. The Korean peninsula, and Silla especially, proved too much of a logistical problem for permanent occupation by China. China had a hard time supplying its troops in the peninsula. Silla had provided its Chinese forces with food. Once Silla turned against them the logistical problems proved too much for the Chinese, contributing to their defeat and withdrawal. Tang settled for the destruction of a strong Koguryŏ contiguous to its northeast frontier and ceased further efforts to intervene militarily in the peninsula. To further secure their frontier, the Chinese set up a small puppet state of Lesser Kogury in the Liaodong region of Manchuria.

Silla’s victory in unifying most of the peninsula can be attributed to several factors. The political and military institutions of the kingdom proved capable of providing a stable and effective government that could successfully carry the country’s expansion. The kingdom itself enjoyed considerable prosperity and had an economic base and a system of ex- tracting the surplus from that base sufficient to support large military undertakings. Nonetheless, it is not certain that this was any less the case with its rivals. Most probably it was geography that provided the greatest opportunities for the kingdom. Koguryŏ had to wage wars on its northwestern and southern boundaries, and Paekche was vulnerable to Koguryŏ to the north, Silla to the south, and China from the sea. Silla in the southeast corner of Korea, however, had easier boundaries to defend and was out of reach of direct assault by China. China assisted in the uni- fication, but unintentionally, since its motive was to establish control over Korea, not to create a strong united state there.

The unification of most of the peninsula by Silla in 676 was a pivotal event in Korean history. From the late seventh century to the twentieth, a single state dominated the peninsula, including most of the agricultural heartland of what was to become Korea. Gradually, within the framework of the peninsular state, a culturally well-defined and ethnically homoge-

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neous Korean society emerged. This process, however, was only begin- ning in the seventh century.

KOREA IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: STATE FORMATION

The emergence of indigenous states in the Korean peninsula from the fourth century followed a pattern common in world history. The early kingdoms in Korea were part of a process called secondary state for- mation. Pristine states, those that evolve autonomously, are relatively uncommon, emerging in the original centers of complex societies in the Middle East, the Indus Valley, China, Mesoamerica, and Peru. Secondary societies emerged as a result of interaction with these early societies. Just as literate, urban-centered societies emerged in the Mediterranean basin and in southern and central India as a result of trade and other cultural in- teractions with earlier centers, states emerged among agricultural peoples along the periphery of the Chinese cultural heartland. These included the peoples of the Red River basin in northern Vietnam and the peoples of Manchuria and the Korean peninsula. It is not yet clear just how far the process of state formation in Northeast Asia had progressed when Chosŏn, one of the earliest states or proto-states in the region, became absorbed into the Chinese Empire.

It was the weakening and collapse of the Chinese Empire in the third and fourth centuries that gave the indigenous people free reign to de- velop autonomous states that were culturally distinct from China. The process was analogous to contemporary developments at the other end of Eurasia when the declining Roman Empire disintegrated in Western Europe, allowing tribal peoples to develop their own heavily Roman-in- fluenced states. A further parallel was the role of Buddhism in Northeast Asia as a vehicle for the spread of Chinese culture among indigenous rul- ers and elites, similar to the role of Christianity in Western Europe. And just as Christian missionaries extended the zone of Western civilization into areas beyond the boundaries of the former Roman Empire—north- ern Germany, Ireland, Scandinavia, and Poland, so Buddhist monks spread elements of Chinese civilization to southern Korea and Japan. To the south of China, Buddhist and Hindu missionaries along with Indian traders similarly extended Indian cultural influences to emerging states in Southeast Asia in the first millennium CE.

Unlike the Roman Empire, China’s period of disunity lasted only until the late sixth century. But this relatively short period of political frag- mentation from the fourth through sixth centuries may have been crucial

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The Period of the Three Kingdoms, 4th Century to 676 47

in allowing the peoples of Korea to develop strong, independent states based in part on indigenous cultural patterns.

I

Origins of the Hwarang The wŏnhwa [“original flowers,” female leaders of the hwarang] were

first presented at the court in the thirty-seventh year [576] of King Chinhŭng. At first the king and his officials were perplexed by the prob- lem of finding a way to discover talented people. They wished to have people disport themselves in groups so that they could observe their be- havior and thus elevate the talented among them to positions of service. Therefore two beautiful girls, Nammo and Chunjŏng, were selected, and a group of some three hundred people gathered around them. But the two girls competed with one another. In the end, Chunjŏng enticed Nammo to her home and, plying her with wine till she was drunk, threw her into a river. Chunjŏng was put to death. The group became discordant and dispersed.

Afterward, handsome youths were chosen instead. Faces made up and beautifully dressed, they were respected as hwarang, and men of various sorts gathered around them like clouds. The youths instructed one another in the Way and in rightness, entertained one another with song and music, or went sightseeing to even the most distant mountains and rivers. Much can be learned of a man’s character by watching him in these activities. Those who fared well were recommended to court.

Kim Taemun, in his Annals of the Hwarang [Hwarang segi], remarks: “Henceforth able ministers and loyal subjects shall be chosen from them, and good generals and brave soldiers born therefrom.”

—from the Samguk sagi 4:4018

King Hŭngdŏk’s Edict on Clothing, Carts, and Housing There are superior and inferior people, and humble persons, in regard to social status. Names are not alike, for example, and garments too are different. The customs of this society have degenerated day by day owing to the competition among the people for luxuries and alien com- modities, because they detest local products. Furthermore, rites have now fallen to a critical stage and customs have retrogressed to those of barbarians. The traditional codes will be revived in order to rectify the situation, and should anyone transgress the prohibition, he will be punished to the law of the land.

—from the Samguk sagi 33:320–2619

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49

THE PENINSULAR KINGDOM

Silla’s victories created a kingdom that controlled most of the Korean Peninsula. Historians often refer to the period from 676 to 935 CE as Late Silla, or sometimes United Silla. This unification of Korea needs some qualification. Although Silla ruled most of the agricultural heartland of Korea, it did not control the northern third of the modern boundaries of Korea. It is also somewhat controversial to speak of a single Korean state after 676 since the demarcation between Korea and Manchuria was not well defined, and a northern kingdom, Parhae, emerged in the early eighth century that occupied much of the former Koguryŏ. Nor was there a single “Korean” ethnic group. Over the centuries, however, under the peninsular kingdom of Silla and its successor states, an increasingly well- defined Korean culture and society emerged. For the next twelve centu- ries, from 676 to 1876, Korea underwent two major political reformations, suffered several assaults from the outside, and experienced continual so- ciocultural evolution. In the process, it developed a society that possessed a strong sense of its own identity and historical continuity. Then after 1876, Korea entered the emerging Western-dominated global civilization, and the Korean people faced the challenge of adapting their culture and applying their historical experience to the modern world.

During the twelve centuries of the premodern peninsular kingdom, historical events can be put into context by placing them within several broad patterns of change. First, the kingdom became increasingly ho- mogeneous. In terms of language, cultural identity, and shared values

3

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and traditions, the Koreans became one people. Second, the peoples of Korea continued absorbing Chinese notions of government, religion, eth- ics, art, music, family structure, and fashions. Chinese-derived cultural values and habits penetrated further down the social hierarchy. As this happened, Koreans combined these with indigenous traditions and de- velopments. Thus Korea was able to become a full participant in, and at the same time a distinctive component of, the cosmopolitan East Asian civilization centered in China. Third, the kingdom gradually expanded in population and wealth. It expanded internally by absorbing more marginal lands and internal frontiers into its sociopolitical system, while externally there was a slow, fitful extension of its northern frontiers until by the middle of the fifteenth century they were stabilized at their present Yalu and Tumen river boundaries.

The periodization of Korean history generally follows dynastic de- marcations. From 676 to 935 there was the Silla state that was ruled by the Kim and Pak kings from the southeastern capital of Kyŏngju. From 918 to 1392 the kingdom, renamed Koryŏ, was governed from Kaesŏng under the Wang family, and from 1392 to 1910 the Chŏnju Yi family from Yŏnghŭng governed the state, renamed Chosŏn, from Seoul. Within this chronological outline, it is helpful to see Korea as undergoing several stages and transitions. From 676 to the late eighth century the state under Silla experienced a period of growth and consolidation accompanied by an artistic and literary efflorescence. The period after 780 to the end of the ninth century was one of political if not socioeconomic and cultural decline. The tenth century was truly a transitional period that saw the disintegration of Silla, a brief period of political disunity, and the re- formulation of the kingdom under the early Wang kings. Their Kory state lasted nearly five centuries until another transitional period in the fourteenth century saw the establishment of the remarkably durable and stable Chosŏn state of the Yi dynasty, which survived to the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910.

CONSOLIDATION OF CENTRAL MONARCHICAL RULE UNDER SILLA, 676–780

Silla’s rulers sought to consolidate their power and create a centralized state. This proved difficult because the society was dominated by power- ful aristocratic families, especially those of the highest true-bone rank. The true-bone aristocrats monopolized higher political offices, possessed private armies, and through the Hwabaek chose the king and partici- pated in policy making. In 654, King Muyŏl (r. 654–661) the first chin’gol monarch began a line of kings that remained on the throne to 780. These

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Silla rulers struggled to establish a centralized state under monarchical control. The task was made more difficult by the fact that the sŏnggol (sacred-bone) line died out with Queen Chindŏk (r. 647–654). Although Muyŏl’s mother was of the royal Kim clan and his primary queen was the younger sister of Kim Yu-sin and a member of the Kaya royal family, Muyŏl and his descendants were of chin’gol (true-bone) rank, that is, of the same rank as the great aristocratic families. This meant that in terms of caste they were merely first among equals. The term sacred-bone implies a magico-religious function that may have contributed royal authority. It is not clear if, in fact, the early rulers actually possessed priestly functions; it is apparent, however, that the status of the Silla kings after Muyŏl was far from secure and they had to struggle to maintain their supremacy. Because of this they were eager to seek alternative sources of legitimacy.

The chief rivals of the Silla kings were other higher aristocrats of true- bone rank who were represented in the Hwabaek and who held the top administrative posts. Muyŏl was challenged by the sangdaedŭng, as the chief of the Hwabaek was called, a man named Pidam, and later by an- other sangdaedng, Alch’ŏn. Another king, Sinmun (r. 681–692), was chal- lenged by Kim Hŭm-dol, the father of his first queen, and purged another sangdaedŭng, Kun’gwan, forcing him and his son to commit suicide. To secure his authority Sinmum reorganized the army to bring it under closer royal control. The yuk chŏng (six garrisons) were replaced by the sŭdang (oath banner) system as the main military force. Recruits were selected from Koguryŏ, Paekche, and from the Mohe (Korean: Malgal) tribes along the northern border. He placed these under direct royal au- thority and supplemented them with the sip chŏng (ten garrisons). These forces, primarily concerned with internal security, were stationed outside the capital, Kyŏngju. One garrison was placed in each province, with two in the capital area, and two in Hanju, the strategic province between the Han and Taedong rivers. Since earlier Silla armies are believed to have been headed by powerful aristocrats, and perhaps organized along clan lines, the new royal forces marked the beginning of a truly centralized military. Meanwhile, the hwarang continued to exist as an organization of aristocratic youth. Sinmun also attempted to strengthen the fiscal basis of the state by reforming the tax system.

Under Sinmun the regional administration was reorganized, and in 685, nine chu (provinces) were created: three out of the Silla homeland, three out of the former Paekche, and three out of former Koguryŏ terri- tories; at the same, time five secondary capitals were created, a measure important in controlling the country, since the capital Kyŏngju was awk- wardly situated in the extreme southeastern corner of the country. Fol- lowing Chinese practice, each province was subdivided into kun (prefec- tures), which totaled over 100, and into hyŏn (smaller counties), of which

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there were more than 300. At the lowest level of administration were ch’on (villages) headed by village chiefs. An elaborate administrative hierarchy of governors, prefects, and county magistrates administered the country. There were also subcounty units called hyang and pugok that were places of settlement for outcaste groups.

On the surface, Silla appeared to be an impressively centralized state with royal administration penetrating down to smaller units of admin- istration, much like, on a bigger scale, Tang China. In reality, however, Silla functioned more as an alliance of powerful families in the capital and prominent provincial families. Royal authority was limited by the fact that the top officialdom was recruited from a small segment of the ar- istocracy, the true-bone aristocrats of the Kyŏngju area. Local elites were appointed to serve as functionaries in the local administrations, perhaps a recognition of the need to rule with the support of these prominent families. To insure the loyalty of non-Sillan and other local elites a hostage system was believed to exist in which family members served at court on a rotation basis (this was later dubbed the sangsuri system). In the capital, a complex central bureaucracy existed headed by the Chipsabu (Chancel- lery Office), which had been created in 651 and was headed by a chungsi, or chief minister.1 Eleven ministries, a board of censors, and hundreds of departments administered the court and the state. It is generally believed that after unification the Hwabaek declined in importance and the royal bureaucracy under the Chipsabu administered the kingdom.

SILLA AND THE CHINESE MODEL

Silla, a close ally of Tang and an exemplary tributary in many ways, modeled itself on Tang China. Yet for all the adoption of court robes and rituals; Chinese legal concepts and administrative nomenclature; and the careful study of Chinese literature, art, and philosophy, Silla maintained some distinctive features. This is evident in its administration. Tang China was administered by three chancelleries and six ministries: revenue, ritu- als, military, personnel, justice, and public works, a system later adopted by the Koryŏ state. In contrast, Silla’s bureaucratic structure included many different ministries, including a Ministry of Horses and a Ministry of Marine. There were also, on paper at least, hundreds of departments, including offices that dealt with monasteries, astronomy, medicine, and translation. There was even an office of water clocks. It is not clear how many of these offices functioned or whether they existed only on paper. Many or most may have been sinecures for the well connected. Provincial administration was based on the nine chu (Chinese: zhou) of the ancient Zhou dynasty, not the circuits (Korean: to; Chinese: dao) of Tang. Silla’s

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Late Silla, 676 to 935 53

society was also evolving differently from China’s. While the Tang state was gradually reducing the hereditary aristocracy’s control over govern- ment posts, despite efforts by monarchs to assert their personal authority, the aristocracy’s monopoly of government was strengthened under Silla. In fact, it can be argued that Silla was not so much a centralized state as a coalition of local and central elites. Furthermore, while anti-Buddhist sentiment asserted itself in late Tang, the links between Buddhism and the state remained strong in Silla. Thus, while the Silla state faithfully adopted much of Chinese culture and nomenclature, it was not a minia- ture Tang China.

SUPPORTING THE SILLA STATE

As with other premodern states, Silla consisted of a small elite of officials and courtiers on top of a mass of farmers. To support itself, the state ex- acted tribute from its peasants and fishers to feed and clothe its officials and their retainers. How this taxation was organized during the Three Kingdoms period is not clear, but by the seventh century we have enough information to give a general description. Sigŭp (tax villages) were granted to prominent members of the elite as a reward for their services to the state. Apparently the owners of these estates were free to extract what produce and labor they could. It is not known how often this was done or how much of the countryside was controlled in this manner. The famous general Kim Yu-sin was granted 500 households and six horse farms, but as he was a national hero this might not have been typical. Most officials were supported by nogŭp (stipend villages), which are believed to have in- cluded the right to collect a stipulated grain tax and perhaps corvée labor (use of labor service as a form of taxation) on the part of the recipients. In 687, a new system, the chikchŏn (office-field), was introduced, which as- signed land to specific offices and entitled the officeholder only the right to collect the grain tax. Two years later the stipend village system was abolished. Both moves were an apparent attempt to gain greater control over the nation’s resources by the state. The office-field system was aban- doned in 757, and the nogŭp restored. More ambitious was the chŏngjŏnje (“able-bodied land system”) that was initiated in 722. Based on the Chi- nese term “equal field” (Chinese: juntian; Korean: kyunjŏn), this was an at- tempt to establish state control over all land and periodically redistribute it to individual households, the amount depending upon the number of able-bodied adult males each contained. Upon the death of an adult male, his portion of land reverted to state control and was redistributed. This would insure that the state had access to the surplus produce and labor of its peasantry, and would prevent great landowners from controlling these

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resources and denying the state access to them. This too was abandoned; just when is not known. Along with the failure of the chikchŏn, the failure of the “able-bodied land system” indicates the limits of the state’s control over its aristocracy and peasantry.

However, a chance discovery of four village registers found in the form of a wrapper over another document in the Shōsōin Imperial Repository in Nara, Japan, in 1933 belies this impression of limited government con- trol. This fascinating peak into Silla administration, while highlighting the fragmentary knowledge of this period of Korean history, also testifies to the ingenuity of historians who have managed to derive a wide range of insights and interpretations of Korean history from a single scrap of documentation. The document contains portions of a census register of four villages near modern Ch’ŏngju. The dating of this document is given in a sexagesimal cycle year used in East Asia to count by giving each year in a sixty-year cycle a name. The year name given is generally believed to refer to 755, although 815 is a possibility. With surprising detail, the villages were classified into nine grades of households based on the number of able-bodied adults and others available for corvée duty. Fields were divided into paddies, dry fields, and hemp fields. Horses, oxen, and mulberry, pine nut, and walnut trees were all listed. Certain fields appear to have been set aside for the support of village heads. There are other categories of fields of uncertain purpose.2 These were perhaps office lands in accordance with the chikchŏn system, that is, for the support of the state officials.

All this would indicate that the Silla state made a considerable effort to consolidate its control over the peasantry and its resources, and possessed an impressive level of administrative organization and recordkeeping. An important form of taxation was corvée. Peasants were required to work on major public construction projects. Skilled workers owned or controlled by the state provided it with services and needed goods that were produced in state workshops. Metalsmiths, leather workers, butch- ers, guards, spinners and weavers of cotton and hemp, makers of me- dicinal goods, temple officials, street cleaners, and bookkeepers worked for the state in varying degrees of servitude. The state’s ability to extract taxes and labor was the key to its effectiveness as a political institution. Potential revenues were lost to grants of tax-free land given as rewards, such as the impressive grant to Kim Yu-sin. Buddhist temples owned farmland that was also exempt from taxes. How much land was owned by temples is not clear, but it may have been considerable. Revenue gath- ering reached its peak efficiency in the late seventh and eighth centuries as monarchs consolidated their power. In the ninth century, especially in the latter half, there appeared to have been a sharp drop-off in state revenues, and a concomitant decline in the power of the Silla monarchy.

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At the apex of the state was the monarch. The king, however, had to compete for authority and revenue with the great landowners, who were generally the high-born aristocrats. To shore up their legitimacy Sillan kings made use of the Chinese tributary system. The Chinese emperor was recognized as the Son of Heaven, and the Silla king as his enfeoffed representative on the peninsula. The Chinese imperial calendar was of- ficial, and in the eighth and early ninth centuries each king sought to confirm his position by sending an envoy to the Tang capital upon com- ing to the throne.

Kings also used Confucianism to strengthen state authority. Confu- cianism was a line of teachings derived from the Chinese philosopher Kongfuzi, known in the West as Confucius (551–479 BCE). In Silla times, its most important teachings were its emphases on filial piety, loyalty to the ruler, and respect for authority, all useful for the state. Confucian ideas would gradually penetrate Korean culture until by the fourteenth or fifteenth century they became the principal basis for moral, social, and political philosophy. In Silla times, however, Confucianism was primarily useful for training literate and loyal officials. The full implications of this school of thought were not felt until much later. As early as 636, Queen Sŏndŏk appointed scholars to teach the Confucian classics. Her successor, Queen Chindŏk, followed Koguryŏ and Paekche practice by designating certain scholars as paksa (erudites). In 682, a Kukhak (National Academy) along Tang lines was established to promote the study of the Chinese classics. This institution was open to sons of aristocratic families between eighteen and thirty years of age. In 717, portraits of Confucius and the “ten philosophers” and seventy-two worthies were brought back from Tang China, and in 750, the National Academy was reorganized as the T’aehakkam with a curriculum based on Confucian works. Examinations on Chinese classics were held to select worthy officials. Confucianism, however, was strictly secondary to Buddhism as a source of moral and political authority. It is also unlikely that the examinations were more than a short-lived modest experiment. Only later, with the reintroduction of the civil examinations in the Koryŏ state, did the Chinese practice of selecting officials by examination begin to play a significant role in Ko- rean political culture.

A number of scholars trained in the Chinese classics served that state. Some were historians. Historical compilation played an important role in Silla society as it did throughout Korean history. Two erudites of history served the Sillan kings. The most distinguished historian was Kim Tae- mun, active in the early eighth century, who authored a history of the hwarang, the Hwarang segi (Chronicles of the Hwarang), Kosŭng chŏn (Bi- ographies of Eminent Monks), the Kyerim chapchŏn (Tales of Silla), and the Hansan ki (Record of Hansan). Unfortunately none of these has survived.

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The men like Kim Tae-mun who served as officials became the forerun- ners of the Confucian scholar-bureaucrat who would characterize later Korean history. Another early scholar official was Kangsu (d. 692), who, as with most of the men of Chinese learning, came from the lower head- rank aristocracy (see below). Most famous of the early masters of classi- cal Chinese learning was Sŏl Ch’ong (c. 660–730), a contemporary of the historian Kim Tae-mun. Son of the Silla monk Wŏnhyo by a Silla princess, Sŏl Ch’ong was one of the outstanding learned men of Silla. He served as a royal advisor, and his letter to the throne P’ungwang so (Parables for the King) urged monarchs to renounce pleasure seeking and strictly observe moral standards. This is one of the earliest examples of the Confucian moralistic admonitions to the monarch that would remain a major feature of premodern Korean politics. Sŏl Ch’ong was also incorrectly credited with inventing the idu (or kugyŏl) transcription system used to facilitate the reading of the Chinese classics, but he may have standardized it.

A distinction existed between these men of the head-rank-six class, who were generally better educated so they could carry out the clerical func- tions of the state, and the higher aristocracy of the true-bone that monop- olized the top posts. Many of the early Confucian scholars such as Kangsu and Sŏl Ch’ong were locally educated men, and their knowledge of the Chinese classics was still a rare and valuable skill. By the ninth century a large number of men who had studied in Tang and were fluent in Chinese emerged to take an increasingly active part in government serving the kings. They were mostly from the lower aristocratic head-rank-six class. These educated head-rank-six officials insisted, as men of learning and merit, on the right to serve government at the higher levels despite their lower rank. Ch’oe Ch’i-wŏn (857–?) was the most famous of these. Ch’oe went to Tang China where he studied Chinese classics and literature. He distinguished himself in the Tang examinations in 874 and served in the Tang bureaucracy. After returning to Korea in 885, Ch’oe served as an advisor to Queen Chinsŏng (r. 887–897), to whom he submitted a number of memorials proposing reforms. The content of those proposals has not survived, but he is believed to have been an early champion of the em- ployment of the Chinese civil examination system. When his proposals were not adopted, he retired to self-imposed exile, setting a pattern for many subsequent scholars and reformers. Ch’oe Ch’i-wŏn was regarded in his day as an outstanding poet and essayist both in China and in Korea. A collection of his writings, the Kyewŏn p’ilgyŏng chip (Plowing the Laurel Grove with a Writing Brush), has survived. They represent the earliest ex- tant collection of literary works of an individual Korean author. He was also highly thought of as a calligrapher and samples of his calligraphy have survived in the “four mountain inscriptions.”3

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Daoism (Taoism) was another school of thought that shaped Korean culture at this time, albeit to a much lesser extent than Buddhism or Con- fucianism. The Daoist classic, the Laozi, was known in Koguryŏ. Religious Daoism was actively promoted as an alternative to Buddhism by the state in the seventh century. Even earlier references to the Laozi and the Zhuangzi, the other great Daoist classic, appear in Paekche. In Silla, the of- ficial transmission of Daoism came in 738 when the Tang envoy presented King Hyosŏng with a copy of the Laozi. It was, however, only during the period of decline during the eighth and ninth centuries that Daoism had a significant influence in Korea.

SILLA SOCIETY

Silla’s elaborate formal government apparatus was imposed over a soci- ety structured along hereditary class lines. Bureaucratic positions were limited to corresponding hereditary ranks. At the top was the chin’gol (true-bone) aristocracy. The true-bone aristocrats, for the most part, resided in the capital and monopolized the first five of the seventeen bureaucratic ranks, including the highest position, the sangdaedŭng; the yŏng (heads) of the ministries; the provincial governors; and the gener- als. Many of these high-ranking aristocrats possessed private armies of armed retainers. According to one Chinese source, these private armies numbered as many as 3,000 men.

Below the true-bones were the tup’um (head-ranks). The yuktup’um, the topmost head-rank six, formed the second tier of the aristocracy. Also primarily residents of the capital, Kyŏngju, they played an increasingly significant political and cultural role. The head-rank-six members held positions of lesser bureaucratic rank and provided the state with many of its scholars and court scribes. Beneath the aristocratic class were common- ers. We hear little of these people, who probably made up the majority of the population. One historical question has been whether the peasantry was free or in some state of servitude. Evidence is too fragmentary to make conclusions as to whether they were free to move or to buy and sell land. In view of the powerful grip the aristocracy had on society, it is not likely that peasants possessed much freedom of movement. That peas- ants enjoyed at least some rights and privileges is implied by the fact that they were distinguished from people of more servile status. Free or not, in Silla’s hereditary class-based society, the opportunity to rise in status, serve in government, or change occupation was at best extremely limited.

Koreans adopted the Chinese classification of non-elites into p’yŏngin (“good people”) and “mean” or “base” people. The p’yŏngin lived in villages

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(ch’on) and were subject to the supervision of village elders, farming their own fields as well as those designated for government and elite support. “Mean” people ranged from skilled craftsmen and specialists to chattel slaves. While slavery certainly existed, it does not appear to have been the primary economic basis of society. It appears that there were no large landed estates, only scattered parcels of land that could have been worked by slaves; public construction, however, was carried out by peas- ant corvées, not slaves. But that slaves were probably fairly numerous and could be held by commoners is suggested by the few records that have survived.4 The four village census registers list 25 slaves among the 442 members of the agricultural communities.

Available evidence indicates that Silla was a rigidly hierarchical so- ciety where rank, status, and privilege ran along hereditary class lines. Incidences of social mobility, if it existed, must have been rare. Strict sumptuary laws reinforced class differences. Clothing, footwear, utensils, the size of houses, the designs on tiles, size of carts, and room sizes were all regulated. Commoners were forbidden from having big entry gates to their homes and could have no more than three horses in their stables. Nevertheless, commoners could become wealthy, and the flourishing maritime trade of late Silla must have afforded many opportunities for lower-ranked merchants to amass wealth and influence. The records state, for instance, that in 834, King Hŭngdŏk issued an edict prohibiting the possession of luxurious foreign goods by commoners because this was leading to confusion in social ranks. Family descent was extremely important, as it was in later periods in Korea. The main kinship organiza- tion was the chok, a large descent group. Later Koreans would have family shrines and elaborate rituals honoring their ancestors, but this was prob- ably not the case in Silla.5

The status of women in Silla was higher than in subsequent periods and perhaps higher than it was in Paekche and Koguryŏ. Much of our knowledge of Silla’s family structure and the role of women, however, remains a matter of speculation. It is believed that the status of women was high compared to most contemporary Asian societies, that men and women mingled freely and participated together in social functions, and that families traced their ancestry along both their father’s and mother’s line. Women were able to succeed as the family head, and failure to pro- duce a son was not grounds for divorce. Three women ascended to the throne—the last was Chinsŏng (r. 887–897)—although only when there was no male heir. Among royalty, about whom much more information is available, girls married between sixteen and twenty, and there was often a considerable difference in ages between partners. No strict rule seems to have existed concerning the use of paternal surnames. Succession was not limited to sons, but also included daughters, sons-in-law, and grand-

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sons by sons and daughters. Equal importance was given to the rank of the father and the mother in determining the status of the child.6 Kings selected their queens from powerful families. A careful reading of the historical records that were edited in later times suggests that Silla queens may have exercised considerable authority.7

In all these ways, Korean society at this time differed from later peri- ods, in which the position of women weakened considerably. If the above represents an accurate picture of Silla society, then the pattern of the next 1,000 years of Korean history is one of a steady decline in the status of women, of the greater segregation of sexes, and of a shift to a more patri- lineal society.

Agriculture was the basis of the economy and the vast majority of the population lived in small villages and hamlets where they farmed rice, barley, and vegetables. Little is known about farming methods in this period, but enough surplus was produced to support a sizeable urban population. Kyŏngju was the largest city. The thirteenth-century history Samguk yusa states that at one point it had 178,936 households. The city is said to have had 1,360 residential quarters in its fifty-five wards, thirty- five great private estates, and four royal palaces, one for each season. While these figures no doubt are greatly exaggerated, archaeological evi- dence suggests that it was indeed a sizeable city, among the major urban centers in Asia. It was apparently a prosperous city of parks, bridges, and large official markets. The Samguk yusa records that when King Hon’gang (r. 875–886) looked out from his palace he could see “homes with tiled roofs in rows from the capital to the seas, with not a single thatched roof in sight.”8 Historical demography for Korea is still largely undeveloped, but Korea under Silla probably had a population of at least 2 million, pos- sibly twice that, making it one of the larger states in Eurasia.

Religion and Aristocratic Culture

Silla was a Buddhist kingdom. The religion had taken deep roots, at least among the ruling class, by the time of unification. Both kings Chinhŭng and Pŏphŭng, for example, abdicated late in their reigns to be ordained as monks.9 Originally from India, Buddhism eventually spread across most of Asia. Through Buddhism Korea was linked to the wider world that in- cluded not only China and Japan but the Buddhist lands in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and India. A few Korean monks even journeyed to India in search of Buddhist teachings. Best known was Hyech’o (b. 704), who described his pilgrimage to India in Wang och’ŏnch’ukkuk chŏn (Record of a Journey to the Five Indian Kingdoms).

The basic teachings of Buddhism included the ideas that the world was full of suffering and that this suffering was the result of karma or deeds

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done in this or past lives. The goal of Buddhism was to break the cycle of births and rebirth and achieve Nirvana, a state of nonexistence that was free from suffering. The forms of Buddhism that reached Korea had undergone considerable change from the original teachings that had em- phasized moderation and avoidance of excessive attachment to worldly affairs. These modifications were, in part, due to the Chinese practice of ge-yi, that is, finding suitable Chinese equivalents to Indian Buddhist terms, a process that did much to reinterpret and perhaps dilute the original meanings. Chinese Buddhism during the Tang also reflected the influence of Daoism and other indigenous beliefs.

In Silla Buddhism was a source for legitimizing authority, adding to the prestige of the monarchy, and providing the state with scribes and advi- sors. It was especially, perhaps principally, valued for the supernatural aid it provided. This role gradually declined with the absorption of Chi- nese secular learning, especially Confucianism, and with the consequent growth of a literate segment of the aristocracy trained in the Chinese clas- sics and in Chinese principles of law and government. Yet, Buddhism still provided the chief source of artistic inspiration, continued to attract many of the best minds in Korea, and pervaded all aspects of secular culture. It was the fundamental belief system of the dominant groups of society. The Buddhist scholarship produced during this period was one of the finest outpourings of intellectual creativity in Korean history.

Tang Buddhism was characterized by its division into many doctrinal sects. Most were named after a particular sutra that was regarded by the sect as the embodiment of the true essence of Buddha’s teachings. Korean Buddhism inherited this multiplicity of doctrines and the focus on certain sutras from Tang. It also shared, if not inherited, the Chinese practice of doctrinal tolerance and the absence of sectarian strife as well as a ten- dency toward syncretism. Sects tended to borrow from one another so that distinctions between them gradually became blurred.

One of the most important sects was Hwaŏm (Flower Garland). Named for the Avatamsaka (Flower Garland) Sutra, this sect tried to incorporate various doctrines by classifying them into varying degrees of truth. The tenets of Hwaŏm were complex and intellectually demanding, making lit- tle concession for the follower who was unable to devote his life to them. It appealed to the small number of monks of aristocratic background who spent their lives mastering esoteric knowledge and thereby gaining awe and respect. It also appealed to other members of the elite who were at- tracted to its rich rituals and ceremonies, and who could afford to finance the construction of temples, perform elaborate ceremonies and prayers, and support monks who could study on their behalf. Ŭisang (625–702), founder of the Hwaŏm school in Korea, was one of the major intellectual figures of Korean history. Ŭisang went to China at sixteen, where he stud-

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ied under the Hwaŏm master Zhiyan, along with Fazang, who became one of China’s seminal Buddhist thinkers. Among Ŭisang’s many disci- ples were Simsang, who later propagated the doctrine in Japan. Ŭisang’s later reputation was such that he was credited with saving Silla from an invasion by Chinese emperor Tang Gaozong. He emphasized strict learn- ing, the performance of rituals, and monastic life. In this, he typified the Korean Buddhism of his age.

While Silla kings did not abandon the patronage of Buddhism or its use as a source of legitimacy, Silla Buddhism became less court centered and at the same time less confined to the aristocratic elite. Newer, less esoteric forms of Buddhism with simpler doctrines appeared that did not require constant sponsorship of costly ceremonies. A precursor of this popular Buddhism came with Wŏnhyo. Wŏnhyo (617–686) was one of the major Buddhist thinkers of Korea.10 He preached to the common people at a time when Buddhism was confined mainly to the court and the ar- istocracy. Most of the eminent monks of Silla derived their fame from introducing some new teaching from China. Wŏnhyo, however, did not journey to China. Instead he traveled throughout the countryside as an act of penance after having broken his vows and sired a son, Sŏl Ch’ong, by a Silla princess. He was also the founder of the Pŏpsang (Dharma- nature) school of Buddhism, sometimes called the Haedong (Korea) school, since it was the only indigenous sect. Wŏnhyo’s aim was to create a school of Buddhism that would harmonize the doctrines of the various other schools. He would be the first major figure in a distinctively Korean tendency to seek a unifying school of doctrine and practice.

Two forms of Buddhism that appeared in Silla times had their major impact on Korean religious beliefs later on: Pure Land Buddhism and Meditative Buddhism. The Pure Land sect centered around devotion to Amitabha (Amit’a-bul), who helped the troubled reach Happy Land (Sukhavati). This belief spread among those of humble status as early as the mid-eighth century, becoming of greater importance in subsequent centuries. Meditative Buddhism, or Sŏn (called Chan in Chinese but better known in the West by its Japanese pronunciation, Zen), was first introduced by Pŏmnang (c. 632–646) after returning from Tang. Another monk, Sinhaeng (d. 779), founded one of the world’s oldest extant Sŏn temples. Sŏn became important in the ninth century with the teachings of Toŭi (d. 825), the first major figure in that tradition, and it had a profound impact on Korea during the Koryŏ period.

Buddhism was the inspiration for much of the art of this period. The most outstanding examples are the Pulguk-sa temple and the Sŏkkuram grotto. Pulguk-sa, built near Kyŏngju in the mid-eighth century, is still one of the great architectural monuments of East Asia. Of special interest is the Muyŏng-t’ap (pagoda that casts no shadow), built in 751. During its

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reconstruction in 1966 a dharani, a magical formula, was found that was apparently placed in the pagoda at the time of its construction. This is the world’s oldest known printed document. The justly famed Sŏkkuram Grotto, located in a mountain near Kyŏngju facing the East Sea, contains among its many excellent carvings an exquisite eleven-foot stone Bud- dha that is situated so that it catches the first rays of dawn as the sun rises above the East Sea. The bronze Buddhas and bodhisattvas are of a high standard and were never equaled in Korea. Also impressive are the bronze bells. The Samwŏn-sa Bell, cast in 725, the oldest extant, weighs 1,500 kilograms. The Pongdŏk-sa Bell, cast in 770, is the second largest in the world. Silla bells were decorated with delicate bas-reliefs of flowers, clouds, and flames. Most famous of all is the Emille Bell in Kyŏngju.

Beneath the Buddhism of the Silla was a rich and complex tradition of indigenous religion and practices. We know little of these, however, because they did not leave behind written records. The peoples of Korea worshiped the spirits of mountains and rivers and of various natural fea- tures. Dragon spirits were worshiped. The popularity of the cult of Mai- treya (Korean: Mirŭk), the Buddha of the future, may have been linked to dragon worship, since the word for dragon is the same in Korean. A chilling hint of indigenous beliefs is the story of the Emille Bell. According to legend, the craftsman who cast the magnificent bronze bell was suc- cessful only after sacrificing his daughter by throwing her into the molten metal. The cry of her name could be heard, it was said, calling out when the bell was rung.

Silla rulers continued to construct tombs in the Chinese manner. A distinct feature of these tombs, not found on the mainland, is the zodiacal animal deities bearing weapons. One of the interesting surviving monu- ments from Silla is the Ch’ŏmsŏng-dae, a bottle-shaped granite tower in the ancient Silla capital of Kyŏngju, often cited as the world’s oldest astronomical observatory. According to the Samguk yusa, the Ch’ŏmsŏng- dae was built during the reign of Queen Sŏndŏk (632–647). Its original purpose is not clear but it is widely believed that it served as an observa- tory, and it has been suggested that its shape was designed to hold a large armillary sphere. If so, it is the world’s oldest extant observatory.11 Due to the central role that Buddhism played as a state-protective cult it has been suggested that the tower was built as a replica of the holy Mount Sumeru, and that it was a place where praying and incantations took place. It is known that astronomy was an important science for compiling the cal- endar and for prognostication. One eighth-century astronomer, Kim Am, the great-great-grandson of Kim Yu-sin, enjoyed a high reputation. Kim studied in China and was also remembered as a master of military science and of yin-yang theory.

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Educated members of the elite wrote poetry in Chinese, and some of their works have survived in Chinese anthologies. The great anthology of Chinese literature, the Wenxuan, was taught in Korea, and the Tang poets Bo Juyi and Du Fu were highly esteemed by the educated elite, while some Korean writers in Chinese, such as Ch’oe Ch’i-wŏn, were highly admired in Tang. Ch’oe was considered a master of poetry and parallel prose. A collection of his writings was compiled in 886 and published in both China and Korea. In general, Koreans used Chinese ideographs (called hanmun or hanja in Korean) for writing, although, of course, they spoke one of the several dialects of Korean used in the peninsula during that time. All three kingdoms apparently employed systems for writ- ing in their native languages using Chinese characters. One method of writing in the vernacular was called idu. Idu used hanmun sentences and placed them in Korean syntax by using certain characters to indicate grammatical markers. Another system, Kugyŏl or t’o, also employed a system of markers and was used as an aid in reading Chinese. Writing Korean in Chinese characters presented problems, as can be seen in the Oath Inscription of 612 where Chinese characters are put in Korean word order. The complicated sound system of Korean made development of a phonetic script difficult, and it was not until the fifteenth century that the Korean alphabet han’gŭl was developed (see chapter 7).12

Koreans in Silla times also wrote poetry in Korean. In the late ninth cen- tury an anthology of hundreds of vernacular Korean poems, the Samdae- mok (Collection from the Three Kingdoms), was compiled, but it has been lost. Much Korean poetry was written in a system called hyangch’al, which was devised to transcribe entire Korean sentences with Chinese characters. Using this system, Korean-language poems known as hyangga were com- posed. Unfortunately, few hyangga have survived (see below). Although we have the titles of many hyangga, only twenty-five hyangga now exist: fourteen dating to Silla times are in the Samguk yusa; the other eleven, at- tributed to the tenth-century monk Kyunyŏ, are in the Kyunyŏ chŏn (Tale of Kyunyŏ). These poems provide us with the earliest forms of purely Korean literature. They are invaluable in providing a window into the language and indigenous poetry of the period. Seventeen are Buddhist in inspiration and content; others show a shamanistic influence. Among the latter the “Song of Ch’ŏyong” is probably the best known. This eight- line poem refers to the legend of Ch’oyŏng, one of the seven sons of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, who married a beautiful woman. Seeing that the wife was extremely attractive, an evil spirit transformed himself into a man and attacked her in her room while Ch’oyŏng was away. But Ch’oyŏng returned and, witnessing the scene, calmly sang the words of the poem, which so moved the evil spirit that it went away. The Ch’oyŏng

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mask was later used to exorcize evil spirits, usually on New Year’s Eve. It is apparent that many of the hyangga were to be accompanied by music and dance. Indigenous religious undertones are strong in surviving Silla literature. Even many of the Buddhist poems appear to have been Bud- dhified shamanistic invocations to mountain spirits and other nature dei- ties and are perhaps of remote origin.

Saenae-mu, mask dances, were performed on festival days such as the three-day T’aep’o (Festival of Wine), which was imported from China. The first was recorded in 615. In 746, at a T’aep’o given by King Kyŏngdŏk, a general amnesty was declared, and 150 novices were ordained monks. This was celebrated in Kyŏngju, which was the great center for aristocratic life. In fact, there appear to have been no significant regional cultural cen- ters, and to a much greater degree than in later Korea, the higher culture was confined to the aristocratic elite living in the capital. An inkling of what this life may have been like is revealed in the Imhae-jŏn (Pavilion on the Sea) banquet hall, which was built over the man-made Anapchi Lake and in the P’osŏkchŏng. The latter was a slightly winding water channel carved out of stone in which wine cups were floated. Revelers took turns composing verse before the wine cups floated down to them. Little is known, however, of the art, music, and festivities of the non-elites.

SILLA AND ITS NEIGHBORS

Silla relations with Tang began to improve in the eighth century. There were several reasons for this. After the reign of Gaozong, the expansion- ary phase of Tang was largely over, and fear of a direct invasion lessened. Furthermore, the creation of Parhae, a new state in Manchuria, acted both as a buffer between Silla and Tang and as a mutual enemy. It controlled part of what is now Korea, posing a threat to its southern neighbor. An alliance between Tang and Silla against Parhae in 733 brought a long pe- riod of amiable relations between the two. Tang’s interests in the Korean peninsula were largely strategic, and as it became obvious that Silla posed no threat to its security, relations warmed. China found instead that its policy of using trade and cultural exchanges and offering legitimacy and prestige to the Silla monarchy was effective in keeping Silla safely in the tributary system. Indeed, the relationship that was worked out in the late seventh and early eighth centuries can be considered the beginning of the mature tributary relationship that would characterize Sino-Korean inter- change most of the time until the late nineteenth century.

Cultural relations with China were significant. Forty-five of the fifty Silla monks known to have traveled to China did so after unification. Many Korean students studied in Tang. There is no way of knowing how many, but it must have been a considerable number, for in 844, 105

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Koreans who were studying at the national academy were sent back to Silla. Eighty-eight Sillans passed the highly competitive and prestigious civil examination during the Tang. A few Koreans even rose to high office in China. Koreans who succeeded academically or who achieved fame in China returned to the homeland as celebrated heroes. In addition to stu- dents, frequent embassies were exchanged. One Chinese embassy is said to have had 800 members. The resultant process of sinicization among the elite was profound. Silla courtiers wore Chinese dress; aristocrats wrote verse in the best Chinese; and Chinese fashions in eating, drinking, music, and imported luxuries of all sorts were necessary accoutrements to high-born status. It is not certain how far Chinese cultural influences penetrated down the social scale. Most probably, the interest in Chinese culture was largely confined to the elite.

In contrast to those with China, relations between Silla and Japan were often hostile. In 733, the Yamato government participated in an alliance with Parhae and sent ships to attack Korea. Japanese leaders hoped to gain a foothold on the Korean peninsula. Attacks by the Japanese from the sea were a threat in early Silla. In 746, 300 Japanese ships are reported to have attacked Silla. This was followed by a treaty of amity that initi- ated a period of peaceful exchange. Good relations with Silla served the Japanese well because during the next century the chief maritime route to China passed along the south coast of Korea. A bureau for Silla was established in Dazaifu in Kyushu in western Japan, and embassies were exchanged. One Japanese embassy had a reported 204 members. Dur- ing 761–764, during the An Lushan rebellion in China, a Japanese court official, Fujiwara no Nakamura, planned another invasion; but this was called off by rivals at court and no further organized invasions of Korea took place for the next eight centuries. Instead, it was Sillan pirates who plagued the Japanese coast in the ninth century.

Silla was also tied to its neighbors by trade networks. This included the official tribute given to Tang and the “gifts” received in return. A great deal of private trade flourished as well. Silla silver and gold wares were prized in China. Especially famous were silver and gold basins that became known in China through Song times as “Silla” and copper basins that were called “copper Silla.” Silla silver and gold gained a reputation as far as the Middle East where early Arab references to al-Sila describe it as rich in precious metals.13 Silla exported silver and gold bullion, textiles, and ginseng, for which Korea has always been famous in East Asia. Sometimes Silla took advantage of its location to re-export Chinese goods and furs and horses from the tribal peoples on its northern border to Japan. From China books, tea, textiles, swords, a variety of ceremonial goods such as court robes, and various luxurious goods were imported. Chinese coins were also imported; they served as a medium of exchange,

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since Silla did not mint coins. Some of these goods were re-exported to Japan, where they were traded along with Silla crafts for pearls, fans, and screens.

Silla was the greatest period of maritime activity in Korea’s history. Ko- reans dominated the commerce of Northeast Asia in the eighth and ninth centuries; most of the commerce between Korea, north China, and Japan was carried out in Korean ships. Koreans established communities in the port of Dengzhou, the historic gateway into north China from Korea, and in Lianshui and Chuzhou on the Huai River. Korean ships sailed to Yang- zhou at the junction of the Yangzi River and the Grand Canal, but did not generally venture into southern China where international commerce was dominated by Arabs. In the ninth century Japanese going to China sailed on Korean vessels, and the account of one these travelers, the monk Ennin (794–864), provides a valuable description of Korean maritime activities and of the Korean naval commander Chang Po-go.

Chang Po-go’s (788?–846) career illustrates this interesting chapter of Korean history. Born on Ch’ŏnghae (Wando) Island off Korea’s south- western coast of humble family background, Chang Po-go immigrated to Tang, where he became a military officer in the lower Huai River basin. Chang returned to Korea and gained royal permission to establish the Ch’ŏnghae Garrison on his home island in 828 by arguing for the need to control Chinese piracy and to protect Korean trade and travelers. From his stronghold he operated a private navy that was a major power in the Yellow Sea. According to the Japanese monk Ennin in his Account of a Pil- grimage to Tang in Search of the Law, which tells of his 840 voyage to Tang China in one of Chang Po-go’s ships, the Korean commander operated a large Buddhist temple in Shandong Province with twenty-eight Korean monks and nuns.14 Chang Po-go’s maritime trade and connections were so extensive that he was called “King of the Yellow Sea.” According to Korean accounts he was given command of the Ch’ŏnghae Garrison be- cause he wanted to end the marauding of pirates who were kidnapping Koreans and selling them as slaves. However, this official position was probably just an official acknowledgment of his already accumulated power. Chang supported Kim U-jing in his successful bid for the throne in 839, when he became King Sinmu. When the newly installed king died the same year, Chang attempted to marry his daughter to King Sinmu’s son and successor, King Munsŏng. For an islander and a man outside the aristocratic elite of Silla, this bid for influence was a bold move, which failed when a member of the capital aristocracy assassinated him in 846. The Ch’ŏnghae Garrison was abolished in 851. Chang Po-go’s rise from a maritime trader to a major power broker in late Silla was unusual but probably indicative of the growth of maritime lords during this period. Two other maritime lords were Wang Pong-gyu in Chinju and Wang

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Kŏn (877–943), the Koryŏ founder, who came from a maritime family in the Kaesŏng area. Korea’s dominance of Northeast Asian sea lanes ended after the ninth century.

PARHAE

Silla was not the only state to occupy the Korean peninsula. To the north was the state of Parhae. After the collapse of Koguryŏ, remnants from that state and a number of Manchurian tribal peoples set up a state in southern Manchuria at the end of the seventh century that dominated most of Man- churia and the northern third of Korea for two centuries. From 713 to its destruction by the Khitans in 926, Parhae was a formidable power. Its re- lations with its neighbors were often tense. Parhae, an extensive state, was strong enough to launch a naval raid on the Chinese port of Dengzhou in 732. Despite the tense relations with Tang, Parhae was quickly brought into the Chinese cultural orbit, modeling its administrative structure, its laws, and its literature after its giant neighbor. In general the Parhae administrative structure conformed more closely to the Tang model than to Silla. The state impressed the Chinese enough to earn from them the sobriquet the “flourishing land in the East.” A high-water mark of its wealth and power was reached under the tenth king, Sŏn (r. 818–831).15 Sŏn expanded the kingdom to the Amur River.

For Silla, Parhae was a menacing neighbor. This was heightened when the second king, Tae Mu-ye, known also as King Mu (r. 719–737), com- pleted the tasks of subjugating the western Manchurian tribes and then turned south and established control over the Hamhŭng plain and the Hamggyŏng coast. In 721, Silla was forced to construct what is recorded as a wall but was more likely a chain of fortifications along its northern border that extended from the mouth of the Taedong to Wŏnsan Bay on the east coast. In terms of geopolitics, Parhae occupied the former position of Koguryŏ. With the consolidation of the Parhae state under Mu, Silla found itself in the same position that it was in the 660s when, after the fall of Paekche, it allied itself with Tang to remove the threat in the northern part of the peninsula. But the Tang-Silla military campaign of 733 was no repeat of 668. Half the Sillan army, including two grandsons of Kim Yu- sin, perished in the snows of the northern mountains. Parhae remained a powerful state that outlived by a couple of decades Silla’s effective control over most of the peninsula. The war did bring one benefit for Silla. Tang, in return for its support against Parhae, recognized Silla’s sovereignty over all the territory south of the Taedong. Again in 762, during the An Lushan rebellion in China, Silla felt compelled to fortify its northern bor- der in anticipation of a joint Parhae-Japanese invasion. Relations between

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the two states, however, were not always hostile, and diplomatic mis- sions to Parhae are recorded for 792 and 812. Trade also was carried out between them, and there is a reference to thirty-nine stations along a trade route stretching from the Parhae city of Tonggyŏng to Silla.

Parhae’s relations with Japan were of a much more consistently friendly nature. For two centuries, the two nations exchanged diplomatic embassies. Parhae dispatched thirty-five embassies to Japan and the Japanese court sent thirteen embassies to Parhae.16 A lively trade existed between the two, Parhae selling furs for Japanese textiles. Parhae also acted as an important avenue for the transmission of Chinese culture into Japan, assuming the role formerly played by Koguryŏ. The Japanese were impressed by the cultural attainments of Parhae’s envoys; surviving poems composed by Parhae diplomats for the Japanese hosts remain the only extant examples of Parhae literature. Twice in 733 and again in 762 joint attacks on Silla were planned, the second one abortive. And when the Parhae state fell to the seminomad Khitans, a last embassy came in 929 unsuccessfully seeking assistance in restoring the kingdom. In the early eighth century Parhae also sought alliance with the Tujue (Turkish) con- federation that arose in Mongolia, briefly making Korea the focal point of a vast East Asian military alliance system that pitted Tang and Silla against Parhae, the Tujue, and Japan.

Only fragmentary knowledge has survived about Parhae society and culture. The economy was based on agriculture with the rich central Manchuria plains supporting a population that according to one Chinese source consisted of 100,000 households or about half a million people. Ethnically, the population was a mix of various Manchurian peoples of Tungusic linguistic stock along with possible admixtures of Koguryŏ- speaking people. Recently, archeological work in Manchuria has begun to give us a glimpse of an amalgamated cultural style of Chinese, Ko- rean, and indigenous elements. Interestingly, an ondol system for heating homes characteristic of Korean houses was used. Many Parhae students studied and sat for the examinations in Tang, where the Chinese diplo- matically admitted the same number of Sillan and Parhae applicants to the exams. But the Chinese were not always so even-handed and gave Sillan envoys a higher place in imperial audiences. Since only a few frag- ments of literature have survived, little can be said except that the elite at least had absorbed a great deal of Chinese culture and wrote eloquent Chinese verse. Buddhism was patronized and a purple porcelain was produced that gained a high reputation in Tang.

Since the eighteenth century many Korean historians have considered Parhae part of Korean history, which has led some historians to regard the Late Silla period as the “two Kingdoms period.”17 The implications of this for Korea are significant. Considering Parhae part of Korean his-

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tory strengthens the argument of those modern Korean nationalists who seek to incorporate much of Manchuria within the historical homeland of Koreans, and it provides support for modern ultranationalists who hold irredentist claims for all or portions of Manchuria. For contemporary Koreans it also provides a historical echo for their current north-south division. Still the questions remain: Was Parhae a Korean state? And what role does it play in Korean history? It did occupy the northernmost parts of what is now Korea, including the modern Hamgyŏng Province, and its ruling dynasty of non-Korean ethnic origins proudly laid claim to Koguryŏ’s heritage. The rulers of Parhae often referred to their state as the successor to Koguryŏ, and many of the leading families traced their an- cestry to that state. But Parhae’s population was predominately of groups different from those that evolved into modern ethnic Koreans. In this respect it resembled Koguryŏ, a state that lay mostly outside of the penin- sula and that most likely had many ethnic groups that were not ancestral to modern Koreans. If fact, even the Koguryŏ language appears to have been quite different from that spoken in Silla and Paekche and perhaps less closely related to modern Korean. Some historians, therefore, regard it as illogical to include Koguryŏ and exclude Parhae as part of Korean history. But to a greater extent than Koguryŏ, Parhae’s population base and its primary capital (as well as three of four of its secondary capitals) lay outside the Korean peninsula.

Whether or not it is included as a part of Korea, Parhae’s role in Korean history is important because for all its tensions with its southern neighbor, it acted as a protective barrier both from Tang and from potential semino- madic invaders. That is, Parhae stabilized the always-troublesome north- ern frontiers of Manchuria and Siberia and enabled Silla to enjoy two centuries of relative peace and prosperity. This, perhaps, was Parhae’s most important contribution to Korea’s historical development.

THE DECLINE OF SILLA

After the mid-eighth century Silla began a political decline. The central government became weaker, powerful local warlords emerged, and the countryside was plagued by banditry. In part, this was related to the changes in its international environment. Throughout East Asia the eighth century was a period of cultural brilliance and prosperity while the ninth century was a time of decline. All three cultural/geographical areas that surround Korea—China, the northern frontiers of Manchuria and Siberia, and Japan—experienced troubles. The Tang Empire, after reach- ing a political and cultural apogee under Xuanzong (r. 712–756), began to weaken. By the late ninth century China saw internal rebellions and

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intrusions by tribal invaders, and at the beginning of the tenth century the Chinese Empire broke up into smaller rival states. The Manchurian state of Parhae was weakened by external pressures from seminomadic neighbors. In Japan, Nara was abandoned in 784 and the capital moved to Heian a decade later. While the early Heian period was one of cul- tural creativity, the central Japanese state declined and effective power gravitated toward regional warlords. Contacts between Japan and China diminished, hurting Korea, since it had benefited as an intermediary in Chinese-Japanese trade. In the south, Annam (Vietnam) became restless, and in the tenth century it broke free from Chinese rule. Tribal peoples along the northern borders of the East Asian cultural realm became in- creasingly powerful, with the Khitans (or Qidans) emerging in the ninth century as the most formidable in the northeast. In the early tenth century they contributed to the fall of the Tang, destroyed Parhae, and threatened the Korean peninsula with invasion. It is important to see the weakening of central authority in Silla, the rise of local warlords, and the resultant civil disorder within the context of the great fragmentation of authority and breakdown in order that characterized all of East Asia at this time. But the Silla state’s decline was also part of the internal pattern. After 780, local landed aristocrats consolidated their landholdings, built sŏngju (walled towns), and commanded private armies. These local aristocrats in effect became warlords, even styling themselves as changgun (gener- als). Eventually these warlords formed alliances and competed with each other for power.

THE LATER THREE KINGDOMS

Toward the end of the ninth century the central government’s control over most of the peninsula disintegrated. During Chinsŏng’s reign (887–897) the bandit Kihwŏn overran much of south-central Korea. Yang- gil, another bandit, controlled much of the north-central region; a third, Ch’onggil, lorded over parts of the south and central areas, while a group known as the Red Pantaloons terrorized the southeast and raided the out- skirts of Kyŏngju in 896. Eventually three separate states emerged, so that the period from 901 until 936 is known as the Period of the Later Three Kingdoms. It became another three-way struggle for the mastery of the Korean peninsula. Later histories portrayed the struggle for the mastery of Korea among three personalities, Wang Kŏn, Kyŏnhwŏn, and Kungye, whom historian C. Cameron Hurst has called respectively the good, the bad, and the ugly.18 Kyŏnhwŏn (867–936), the bad one, a son of a farmer, served in the coast guard in southwest Korea, was commissioned as an army officer, and with his private army occupied the provincial capital of

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Muju, installing himself as military governor in 892. Initially he was still an officer in the Silla army, but then he aligned himself with the rebel- bandit Yanggil before setting himself up in 900 as the king of Paekche. This state is often referred to as Later Paekche to distinguish it from the earlier Paekche.

Kungye (d. 918), the ugly one, according to traditional sources was ei- ther born from a liaison between King Kyŏngmun and a woman outside his court or was the son of a low-ranking concubine of King Hon’an (r. 857–861); the accounts vary. A Silla prince, as a victim of a power struggle he was exiled from the court and eventually became a supporter of the bandit-rebel Kihwŏn and later of another rebel leader, Yanggil. As one of Yanggil’s commanders in northern Silla, he is said to have brought large areas of Kyŏnggi, Kangwŏn, and Hwanghae provinces under the former’s control. In 901, after having killed Yanggil, Kungye established what he called the state of Koguryŏ (often referred to as Later Koguryŏ) at Songak (Kaesŏng). He renamed his state twice; it is best known as Later Koguryŏ. As leader of one of the Later Three Kingdoms he engaged in a three-way power struggle with Later Paekche and Silla. Kungye is depicted in Korean histories as cruel and tyrannical with a deep hatred of Silla. Announcing “revenge on Silla for the fall of Koguryŏ” and declar- ing Kyŏngju the “City of Destruction,” he is said to have killed anyone who ventured into his kingdom from the old Silla heartland, although his staff included Silla aristocrats. In an effort to sanctify his rule he claimed to be the Maitreya Buddha, proclaimed his sons bodhisattvas, dressed himself and his sons in colorful garb, and composed sutras. He rode on a white horse preceded by youths and maidens burning incense, followed by 200 monks chanting mantras. Kungye, claiming to have the power of mind reading, carried out frequent purges of his officials whose disloyal intentions he could anticipate.19 In 918, he was murdered by one of his commanders, Wang Kŏn, the good one, and the founder of Koryŏ.

Silla was the weakest of the three states. The monarchy’s control was limited to the extreme southeast corner of the country. Internal instability is suggested by the fact that between 912 and 927 three monarchs came from the ancient Pak line. In 921, the weakened Silla state allied itself with Wang Kŏn and his renamed Koryŏ state, a move possible only with the death of Kungye. Silla paid for this alliance with a devastating attack by Kyŏnhwŏn in 927 in which Kyŏngae (r. 924–927) committed suicide and Kyŏngju was sacked. A member of the royal Kim clan was then placed on the throne as Kyŏngsun (r. 927–935). Wang Kŏn, whose base of support appeared to be maritime, captured the islands off the west coast of Korea. But these early victories were followed by two decades of stalemate dur- ing which Silla just managed to survive and gradually came under the protection of Koryŏ. In 930, Wang Kŏn defeated Later Paekche at Mount

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P’yŏng north of Andong; a year later he visited Kyŏngju and probably effectively controlled that state from then on. In 932, he was recognized as Korean ruler by the Later Tang dynasty that ruled northern China. His position was also strengthened by the arrival of refugees from Parhae including the crown prince, Tae Kwang-hyŏn, in 934.

Later Paekche, increasingly isolated, was defeated at Ungju in 934 and lost all land north of the Kŭm River. Kyŏnhwŏn sought unsuccessfully to obtain military support from Japan in 935. In the end his older son, Sin’gŏm, murdered his younger son, Kŭmgang, whom Kyŏnhwŏn had set up as his successor, and imprisoned his father. Escaping, the aging Kyŏnhwŏn marched with Wang Kŏn’s army to Ilsŏn-gun. There Wang Kŏn, now able to act as an avenger for unfilial conduct, defeated the Later Paekche forces at Ilsŏn-gun in September 936. Sin’gŏm surrendered and died a few days later. The previous year, 935, the last Silla king, Kyŏngsun, abdicated and recognized Wang Kŏn as his successor. Thus Korea was reunified by Wang Kŏn and the Koryŏ period began.

Our information on this period comes from official sources written in the twelfth century under the sponsorship of the dynasty that Wang Kŏn founded. Much about the events remains unclear. For example, how did Silla manage to survive so many years? Why did Kyŏnhwŏn not annex it in 927? What were the bases of support for Kyŏnhwŏn, Kungye, and Wang Kŏn? Was the conjuring up of the names Paekche and Koguryŏ indicative of a resurgence of regional/ethnic sentiment in those regions? And, if so, does this mean that the unification of Korea under Silla was far from complete at the end of the ninth century? Or was the use of these names simply part of the search for sources of legitimacy by the rebel leaders? None of the answers to these questions are clear.

Silla rulers had only limited success in establishing a centralized polity. Powerful true-bone aristocrats resisted attempts to create a more Chinese- style centralized bureaucracy. After 780 real power seems to have slipped from the king and his officials in the capital to aristocrats in the country- side. By the end of the ninth century the king could no longer maintain control much beyond the capital, and a power struggle emerged among regional warlords. The use of the old names of Paekche and Kogury suggests that the Korean peninsula was not as homogeneous as it later became; regional loyalties were still considerable. Evidence indicates that people in different areas probably still spoke distinctive languages. They also probably possessed local and ethnic identities apart from and/ or stronger than any shared Korean/Sillan identity. Much of this is not yet understood. Whatever the reasons for the creation of the later three kingdoms, they were short-lived. Most of the Korean peninsula was soon reunited, and would remain united until the division of the peninsula by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1945.

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KOREA IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: SILLA’S RISE AND FALL

Silla went through a period of cultural brilliance in the eighth century, then declined in the ninth, and disintegrated in the early tenth century. This was a pattern shared by many other societies at the time. For China as well, the seventh and eighth centuries under the Tang were one of the most brilliant in its history, with a great outpouring of poetry and art, an expanding population, growing cities, and administrative efficiency peak- ing in the mid-eighth century. From the second half of the eight century, following the An Lushan Rebellion, 755–763, Tang went into a political decline, although it continued to flourish well into the ninth century, when the decline began to accelerate. After 906, a number of short-lived dynas- ties and weak governments existed until the establishment of the Song in 960 brought about an economic and cultural revival. That this matched events in Korea in terms of chronology is certainly too much to be a coin- cidence. Silla’s peak and decline roughly coincides with events in Japan, where the eighth century saw a great outpouring of creative energy in poetry and architecture and the Japanese state at Nara flourished. In 794 the capital was transferred to Heian (Kyoto), which also flourished cultur- ally, but by the late tenth century the central Japanese state was in decline.

The eighth and early ninth century was a time of political consolida- tion, economic prosperity, and cultural creativity in the Middle East as well. The Umayyad Caliphate was replaced by the Abbasid Caliphate centered in Baghdad in 750, which marked a sort of high point of the great Arab Empire as Arab and Persian cultural traditions creatively blended. Then from the mid-ninth century the Abbasid Caliphate began a long decline, and smaller polities emerged in the Middle East. The eighth century saw a political and cultural revival in Western Europe with the rise of the Carolingian Empire, which then split up into weaker units in the mid-ninth century. Invasions by Norsemen, Bulgars, and Magyars in the ninth and early tenth centuries threatened the political and economic institutions of Europe until they were contained in the mid-tenth century. The eighth century was a period of political centralization and outward trade and prosperity in most of Eurasia, while the late ninth was a period of political fragmentation and decline.

Historians do not understand all the links among the societies of the Old World, but they are increasingly appreciating just how intercon- nected they were. Korea, geographically on the periphery of Eurasia was not only embedded in the larger historical developments of East Asia, but a part of the larger Afro-Eurasian world.

I

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Sŏl Kye-du Sŏl Kye-du was a descendant of a Silla official. Once he went drinking with his four friends, each of whom revealed his wishes. Sŏl said, “In Silla the bone rank is the key to employment. If one is not of the nobil- ity, no matter what his talents, he cannot achieve a high rank. I wish to travel west to China, display rare resources and perform meritorious deeds, and thereby open a path to glory and splendor so that I might wear the robes and sword of an official and serve close to the Son of Heaven.”

In the fourth year, sinsa, of Wu-te [621], Sŏl stealthily boarded an oceangoing ship and went to T’ang China.

—from the Samguk sagi, 47:43620

Great Master Kyunyŏ: Eleven Poems on the Ten Vows of the Universally Worthy Bodhisattva

Worshiping and Honoring the Buddhas I bow today before the Buddha, Whom I draw with my mind’s brush O this body and mind of mine, Strive to reach the end of the dharma realm He who is in every mote of dust; He who pervades every Buddha field; He who fills the realm of dharma— Would that I could serve him in the nine time periods. Ah, idle body, mouth, and mind— Approach him and be with him, unimpeded.

Rejoicing in the Merit of Others The truth of dependent origination tells me That illusion and enlightenment are one. From the buddhas down to mortal men, The other and myself are one. Were I able to practice his virtues, Were I able to master his ways, I would rejoice in the merit of others; I would rejoice in the good of others. Ah, were I to follow in his footsteps, How could the jealous mind be aroused

Transfer of Merit Would that all my merit Might be passed on to others, I would like to awaken them—

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Those wandering in the sea of suffering. When we attain the vast realm of dharma, Removed karmas are jewels in dharmahood; Since aeons ago Bodhisattvas, too, have devoted their merit to others. Ah, he whom I worship and I are one, Of one body and one mind.

—from the Kyunyŏ chŏn 7, in Korean Tripitaka 47:260c–261b 21

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77

THE NEW KORYŎ STATE

The disunity of Korea in the tenth century was short-lived and soon the peninsula was reunited under the Wang Kŏn. He named the state Koryŏ after Koguryŏ, the ancient state that ruled the northern part of the peninsula as well as parts of Manchuria. The English name Korea is de- rived from Koryŏ. The Wang dynasty he founded in 918 ruled all of the peninsula for the better part of five centuries from 935 to 1392, making it among the longer-reigning dynasties in world history and inaugurating a sense of stability and continuity in Korean history. Under Koryŏ the peoples of Korea became integrated into a single, distinctive culture and society to a far greater extent than under Silla. In fact, it may not be too much to say that a truly Korean society and ethnicity that was cotermi- nous to the state emerged during this time.

Toward the end of the ninth century and into the early tenth century as centralized rule broke down, Korea became in effect a land where local military warlords ruled. Considering the rugged mountainous terrain of Korea, the strength of local traditions, and the great difficulty that even the ablest of Silla’s rulers had in trying to create a centralized state in the face of powerful aristocratic clans, the disintegration of the Silla is not sur- prising. What is more surprising is how quickly Korea was reunified in the tenth century under Wang Kŏn. Several factors help explain this. Silla left a two-century legacy of unified, bureaucratic government that may have become accepted as the norm. Furthermore, under the Silla a strong cultural unity among the peoples of the peninsula emerged, although

4

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Koryŏ, 935 to 1170

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it is difficult to gauge its extent or depth. Korea was also influenced by outside events. The nomad threat posed by the Khitans (or Qidan), a proto-Mongol group that emerged as dominant in Manchuria in the tenth century, made the need for a centralized authority more obvious. Korea may have also been influenced by the model of a strong unified state that Tang presented, a model reinforced by the reunification of China by the Song in 979.

Wang Kŏn’s new state was far from a strong centralized bureaucratic state, however, but was rather an alliance of warlords. Much of the work in creating a strong, centralized kingdom was left to his successors during the next two centuries. It was a slow process of building effective state in- stitutions and creating an elite class that owed its prime allegiance to the dynasty. The result was largely successful in that Wang and his succes- sors created a kingdom that lasted for nearly half a millennium and that was inherited largely intact by the Yi dynasty that ruled for another five centuries. Together the two dynasties ruled a state that forged its inhabit- ants into one of the most homogeneous peoples in the world, a people with a strong sense of cultural identity and historical consciousness.

Wang Kŏn’s base was in the Kaesŏng area, meaning the Imjin and Yesŏng basin area and the adjacent coastal area. There is some doubt about his real name, since Wang Kŏn simply means “kingly founder,” but it is believed that he was from a prominent local family with military and merchant connections. His grandfather reportedly was a merchant and his father a military naval commander. The name Koryŏ suggests that the new dynasty saw itself as a successor to the old Koguryŏ. Certainly the name still symbolized power and greatness in Northeast Asia at that time. Wang Kŏn established his capital at Kaesŏng, a more centrally located city to the north of the Han River. Soon after establishing his capital at Kaesŏng he made P’yŏngyang his secondary capital, naming it Sŏgyŏng (Western Capital), further suggesting the link between the once formi- dable state and the new kingdom. Perhaps he also sought to draw upon the geomantic power of the ancient city as well. But Koryŏ was strictly a peninsular state, possessing none of the Manchurian lands of its earlier namesake.

Major changes in government and society took place that marked Ko- ryŏ as more than simply a change of ruling houses, yet there was also a great deal of continuity. As the dynastic founder, Wang Kŏn sought to underline this continuity and establish himself as the legitimate succes- sor to Silla. He did this by marrying into the Kyŏngju Kim family of Silla and by incorporating many elite families of Silla into the power structure of Koryŏ. Indeed it would be more accurate to consider Koryŏ as a refor- mulation of the Silla state rather than a radical break in Korean history. Wang Kŏn took great care to establish his state as the legitimate successor

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to Silla, pensioning off the last king, appointing members of the Silla aris- tocracy to positions in the new state, and taking two members of the Silla royal family as consorts. Later Korean historians would largely accept this claim that Koryŏ was the successor to Silla, and that the “Mandate of Heaven” had simply been passed on to a new dynasty.

One of the dynastic founder’s primary tasks was to consolidate power over a land where local families had their own powerful armies. In fact, as historian John Duncan has pointed out, the early Koryŏ was as much a confederation of powerful warlords and aristocratic families as a cen- tralized state.1 To establish his authority Wang claimed the Mandate of Heaven, the Chinese practice in which authority was legitimized by as- serting that the ruler governed with Heaven’s blessing. His invocation of Heaven’s authority is reflected in the reign name he chose, Ch’ŏnsu (Heaven-Given). To further establish his authority he formed alliances with powerful warlords and prominent members of the old Silla aris- tocracy, including the Silla royal family, acquiring twenty-nine wives in total. His death in 943 consequently created succession problems due to the vast number of in-laws jockeying for power. Wang Kŏn’s philosophy of government is summed up in his Ten Injunctions, which sought to pro- mote Buddhism as a protective cult and warned against appointment of people from Paekche (see below). He sought the protection of the spirits of the land and was concerned that Buddhism be supported. His injunc- tions made it clear that while China was to be looked to as a model, Korea had its own customs and should not imitate the Chinese unnecessarily. In contrast to China, according to the injunctions, the seminomadic tribal peoples of the north were barbarians and their customs should never be copied at all.

The Wang court initially held little direct power over the countryside, where control was in the hands of local lords with their private armies and their walled towns. In realistic recognition of the entrenched power of these lords, the central government appointed them as officials in their home areas. Gradually the Koryŏ developed a kun-hyŏn (prefecture- county) system of local administration. Under this system, the more pow- erful aristocrats headed yŏng (control prefectures) and control counties, occupied the local offices in administrative units, and also collected taxes from the less powerful families that held offices in the sok (subordinate prefectures) and counties. It was an odd arrangement that had no Chinese precedent. Most likely the system reflected the hierarchical order of local aristocrats who actually governed the countryside. The bone-rank system was replaced by the pon’gwan (ancestral-seat) system. Under this system, aristocratic clans were identified by their place of origin. This clan-seat system closely linked aristocrats with a particular area where they gener- ally held the key local offices.

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The fragility of the new state was evident by the succession struggle after Wang’s death. He named his eldest son, Mu, as his heir in 921. By the time of Wang Kŏn’s death, Mu, who is better known as King Hyejong (r. 943–945), had long prepared for the assumption of his father’s position. Yet he had to defend his throne against Wang Kyu, one of the powerful warlords whom Wang Kŏn had sought alliances with through marriage. Wang Kyu (?–945) had married two daughters to Wang Kŏn and sup- ported a grandson by one of these marriages for the throne. Hyejong died after only two years on the throne and his brother Chŏngjong (r. 945–949) defeated Wang Kyu and ended the rebellion.2 But the private armies threatened the stability of the state. To counter the private armies of great aristocrats Chŏngjong created the Kwanggun (Resplendent Army), an important step in consolidating royal power.

The fourth Koryŏ king, Kwangjong (r. 949–975), took further measures to consolidate monarchical power. He created a large military force from the provinces loyal to him, declared himself hwangje (emperor), and re- named Kaesŏng the Imperial Capital (Hwangdo). This was an unusual step, since Koreans generally accepted the idea that there was only one emperor, the Chinese emperor. Not until 1897 would a Korean king again claim the imperial title. The pretension was abandoned when the Song dynasty was able to reassert Chinese authority in the region. In 956, Kwangjong issued a Slave Investigation Act aimed at determining those who had been illegally or unfairly enslaved during the Later Three Kingdoms period. During that time many peasants had been captured as prisoners of war, while others had fallen into debt, and in both cases they had become slaves. The king sought to reduce the power of the great lords by limiting the number of their slaves and returning the freed peasants to the tax rolls. Kwangjong also carried out bloody purges among the high aristocracy. In 960, he launched a purge of powerful aristocrats who held posts as Meritorious Subjects. Under Wang Kŏn and his immediate successors many individuals who had aided or allied with the monarchs as they established the new state or who helped them secure their throne had been granted the post of Meritorious Subject as a reward. The purge was designed to reduce their number and influence.

The next king, Kyŏngjong (r. 975–981), abandoned the imperial preten- sion but strengthened the central government by issuing the chŏnsi-kwa (Field and Woodland) system. This was a system by which officials were given fixed incomes from designated lands according to rank. By providing support for officials, the Field and Woodland system helped to transform the government from an aristocratic confederation into a central bureaucracy of officials recruited by and loyal to the throne.3 An- other early step in consolidating state power was carried out by Sŏngjong (r. 981–997), who created among other institutions a Finance Commission

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(Samsa) to handle financial affairs, the Hallim Academy to draft royal edicts, and an inspectorate, the Ŏsadae, to check on the conduct of officials.

After early experiments with different types of institutions Koryŏ adopted the Tang Three Chancelleries system. The Samsŏng (Three Chancelleries) were the chief administrative organs of the Koryŏ state. The Chungsŏsŏng (Secretariat) was responsible for drafting policy, the Munhasŏng (Chancellery) reviewed policy, and the sangsŏsŏng (Secretariat for State Affairs) was responsible for executing policies through the Yukpu (Six Ministries). Following the Chinese practice the six ministries were war, rituals (that included foreign affairs), finance, personnel, punish- ments, and public works. Heads of the Secretariat of State Affairs were often concurrently heads of the six ministries, but their positions were less prestigious than those of the directors of the first two chanceller- ies. The first two formed a Chungsŏ-Munhasŏng (combined Secretariat- Chancellery) under a Munha-sijung (supreme chancellor), the highest of all officials. Officials were divided Chinese-style into nine grades. At the top of this hierarchy were the eight first- and second-grade officials of the Chungsŏ-Munhasŏng, who become known as the chaesin or chaesang. Another important organ was the Ch’ungch’uwŏn (Royal Secretariat, later called the Ch’umirwŏn), which was responsible for military affairs and for transmitting royal orders. The top-ranking officials of the Ch’unch’uwŏn formed a lesser elite group known as the ch’usin.

This complex system of administration was closely modeled on the administration of Tang China. Indeed, Koryŏ adhered much closer to the Tang model of administration than Silla did. But in reality Koryŏ functioned quite differently. In practice, the distinctions between the various organs of government were less sharply defined than in China. Furthermore, unlike China where members of nonaristocratic families and eunuchs held key positions, the government of Koryŏ was dominated by the members of the great pedigreed families. In what was a common Korean pattern, effective decision making was carried out by these men in the form of councils of high-ranking officials. These were represented in the chaesin and ch’usin elite officialdom, who collectively became known as the Chaech’u or Privy Council that met at joint sessions. Later in the dynasty, the top council was called the Todang. The Three Chancelleries were typical of the councilor organs that characterized policy making and administration in premodern Korea. The desire to achieve positions on the Three Chancelleries and to be able to participate in the key Todang policy-making sessions led to intense competition among the major aris- tocratic families.

Another characteristic of this system was civilian dominance. Military officers were drawn from military lineages that had less prestige than civilian lineages. The top military post was the sang changgun (grand

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general), whose rank was only senior third-grade, lower than the second- grade rank of the chaesin and ch’usin. In times of crisis civilians were given military commands. The division of officialdom into civil and military lines resulted in tensions that emerged in the political upheavals of the twelfth century.

A significant innovation of the early Koryŏ was the introduction of the kwagŏ or civil service examinations in 958. Until its abolition in 1894 this was a key institution in Korea for recruiting and appointing officials. Although Silla experimented with civil service exams, they only became significant when they were reintroduced in the tenth century. The civil examination system was developed in China in the first centuries CE and became an important avenue for recruiting officials under the Tang dy- nasty. Its purpose was in part to free the Chinese emperors from reliance on powerful aristocrats for their officials by selecting talented men from the provinces. In theory the exams were open to all commoners, and in practice, too, members of non-elite families often rose to high positions. It was also based on the Confucian ideal that the state should be ruled by men of merit. Although not all officials in China were recruited through this method, it gradually came to undermine the power and status of the old aristocracy, replacing it with a merit-based service elite of scholar- officials. In Korea, the civil examinations were less a tool for the recruit- ment of officials than a means of training members of the aristocratic elite for government office. Thus they did not undermine the old landowning aristocratic class but helped to transform it into a service nobility that needed to validate its status by producing sons who scored well in the state examinations.

King Kwangjong established the civil examination system as part of his effort to consolidate monarchical control over the state. He was assisted by a Chinese advisor, Shuang Ji (Korean: Ssang Ki). Shuang Ji was an of- ficial of the Later Zhou dynasty that controlled northern China just prior to the reunification under the Song dynasty. He came to Korea in 956 as part of a Later Zhou (951–960) embassy, fell ill, and stayed behind. Appar- ently impressed by his erudition and administrative knowledge, Kwang- jong persuaded him to stay on in Korea as an advisor. With Shuang Ji’s help the king organized the first civil service exams in 958.4 Three men were chosen on the basis of their mastery of the Chinese classics and two on their demonstration of literary skills, and two others passed an ex- amination on geomancy. It was a modest beginning for an institution that would eventually transform the character of the aristocracy.

Koryŏ’s civil service system was primarily modeled after that of Tang. There were three types of kwagŏ: the chesul ŏp (Composition Examina- tion), the myŏnggyŏngŏp (Classics Examination), and the chap ŏp (Miscel- laneous Examinations). In the Composition Examination the examinees

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were tested on their skill in various Chinese literary forms such as poetry, rhyme prose, and sacrificial odes, and in writing problem-solving essays. The Classics Examination tested the candidates’ knowledge of Chinese classics. Less prestigious than the first two were the Miscellaneous Ex- aminations that were used to find officials with knowledge in such areas as law, medicine, divination, and geomancy. Of the two prestige degrees the Composition Examination was by far the most popular. From its implementation in 958 to the end of the dynasty four centuries later, 252 exams were given; over 6,000 received the composition degree and about 450 the classics degree.5

The kwagŏ never served as the sole or even primary method of recruit- ing officials during the Koryŏ; most still owed their position to family connections rather than success in examinations. Higher-ranking officials, for example, held the ŭm privilege, by which their sons received automatic appointment to office. The exams did, however, establish the principle of rule by merit and provided an avenue for the rise in power and status for some aristocrats, including some from minor families. Furthermore, the exams were important in enhancing one’s prestige; even men from powerful families often took the exam. One study shows that during the period from 1070 to 1146, twenty-four of fifty-seven men who held the supreme and associate chancellor posts were examination graduates; five were protection beneficiaries; and five were from military, clerical, or pal- ace backgrounds. The rest were of unknown background. Ten had served as examiners or tong chigong-gŏ (associate examiners).6 Although some of humble background may have risen to high office through the exams, it is most likely that they functioned as a way of selecting offices among com- peting members of elite families. The civil exams were in theory a method of selecting the ablest officials to serve the state; they also had the effect of establishing the loyalty of officials to the ruler and to the bureaucracy that served him. They also promoted literacy among the elite. Many Koreans identified the civil examination system as a mark of their land’s civilized attainment. They had successfully emulated China or even surpassed it in this respect. A famous writer and official of the thirteenth century and successful exam passer said, “The success achieved in recruiting men of merit [through the examination system] under our dynasty cannot be matched even by [that of the golden age of] Yao and Shun.”7

Throughout the Koryŏ period a concern for education grew as a means of preparing men for the examinations and of promoting Confucian learning and moral training. To aid in this task a national academy, the Kukchagam, was established in 982. More important was the role played by private schools. In 1055 Ch’oe Ch’ung (984–1068), a distinguished official who held many top posts, retired at the age of seventy-four and established a school, the Nine Course Academy, that trained young men

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for the civil exams and government service. Ch’oe became known as the “Confucius of Korea,” and his school produced many of the kingdom’s leading officials and scholars. Following his example, other high-ranking officials established schools, until there were twelve, which became known as the Sibi to (Twelve Assemblies). The bureaucracy became dominated by their students. To further ensure a supply of educated of- ficials and to provide an alternative to these schools, King Injong in 1127 ordered that each chu (large districts) and hyŏn (district) establish a school, but schooling remained largely a private affair for sons of the elite.

Local administration was in the effective hands of local aristocratic families. Koryŏ rulers made attempts to create a Chinese-style regional administration, but had great difficulty in penetrating their governance to the local level. An early attempt to adopt the Tang system of dividing the country into dao (administrative circuits) under appointed officials was abandoned. Another attempt at orderly local administration was made by creating eight regions headed by an appointed official called the moksa. By the early twelfth century the eight original circuits were re-created, each administered by an anch’alsa (appointed governor). These formed the basis of the eight provinces of Korea today. Real power was at the lo- cal level, following the Chinese practice of dividing the countryside into prefectures and counties. But in practice the local county and prefecture officials were simply the local aristocratic lords. Gradually, however, the state gained more control over the countryside. By 1170, the central gov- ernment appointed perhaps half the prefectural and county heads.8 The slow process of appointing royal officials to local posts, along with the system of control and subordinate counties, meant that the countryside was ruled in a hierarchical fashion, with weaker regional lords under the control of greater ones. The latter in turn had their power recognized by the king with the appointment of an official title such as prefectural head. Sŏri (central clerk) positions were often filled by sons of local officials, and this became a route to the ranks of the regular bureaucracy. Increasingly men were drawn from the countryside to the capital as the offices of the central government grew in prestige and in real power.

The state supported itself primarily by the Field and Woodland system. Under this system land was divided into kongjŏn (public land), whose tax receipts went to the central government, and sajŏn, which referred to land assigned to various classes of persons who provided services to the state. Sajŏn is sometimes referred to as “private land,” but it was prob- ably state-owned land for which people were allowed to collect rents. In theory, at least, these lands reverted to the state upon the death of an official. In practice, they were passed down in families over generations, becoming in effect private. Some smaller plots of land were made heredi- tary to families of deceased officials. Officials also received salaries paid

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in rice. Since there was a big difference between the theory of central and local bureaucratic power and the reality of aristocratic rule and authority, the Field and Woodland system was in practice different from its formal structure. It was probably little more than a legal confirmation of private land holdings of the elite or de facto tax exemptions on lands owned by the elite. Koryŏ also continued the Silla practice of assigning certain locales known as so to produce items of special economic importance such as gold, silver, paper, and porcelain. Other agricultural lands were assigned for the support of various government agencies, military camps, and schools.

The Koryŏ state modeled many of its formal institutions and nomen- clature on Tang rather than on the contemporary Song state. China ex- perienced a great cultural resurgence under the Song (960–1279), which modified many of the institutions of government, and it evolved into a very different society, less aristocratic, with greater social mobility. The Song state also made far less use of Buddhism to legitimize itself and saw a great revitalization of Confucianism. Koryŏ did not follow this pattern. Partly this was due to the fact that Korea’s contact with Song was more sporadic than it had been with Tang. This in turn was a result of Song’s military weakness, which left Korea’s immediate frontier in the hands of powerful seminomadic Khitan and Jurchen (or Ruzhen) peoples. Further- more, the Tang impacted the society of Korea when it was at an earlier, more formative stage of political and social development. Korea’s own native worship, patterns of marriage and kinship, and cultural traditions may also have coincided more with those of China in Tang times. Of course Song culture and its diplomacy did exercise considerable influence on Korea. Yet the Koryŏ dynasty with its attachment to Buddhism, its rule by great aristocratic families, and its adherence to Tang political institu- tions remained quite distinct from Song China.

KORYŎ IN EAST ASIA

Koryŏ’s great external challenge was dealing with its northern frontier. The tenth-century upheaval resulted in a great influx of peoples from Manchuria to the Yalu and Tumen Rivers. Some of them entered the pen- insula. The most troublesome of the new peoples along the frontier were the Khitan. The Khitan helped bring about the collapse of Parhae in 926, then laid claim to its land. They also claimed to be the heirs of Koguryŏ. For Wang Kŏn and his successors these tribal peoples posed a threat to their efforts to consolidate Koryŏ’s position on the frontier. Wang Kŏn made his hostility to the Khitans clear when in 942 they sent envoys with fifty camels as gifts. He banished the envoys to an island and let the

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camels starve. His successor, King Chŏngjong, planned to move the capital to P’yŏngyang and created the armed force called the Kwanggun (Resplendent Army) to prepare against Khitan invasions. As part of the effort to expand northward, the Koreans from 949 to 975 established gar- rison forts beyond Ch’ŏngch’ŏn River.

The Khitan meanwhile created the state of Liao on the northern borders of China and ruled much of Manchuria. The Liao emperor Shenzong (983–1031) led a series of campaigns against the Song that ended with the Treaty of Shanyuan in 1005. Under this treaty the Chinese emperor recognized the frontier state as an equal. At the same time they were fighting the Chinese, the Khitans began to tighten their pressure on Koryŏ. In 993, the Khitan ruler Xiao Sunning led an invasion force. This invasion resulted in negotiations with the Koreans and a brief period of nonhostile relations began. The Koreans built six garrisons on the Yalu River, establishing it as their northern boundary for the first time. But the Khitan demanded that Koryŏ turn over the six garrisons to them. When Koryŏ refused, the Khitan emperor, Shenzong, launched another invasion in 1010. Initially Koryŏ under Yang Hyu was victorious, but an overcon- fident general Kang Cho was defeated and the invaders burnt Kaesŏng. King Hyŏnjong fled south and then agreed to pay homage in person at the Khitan court. Koryŏ did not fulfill this promise, however, which led to the invasion of 1018 under the Khitan leader Xiao Paiya. The Koreans defeated this force at Kuju fortress under the military command of Kang Kam-ch’an. According to the Korean chroniclers, only a few thousand of the 100,000 Khitan invaders survived. Whatever the true scale of victory, it was not enough for Koryŏ to avoid submitting to the powerful invaders from the north. Korea kept its independence but was forced to pay tribute to the Khitan state of Liao.

After 1022, Koryŏ raised a corvée of 300,000 to reconstruct the de- stroyed capital and finished it seven years later. Between 1033 and 1044 the Koreans constructed a long wall and fortifications against the Khitans and another Northeastern Asian tribal group, the Jurchens (or Ruzhen). Meanwhile, despite its resistance, Korea was forced to not only pay trib- ute to the powerful Liao state but in 994 to adopt the Liao calendar. Thus in effect the kingdom became a tributary state of Liao as it had in the past been a tributary of Tang. These were simply concessions to reality; the Koreans continued to regard the Khitan as barbarians. After 1054 the Liao yoke over Korea lightened, and there appears to have been no tribute after that date.

The Khitan cut Korea off from the militarily weak but prosperous and culturally dynamic Song. Because of the existence of the powerful and hostile Liao state between them, there was little direct contact between Korea and China for a century. Taking advantage of a lessening of Liao

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militancy, China opened relations with Koryŏ in 1062. For a while, con- siderable trade flourished between China and Korea, enabling Koreans to participate in some of the intellectual and cultural activities in China. China sought to bring Korea into its tributary system, but relations be- tween the two were not especially close. Partly this was because Korean- Chinese relations were complicated by the fact that Korea was a tributary of the Liao. Fearing close relations with China that might arouse Khitan hostility, the Koreans appear to have been cautious and selective in their relations with their great continental neighbor. There was a suspicion of Korea among the Chinese officials as well, some of whom saw the coun- try as a potential ally of the Khitans and Jurchens. Some Song officials complained that vital information given to Korean embassies could find its way to the Khitan; consequently they restricted the Koreans’ access to books.

Koryŏ was part of the network of trade that linked Northeast Asia. The government established regulated markets in the northwest with Liao and in the northeast with Jurchen tribes. On its northern border Koryŏ supplied grain, iron, agricultural implements, and weapons to the Khi- tans and Jurchen peoples in exchange for horses. Koreans also carried out an active trade with Japan, importing folding fans and swords. After the reopening of relations with Song, trade with China greatly overtook that with Japan and the Manchurian-Siberian frontier in volume. Korean mer- chants sailed to the Song ports of Gwangzhou, Quanzhou, Hongzhou, and Mingzhou. Quanzhou merchants took the initiative in reestablishing trade. In 1078, Song sent two “divine ships,” which were given a tumul- tuous welcome in Korea.9 Most merchants traveled on Chinese vessels, although some trade was conducted on Koryŏ ships, mostly to the north China port of Dengzhou. The voyage from Mingzhou to the Hŭksan Is- lands off the southwestern coast of Korea took three weeks; from there it took several days along the Korean coast to reach Yesŏng. The voy- age was dangerous and frequently resulted in wrecks.10 Yet it could be highly profitable. Koreans imported Chinese teas, lacquerware, books, medicines, ceremonial robes, and a variety of luxury goods. Korea’s most important import was probably porcelain. Merchants from Fujian in southern China sailed to Korea in large ships loaded with the highly prized products from their kilns. Even Arab merchants arrived in Korea from China to trade in 1024 and 1025. Koryŏ exports were copper, gold, silver, utensils, ginseng, pine nuts, silks, ramie cloth, paper, furs, and even horses. The balance of trade seemed to favor China, but this is not certain.11 This foreign trade was a stimulus to commercial development. Major towns had permanent marketplaces, and in the thirteenth century Kaesŏng is reported to have had over 1,000 shops and stalls. A govern- ment bureau regulated weights and measures.

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The era of active foreign trade and contact came to an end with the rise of a new seminomadic power on the northern frontier, the Jurchens. The Jurchens created the state of Jin, conquered the Khitan in 1126, and then conquered northern China in 1127. Interestingly, the Jurchens claimed Koguryŏ ancestry. This testified to the reputation of Koguryŏ, but it also suggested that Jurchen ambitions included the peninsula. In response to this new threat, Korea in the early twelfth century created a special military force, the Pyŏlmuban, to deal with the Jurchen challenge. After an internal debate, the Koreans established a tributary relationship with the Jurchen state of Jin and broke off relations with China. The period that fol- lowed was a peaceful one on the northern frontier, allowing the Koreans to concentrate on their own domestic developments. Not surprisingly, during this period of relative isolation and external calm, Korean political and cultural institutions moved somewhat further away from the Chinese model. Another important result of this peaceful period was that it led to a further downgrading of the military and the ascendancy of civil of- ficials. The decline of the military’s prestige led to the 1170 coup that can be seen as a delayed reaction to these events (see chapter 5).

INTERNAL POLITICS, 935–1170

Politics in Koryŏ centered on competition between powerful clans for high offices in government. Studies indicate that a small number of clans held a large percentage of high offices in the period from 981 to 1146. Some of these clans were of Silla true-bone origin such as the Kyŏngju Kim, Kangnŭng Kim, and P’yŏngsan Pak. These were among the great- est producers of high officials. But leading clans came from all parts of the kingdom, indicating that the early Koryŏ state sought to win support from the aristocracy throughout the country. It also showed that the elite were being integrated into a common society, helping to establish a com- mon social order and common culture.

One of the themes of Koryŏ history during the first two centuries was the attempts by the dynastic government in the capital to gain greater control over the countryside. Another was the intrigue among power- ful clans. The problem of containing the power of great clans was com- pounded by the practice begun by Wang Kŏn of marrying members of the royal family into these clans to cement alliances with them. The result was powerful in-law families that could threaten the dynasty. In the early eleventh century, the Ansan Kim clan achieved a degree of dominance when an aristocrat, Kim Ŭn-bu, married three of his daughters to King Hyŏnjong (r. 1009–1031). After dominating the court for half a century the power of the Ansan Kim clan was eclipsed by that of the Kyŏngwŏn Yi.

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In the middle of the eleventh century, a member of that clan, Yi Cha-yŏn, emerged as the dominant figure in the government. He bound the royal family to his by marrying three daughters to King Munjong (r. 1046– 1083). The Kyŏngwŏn Yi thereafter produced by far the most officials and continued to marry into the royal family. The clan grew in power until it posed a threat to the throne. In 1095, the clan leader, Yi Cha-ŭi, attempted to dethrone the king and replace him with a son of King Sŏnjong by Yi’s sister, but he failed and was removed from power. Again in 1127, another leader of the clan, Yi Cha-gyŏm, purged many opponents and tried to de- pose the teenage King Injong (r. 1123–1146), who was both his son-in-law and grandson. His plan was to place himself on the throne with the aid of less illustrious clans, including new arrivals from the countryside. Rivals defeated Yi Cha-gyŏm and his clan fell from power.12

As happened so often in Korean history, factional rivalry during the Koryŏ was aggravated by external threats and tensions. Yi Cha-gyŏm attempted to align the dynasty with the rising Jurchen state of Jin in Manchuria and northern China. Accordingly he sent an envoy to the Jin in 1126 following the Jin conquest of Liao. His opponents wanted to maintain good relations with Song rather than submit to yet another northern barbarian state. Yi was eventually overthrown, but his realistic policy of acknowledging the power of the Manchuria-based empire that was gaining control over the northern half of China prevailed. The fall of the Kyŏngwŏn Yi shifted power to a number of northwestern-based clans that aimed at moving the capital near the northern frontier at P’yŏngyang. This group remained hostile to Jin. They were led by the monk Myoch’ŏng (?–1135), who used fengshui (Korean: p’ungsu) theory to argue that the geomantic forces around the capital of Kaesŏng had waned but that those of P’yŏngyang were strong. Myoch’ŏng urged the king to move there, declare himself emperor, and launch an attack on the Jin. When his effort failed, he and his supporters attempted to establish a new state called Taewi in 1135, but this revolt was destroyed by forces loyal to the dynasty that included the Confucian scholar and historian Kim Pu- sik. Koryŏ then refrained from military adventurism.

To deal with the growing number of competing clans, the number of top officials was increased and the councils of aristocrats such as the privy council swelled in number, the latter eventually having seventy Chaech’u officials. Competition was aggravated by men from the hyangni, the local hereditary elite, seeking central government offices. Meanwhile there was growing domestic tension between the dominant lineages that supplied civil officials and the lineages that supplied the less prestigious and less influential military officials that resulted in a military uprising in 1170 (see chapter 5). While all this gives an impression of constant political tension, it is important to note that politics was a struggle among great

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aristocratic families for power and privilege; it had little to do with most ordinary non-aristocratic peoples. As for the common people, we hear little of them in the historical records except for an occasional peasant uprising.

KORYŎ CULTURE

The introduction of the civil exams in 958 did much to foster the spread of Confucianism in Korea. Exam questions included some from the Analects and the Classic of Filial Piety. Eventually scholars established twelve private academies known as the Twelve Assemblies to spread Confucian teaching as well as to educate the aristocratic youth. Some Confucian scholars became famous in the early Koryŏ. Among them was the eleventh-century teacher Ch’oe Ch’ung, who became known as “the Confucius of Korea.” Confucianism, with its stress on order, hierarchy, and the importance of good government led by an enlightened monarch, was appealing to the state and was promoted by it.

While Confucianism was important in shaping ideas of government and morality, Koryŏ was very much a Buddhist kingdom in the sense that Buddhist ceremonies and rituals were at the center of social and cultural life. The state sought to utilize the power of the Buddha and bodhisattvas (Buddhist saints) to protect it from invasions and natural calamities. Most monks protected the kingdom through prayers and rituals, but there were also warrior monks who fought for it. Some of the most effective fighters against the Mongols in the thirteenth century and against the Japanese in the sixteenth century were monks. Accordingly, the court generously patronized Buddhist temples. Buddhist holidays punctuated the year as times of national celebration. Well supported by the state, a vigorous Buddhist intellectual life flourished. Buddhist thought and practice was roughly divided into Kyo (Textual) and Sŏn (Meditative) schools. Each school had a hierarchy of Buddhist officials and its own set of examina- tions modeled on the state civil exams. The highest ranks among Bud- dhist officials were Royal Preceptor and National Preceptor. Both held enormous prestige.

Korean Buddhism was characterized by greater concern for unity than was found in Chinese or Japanese Buddhism. When Buddhism arrived in Korea from China, it was part of an established tradition divided into many different doctrinal traditions and practices. The diversity of Bud- dhism in China reflected both the richness and the diversity of Indian and Central Asian Buddhism, and the diversity and vitality of Chinese civilization. But Korea was a much smaller country, more homogeneous and conscious of its comparable smallness and its vulnerability to inva-

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sion. Partly for this reason, Koreans frequently sought unity in intellectual thought. A tendency toward syncretism appeared as early as Silla with Wŏnhyo. In the early half of the Koryŏ period the most important effort at bringing the schools of Buddhism together was undertaken by Ŭich’ŏn (1055–1101), fourth son of King Munjong, known posthumously as Mas- ter Taegak. Ŭich’ŏn sought to compile as complete a set of Buddhist sa- cred works as possible in order to create a vast library of all known Bud- dhist wisdom. Against the wishes of his father he surreptitiously traveled to Song China in 1085, where he collected more than 3,000 treatises and commentaries. He dispatched agents to China, Japan, and Khitan Liao to gather more Buddhist texts. He eventually had woodblocks carved for 1,010 Buddhist texts that were intended to supplement the Tripitaka Koreana (the complete Buddhist canon) that was also published. Unfor- tunately this vast collection of texts, along with the first edition of the Tripitaka Koreana, was destroyed in the 1231–1232 Mongol invasion. As he gathered his great collection he also attempted to merge the SŬichn schools of meditative Buddhism and the five Kyo textual or scholastic sects into Ch’ŏnt’ae (Chinese: Tiantai; Japanese: Tendai). Ch’ŏnt’ae was not a new Buddhist teaching. It was known in Silla times, and in 960 the monk Ch’egwan went to China, where he became one of its masters. But it had not been an independent sect before Ŭich’ŏn. Despite royal patron- age and the enormous respect he had acquired as a pious and learned man, Ŭich’ŏn’s efforts to unify Korean Buddhism failed. Instead his ac- tivities resulted in still another flourishing sect.13

Buddhist ecclesiastical organizations were wealthy. Temples owned extensive holdings in land and slaves. Exempted from taxation, these temples, which were also monasteries since monks and nuns lived year round in them, grew to become wealthy and play a major role in economic life. Temples engaged in trade, wine making, and grain and money lending. The problem of monasteries possessing a considerable amount of land and many slaves, all exempt from taxes, came to worry state officials. Later in the dynasty it would contribute to anti-Buddhist sentiment. Aristocratic families used temples as a means of extending their power by sending off sons to them. These were often younger sons not needed to supervise the family estates. As monks they advised the officials, served at court, and carried considerable influence. Kings and officials also complained that too many peasants were taking up orders, thereby depriving the state of military conscripts and productive farm- ers. To avoid some of these abuses, the state promulgated laws restrict- ing the number of peasants who could become monks, barring children of monks who had married before they had taken vows from sitting for the monk exams, and prohibiting monks from staying overnight outside of the monasteries.14

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In addition to Buddhism, Koreans believed in the hidden spiritual power of prominent features of nature such as rivers, rocks, and especially mountains. From at least the thirteenth century the most sacred mountain was Paektusan on the Korean-Manchurian border. Other mountains, such as Chirisan in the southern part of the country, were also venerated. This worship of nature was blended with geomantic ideas imported from China. In the twelfth century the Chinese visitor Xu Jing, in his Illustrated Record of an Embassy to Korea in the Xuanhe Reign Period (1124), stated of the Koreans that “it is their habit to make excessive sacrifices to spirits.”15 Shamanism was also widely practiced. However, Koryŏ elites were often critical of shamanism, accusing it of sponsoring vulgar and indecent ritu- als. Thus while Buddhism ceased to be an elite religion and instead was practiced by every sector of Korean society, a new religious boundary emerged during Koryŏ between the elite and commoners. The common people sought the solace of shamans as well as of Buddhist monks, while the educated aristocrats turned away from them, at least publically. To this day shamanism has been treated with disdain, and more recently as an embarrassing part of their cultural heritage, by middle- and upper- class Koreans, while it has continued to maintain a strong hold on many of the less educated and poor.

The aristocracy read and memorized Chinese poetry and wrote verse in Chinese, the literary language of the elite. Tang and Song poets were immensely popular, and Koreans wrote poems in their style. Koryŏ aristocrats sometimes left collections of their literary writings that often included both prose essays and large numbers of poems. Noted writer and scholar Yi Kyu-bo (1168–1241), for example, left 1,500 poems. Poems in the vernacular were popular but were mostly sung or recited orally. Derived from folk songs, they were often bawdy and satirical. Only a few were written down after the invention of the phonetic alphabet in the fifteenth century, and even some of these may have been edited to conform to the more prudish taste of later times. Among the best known are Ch’ŏngsan pyŏlgok (Song of Green Mountain) and Ssanghwa chŏm (The Dumpling Shop).

As in Silla, Buddhism remained a major inspiration for art. A rich tradition of Buddhist paintings in the form of wall paintings, hanging scrolls, and illustrated manuscripts developed. Although few wall paint- ings have survived, in recent years a number of Koryŏ-period Buddhist scrolls and illustrated manuscripts have been discovered in Korea, in Japan, and in Western collections. These paintings can be distinguished from Chinese Buddhist art by the less extensive use of gold paste and by a preference for duller shades of red and green than their Chinese counterparts. The use of less bright colors would remain characteristic of the aristocratic art tradition in Korea. These paintings are an important

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source of information on the costumes of the time.16 Secular painting and calligraphy in Chinese styles flourished. Among the most famous were the twelfth-century painters Yi Yŏng and his son Yi Kwang’p’il. Famous also were three Koryŏ calligraphers, Yu Sin (d. 1104), the monk T’anyŏn (1070–1159), and Ch’oe U (d. 1249). They became known, along with the Silla calligrapher Kim Saeng, as the “Four Worthies of Divine Calligra- phy.” Unfortunately, virtually all the secular paintings and calligraphy of the Koryŏ have been lost. The Silla traditions in sculpture continued in early Koryŏ. Later Koryŏ sculpture showed the influence of Lamaistic Buddhism from the Mongol court. The high standards of metallurgical craftsmanship continued with fine bronze and silverware. Koryŏ did not, however, produce the great bronze bells of the Silla. Since buildings were made of wood, it is not surprising that none survive from the early Koryŏ. The oldest extant wooden temple buildings are the Pongjong in Andong and the Hall of Eternal Life (Muryangsu-jŏn) at Pusŏk temple in Yŏngju, both from the thirteenth century. The latter with its tapered columns, three-tiered roof supports, dual roof edge, and its interior without a ceil- ing provides a sense of both refinement and grandeur.17

Perhaps the greatest of the art forms of the period was ceramics. The most famous of the ceramics of this period is a porcelaneous stoneware with a fine bluish-green glaze known by the French term celadon. Koryŏ celadon was developed early in the dynasty by potters who had im- ported the technique from Song China. It was produced throughout the Koryŏ period, although the quality declined from the thirteenth century. The center of celadon production was in Chŏlla in the southwest part of the peninsula. Korean potters derived a distinctive style by turning the straight lines of Song pottery into curves and the cold blue of Song into a soft greenish tone. In the twelfth century the style reached a peak of per- fection when potters developed a variety of innovative techniques such as painting in brown and red under the glaze and in gold over the celadon glaze. Today Koryŏ celadon is regarded as among the greatest ceramic masterpieces ever created. It is highly prized by connoisseurs in Asia and throughout the world. Korean potters also created innovative vessels in the shapes of animals and vegetables, as well as white wares, black wares, and unglazed stonewares.

THE SAMGUK SAGI

A rich tradition of historical writing existed during the Koryŏ period. The most important historical work was the Samguk sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms). The oldest extant Korean history, it was written in 1145 by Kim Pu-sik (1075–1151), a high court official. The Samguk sagi set

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out to give the history of the three kingdoms—Koguryŏ, Paekche, and Silla—from their founding to the end of Silla and the establishment of the Koryŏ state. An orthodox, Confucian history, the Samguk sagi is the most important single source for early Korean history. Much of the material is based on earlier, now lost sources, although the author seldom directly cites them. The work is an official history written in the Chinese kijŏn (Chinese, jizhuan) format, meaning it contains annals, that is, a chrono- logical year-by-year history, treatises on various topics, and then a section of biographies. Kim with ten assistants compiled this history after col- lecting many sources. One hundred twenty-three Chinese and sixty-nine Korean titles are given as sources; the most important is the Ku samguk sa (Old Three Kingdoms History), a work now lost. Adhering to the “praise and blame” concept of history, Kim Pu-sik added his personal comments on historical issues.

Following a tradition of history writing that began in China with Sima Qian’s Shiji written over twelve centuries earlier, Kim Pu-sik viewed his- tory as a guide to correct government and personal behavior. This East Asian tradition of history held that one can learn from the past, not just practical lessons of statecraft, but more importantly lessons on moral and ethical conduct. Modern scholars have sometimes criticized Kim’s work for repressing the nativist traditions in favor of a Sinocentric Confucian view of history. It has also been criticized for excluding Parhae from Korean history and therefore placing Manchuria outside the definition of Korean history. The Samguk sagi, however, was not a slavishly pro- Chinese work. The author states that the work was intended to create a more accurate record of early Korean history that had not received the attention or accuracy it deserved in Chinese histories. The history also reflects the author’s desire to affirm the Koryŏ dynasty as the legitimate and logical successor to the Silla state. The work also reflects the southern orientation of Kim Pu-sik, a man of Sillan descent, who led armies against Myoch’ŏng. Kim set Korean history firmly in the peninsula, with the northern Korean/southern Manchurian region of Koguryŏ and its succes- sor Parhae marginalized. This is an important development in the evolu- tion of a Korean ethnic identity, since the Samguk sagi was influential in shaping Korean views of themselves and their history.

The Samguk sagi represents the high historical standards of the time. If translated into English (which it has not been) it would be several thick volumes long. It is an invaluable historical source for Korean history dur- ing the Three Kingdoms and Silla period. Our modern knowledge of that period, especially from the fourth to tenth centuries when the history be- comes more reliable, is heavily dependent on this single source. It also re- minds us how much of Korean history has been lost to us. Sadly, none of the sixty-nine Korean historical sources cited by the author exists today.

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The Samguk sagi is also a rich source of stories, given as historical ac- counts, not as literature, but serving as both. Especially useful is the yŏlchŏn (biographical) section, although there are also many good stories in the annals section. Some of these stories, especially those set in earlier times, appear to be imaginative legends, some with magical elements. For example, in one well-known story, Prince Hodong, a handsome son of the king of Koguryŏ, was offered the virgin daughter of the Chinese governor of Nangnang, but the prince refused to accept her unless she destroyed a mysterious drum-and-horn that sounded by itself at the approach of the enemy. The daughter surreptitiously destroyed the drum-and-horn and had word of her deed sent to Prince Hodong. He then had his father, the Koguryŏ king, attack the Nangnang (Lelang) capital. The governor put his daughter to death and then surrendered. In another episode, Hodong, who was the son of a secondary consort, aroused the jealousy of the queen, who feared the king would make him, not her son, the heir. She falsely accused him of making sexual advances on her. Rather than clear- ing his name by disgracing his father’s wife and causing the king further grief, he committed suicide. The commentary praises his filial piety.18 The story represents the mixture of ancient tales, whose meanings are somewhat obscure, and the later Confucian gloss given them. The stories also suggest the strong warrior code of early Korea, a code that still made sense in Kim Pu-sik’s time. Another example of this warrior code is the story of Wŏnsul, who after a distinguished career lost a battle against the army of Tang China and returned home in disgrace. Kim Yu-sin recom- mended that he be beheaded for dishonoring the kingdom and his family. The king, however, pardoned him. Yet his parents refused to forgive him or even see him even after he restored his honor on the battlefield.

KORYŎ SOCIETY

The spread of literacy encouraged by the civil exams along with the study of a common curriculum, the establishment of private schools, the gradual penetration of the state into local government, and the attraction of the capital that drew members of the elite from around the country all contributed to the creation of a shared cultural identity among the upper class. Yet even as Korea during the Koryŏ period was being integrated into a single society it maintained a three-part division that remained characteristic to the end of the nineteenth century. At the top was a hered- itary aristocracy that became known as the yangban. The name yangban, literally the “two sides,” referred to the two divisions of officials: muban (military officials) and the munban (civil officials). The term eventually was used to refer to the aristocracy from which the bureaucracy was

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derived. This class dominated politics, the economy, and culture. Next were commoners: some were probably small free farmers, and oth- ers were tenants working the fields of the aristocracy. A much smaller number of commoners served as merchants and skilled craftsmen. At the bottom of society were the low born. The low born consisted mostly of slaves. These were divided into public slaves owned by government agencies and private slaves owned by the aristocracy. Slaves were, along with land, a measure of elite status. How many Koreans were slaves? This is not known and estimates vary widely. The number probably fluc- tuated; perhaps slaves accounted for up to one-third of the population. Most worked the land of the aristocracy, but not on large estates. Large landholdings consisted of scattered parcels of land, and most slaves lived away from any direct supervision. Their living conditions probably re- sembled that of poor tenant farmers.

Most of the information we have on Koryŏ society is about the elite families, and even here there is much that is not clearly understood. Social status was based primarily on family ancestry. This became determined not only by family surname but by the pon’gwan (ancestral-seat) system. Each family became identified with its place of origin. For example, the surname Kim was a very common one, but there were many different Kim clans with different places of origin such as the Kyŏngju Kim and the Kangnŭng Kim. The concept of an ancestral-seat remained a permanent feature of Korean society, and to this day Korean descent groups are iden- tified in this way. Some of the Koryŏ’s great descent groups descended from Silla true-bone ranks such as the Kyŏngju Kim, the Kangnŭng Kim, and the P’yŏngsan Pak. A few were originally from head-rank-six families. Most, however, were descended from local strongmen who were incorporated into the Koryŏ elite. Unlike China and Japan there were no official lists of great descent-groups, so their number is not certain. But it is clear from the records of officeholders that a small number of great families dominated society. One study found that from the mid-tenth to the mid-twelfth centuries twenty-nine elite descent groups held two-fifths of high government posts.19 Descent groups, which could be very large, were divided into different lineages or segments. Some of these segments became more prominent than others. Most descent groups had their base in the countryside, deriving income from their estates worked by tenants and slaves. Gradually, however, some identified their status with office holding, lived entirely in the capital, and lost ties with their rural roots. They came to form a small upper stratum of capital-based aristocracy linked together by marriages. There is some controversy over whether one inherited social status from both parents or whether social status was primarily inherited from the male side of the family. It seems clear, however, that a good marriage was key to maintaining or enhancing the

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status of an aristocrat, especially a marriage to a member of the royal fam- ily. Under the influence of Tang and Song China greater importance was gradually placed on the direct male lineage. Koryŏ, however, especially in earlier times, gave much more weight to the female side of the family in determining status than did China. This in turn gave greater status to women.

As historian Martina Deuchler and others have pointed out, compared to later periods, the social position for women in Koryŏ times was high. Women could inherit property, and an inheritance was divided equally among siblings regardless of gender. A woman’s property was hers and could be passed on to her children. Some women inherited homes and estates. Ownership of property often gave upper-class women consider- able independence. Korean women remained to a considerable extent members of their natal families, not those of their husbands. For example, if a woman died without children, her property passed on to her siblings, not to her husband. Wives were not merely servants of their husbands. Their importance was reflected in the practice of conducting marriages in the house of the bride. There was no bride wealth or dowry, and men often resided in their wife’s home after marriage. The two sexes mingled freely. The twelfth-century Chinese traveler Xu Jing was surprised by the ease with which men and women socialized.

We do not yet have a clear picture of marriage in Koryŏ.20 Evidence sug- gests that marriage rules were loose. Divorce was possible, but seems to have been uncommon; separation may have been more common. Koreans may have also practiced short-term or temporary marriages; however, the evidence of this is unclear. Remarriage of widows was an accepted prac- tice. Marriage between close kin and within the village was also probably common. Later Korean society was characterized by extreme endogamy in which marriage between people of even the remotest relationship was prohibited, but this was not yet the case in Koryŏ times. Plural marriages may have been frequent among the aristocracy. Xu Jing said that it was common for a man to have three or four wives. Concubinage existed, but it is not known how customary it was. Evidence suggests that upper-class men married at about twenty and women at about seventeen. Men lived with their wife’s family until about the age of thirty. Widows as well as widowers appear to have kept their children. All this is a sharp contrast with later Korean practices (see chapter 7).

The Koryŏ elite was not strictly patrilineal. Instead, members of the elite traced their families along their matrilineal lines as well. This gave importance to the wife’s family, since her status helped to determine that of her children. Although high status and rights of women in Koryŏ were in contrast to later Korean practice, in many ways it was similar to Japan in the Heian period (794–1192). Much less is known about either Sillan or

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early Koryŏ society than about Heian Japan, but it is likely that the two societies shared a number of common practices relating to family, gender, and marriage. It is possible that these practices may, in fact, be related to the common origins of the two peoples. This is still a matter of specula- tion; further study needs to be made before the relationship between Korea and Japan is clearly understood.

Some changes took place over the nearly five centuries of the Koryŏ period. The adoption of the civil examination system in the tenth century led to careful records of family relations. At the same time, the strength- ening of Chinese influences resulted in the gradual adoption of the Chi- nese practice of forbidding marriage among members of patrilineal kin. As Koreans began to place more importance on direct male descent and the Confucian ideas of the subordination of women to men became more accepted, the position of women declined. The state, for example, enacted laws prohibiting a wife from leaving her husband without his consent. Most major changes in family and gender relations, however, took place only after the Koryŏ period.

KOREA IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: KORYŎ’S EXAMINATION SYSTEM

The introduction of the civil exam system in tenth-century Koryŏ proved to be a major development in Korean history, helping to trans- form the aristocracy into a highly educated, service nobility, strengthen- ing the central state, culturally homogenizing the country’s elite, and acting as a conduit for the dissemination of Chinese culture, especially Confucianism. It also marked Korea off from most other premodern so- cieties, since only China and later Vietnam among major states had such a system. Rulers nearly everywhere faced the problems of how to select officials and how to impose their authority over their nobilities. Most commonly, officials served by inheritance like the hereditary class of kshatriaya, which provided the officials of Indian states, or the inherited aristocracies of Europe or Japan. States often required strong, charismatic leaders to impose stability; when such leaders failed to emerge, power struggles, administrative decline, and political fragmentation took place. The civil examination system provided an institutional framework that contributed to the remarkable political stability and continuity of the Ko- rean state and ruling elite after the tenth century.

The examination system that developed in Korea differed from China. From the eighth century the Chinese examination system, because it was opened to commoners, served to break the dominance of the inherited aristocracy over office holding and led to a society with greater social mobility. In Korea, the examinations remained confined to members of

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the elite and reinforced hereditary status and privileged rather than un- dermined it.

I

Wang Kŏn: Ten Injunctions I have heard that when great Shun was cultivating at Li-stan he inher- ited the throne from Yao. Emperor Kao-tsu of China rose from humble origins and founded the Han. I too have risen from humble origins and received undeserved support for the throne. In summer I did not shun the heat and in winter did not avoid the cold. After toiling, body and mind, for nineteen years I united the Three Han [Later Three King- doms] and have held the throne for twenty-five years. Now I am old. I only fear that my successors will give way to their passions and greed and destroy the principle of government. That would be truly worri- some. I therefore wrote these injunctions to be passed on to later ages. They should be read morning and night and forever used as a mirror of reflection.

His injunctions were as follows:

1. The success of every great undertaking of our state depends upon the favor and protection of Buddha. Therefore, the temples of both the Meditation and Doctrinal schools should be built and monks should be sent out to those temples to minister to Buddha. Later on, if villainous courtiers attain power and come to be influenced by the entreaties of bonzes, the temples of various schools will quarrel and struggle among themselves for gain. This ought to be prevented.

2. Temples and monasteries were newly opened and built upon the sites chosen by the monk Tosŏn according to the principles of geomancy. He said: “If temples and monasteries are indiscrimi- nately built at locations not chosen by me, the terrestrial force and energy will be sapped and damaged, hastening the decline of the dynasty.” I am greatly concerned that the royal family, the aristoc- racy, and the courtiers all may build many temples and monaster- ies in the future in order to seek Buddha’s blessings. In the last days of Silla many temples were capriciously built. As a result, the terrestrial force and energy were wasted and diminished, causing its demise. Vigilantly guard against this.

3. In matters of royal succession, succession by the eldest legitimate royal issue should be the rule. But Yao of ancient China let Shun succeed him because his own was unworthy. That was indeed putting the interests of the state ahead of one’s personal feelings.

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Therefore, if the eldest is not worthy of the crown, let the second eldest succeed to the throne. If the second eldest, too, is unworthy, choose the brother the people consider the best qualified for the throne.

4. In the past we have always had a deep attachment for the ways of China and all of our institutions have been modeled upon those of T’ang. But our country occupies a different geographical location and our people’s character is different from that of the Chinese. Hence, there is no reason to strain ourselves unreasonably to copy the Chinese way. Khitan is a nation of savage beasts, and its language and customs are also different. Its dress and institutions should never be copied.

5. I achieved the great task of founding the dynasty with the help of the elements of mountain and river of our country. The Western Capital, P’yŏngyang, has the elements of water in its favor and is the source of the terrestrial force of our country. It is thus the veri- table center of dynastic enterprises for ten thousand generations. Therefore, make a royal visit to the Western Capital four times a year—in the second, fifth, eighth, and eleventh months—and reside there a total of more than one hundred days. By this means secure peace and prosperity.

6. I deem the two festivals of Yŏndŏng and P’algwan of great spiritual value and importance. The first is to worship Buddha. The second is to worship the spirit of Heaven, the spirits of the five sacred and other major mountains and rivers, and the dragon god. At some future time, villainous courtiers may propose the abandonment or modification of these festivals. No change should be allowed.

7. It is very difficult for the king to win over the people. For this reason, give heed to sincere criticism and banish those with slan- derous tongues. If sincere criticisms are accepted, there will be virtuous and sagacious kings. Though sweet as honey, slanderous words should not be believed; then they will cease of their own accord. Make use of the people’s labor with their convenience in mind; lighten the burden of corvée and taxation; learn the difficul- ties of agricultural production. Then it will be possible to win the hearts of the people and to bring peace and prosperity to the land. Men of yore said that under tempting bait a fish hangs; under a generous reward an able general wins a victory; under a drawn bow a bird dares not fly; and under a virtuous benevolent rule a loyal people serves faithfully. If you administer rewards and punishments moderately, the interplay of yin and yang will be harmonious.

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8. The topographic features of the territory south of Kongju and beyond the Kongju River are all treacherous and disharmonious; its inhabitants are treacherous and disharmonious as well. For this reason, if they are allowed to participate in the affairs of state, to intermarry with the royal family, aristocracy, and royal relatives, and to take the power of the state, they might imperil the state and injure the royal safety—grudging the loss of their own state [which used to be the kingdom of Paekche] and being resentful of the unification.

Those who have been slaves or engaged in dishonorable trades will surrender to the powerful in order to evade prescribed ser- vices. And some of them will surely seek to offer their services to the noble families, to the palaces, or to the temples. They then will cause confusion and disorder in government and engage in treason through crafty words and treacherous machinations. They should never be allowed into government service, though they may no longer be slaves and outcasts.

9. The salaries and allowance for the aristocracy and the bureaucracy have been set according to the needs of the state. They should not be increased or diminished. The classics say the salaries and al- lowance should be determined by the merits of those who receive them and should not be wasted for private gain. If the public trea- sure is wasted upon those without merit or upon one’s relatives or friends, not only will the people come to resent and criticize such abuses, but those who enjoy salaries undeservedly will also not be able to enjoy them for long. Since our country shares borders with savage nations, always beware of the danger of invasions. Treat the soldiers kindly and take good care of them; lighten their bur- den of forced labor; inspect them every autumn; give honors and promotions to the brave.

10. In preserving a household or a state, one should always be on guard to avert mistakes. Read widely in the classics and in his- tory; take the past as a warning for the present. The Duke of Chou was a great sage, yet he sought to admonish his nephew, King Cheng, with Against Luxurious Ease (Wu-i). Post the contents of Against Luxurious Ease on the wall and reflect upon them when entering and leaving the room.

—from Koryo sa 2:14a–17b21

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103

Three developments shaped the latter part of the history of Koryŏ. In the twelfth century, generals seized power and inaugurated a cen- tury of military rulers. In the thirteenth century, the Mongols launched a highly destructive series of invasions and eventually reduced Korea to a vassal state of the vast Mongol Empire centered in northern China. During the century of Mongol domination, a third major development occurred, less dramatic than the first two but more profound in its long- term impact on Korean society, the introduction of Neo-Confucianism. This school of thought, which had developed in China in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, provided the ideological basis of the establishment of a new Yi dynasty in the late fourteenth century.

MILITARY RULE

Koryŏ was a society dominated by a civil aristocracy (munban). Wealthy landed families held the key posts in the state, advised and intermarried with the Wang kings, controlled most of the land and economy, and sup- plied most of the leadership of Buddhist temples. It was from the ranks of the elite aristocratic civil officials that most of the kingdom’s writers and scholars were drawn. There was, however, an inferior line of military of- ficials (muban). Although they were aristocrats, they held less prestige and generally did not rise to the highest ranks in the bureaucracy. In general, their voices were seldom heard. Even Korea’s military victories such as those against the Liao were usually attributed to the leadership of civil

5

X

Military Rulers and Mongol Invaders, 1170 to 1392

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officials. It should be noted, however, that the civil officials wrote the of- ficial histories. Then in 1170, officers of the military aristocracy revolted and seized power.

Military-civil tension had existed long before the 1170 revolt.1 For example, in 1014, the military revolted when civil officials tried to limit their salaries. Yet something changed in the twelfth century that gave the military leaders the desire and confidence to wrestle power from the civilian aristocracy. Perhaps when the military helped to defeat Yi Cha- gyŏm in 1126 and Myoch’ŏng in 1135 they realized their potential power. King Ŭijong (r. 1146–1170), a patron of the arts, was not an effective king, and disputes between civil and military officials appeared to have gotten worse under his rule. The military grew more restless; as early as 1164 some military officials plotted to overthrow the state.

The leader of the 1170 coup was Chŏng Chung-bu (1106–1179). Chŏng belonged to the influential Haeju Chŏng clan but represented the less powerful and prestigious muban military lineages. Before coming to power Chŏng Chung-bu served as commander of the royal guards. Ac- cording to tradition, Chŏng had been humiliated when Kim Ton-jung, son of historian Kim Pu-sik, set fire to his beard. Whatever its accuracy, the story symbolizes the growing tensions between the dominant civil aristocracy and the military aristocrats that led to the military revolt. The coup was carried out as King Ŭijong and his entourage of court officials visited a temple near the capital. Chŏng, along with two other generals, Yi Ŭi-bang and Yi Ko, massacred the entire court, sparing only the king, whom they exiled to Kŏje Island off the south coast, and the crown prince, whom they banished to Chindo, another island off the south coast. Ŭijŏng was later executed by drowning. Once in power, Chŏng Chung-bu carried out an extensive purge of civil officials and managed state affairs through the Chungbang (Supreme Military Council). He replaced King Ŭijong with the king’s brother Myŏngjong, who was more compliant. But the new monarch had little real power. Power was now in the hands of military officers. The Wang line of Koryŏ kings continued to reign, and a civil government continued to carry out the formal functions of government. Actual authority, however, was wielded by generals who developed a parallel government administration based on military clan organs. Mili- tary leaders derived their support from their own clans based on mun’gaek (retainers) and kadong (house slaves).

The first quarter century of military rule was characterized by compe- tition for power among rival military clans. Having seized control, the military rulers do not seem to have had a clear plan of how to rule the state. As a result, the period from 1170 to 1196 was one of instability in which a number of generals plotted against each other. At first, Chŏng ruled along with Yi Ŭi-bang and Yi Ko, two other military officers, but Yi

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Ŭi-bang killed Yi Ko, who in turn was assassinated by Chŏng’s faction. Chŏng then ruled alone for several years until 1179 when the young mili- tary commander Kyŏng Tae-sŏng killed him. Eventually another general, Yi Ŭi-min (d. 1196), became paramount leader. Meanwhile, the country- side saw numerous rebellions. Peasants rose up against landowners and local officials, slaves revolted against masters, and even soldiers in the provinces revolted. The most famous of these revolts was that of the slave Manjŏk (?–1198), a sort of Korean Spartacus. Manjŏk gathered an army of government and private slaves that met at North Mountain outside of the capital Kaesŏng in 1198 (see below). The leaders of this group were be- trayed. Their revolt and those of others were eventually suppressed, but they reflect a general breakdown of authority that took place in the land during the first three decades of governance by military officials.

Stability came when in 1196 Ch’oe Ch’ung-hŏn (1149–1219) seized power and established the rule of Korea by the Ch’oe family house that lasted fifty-eight years. Of the Ubong Ch’oe clan, Ch’oe Ch’ung-hŏn’s father was an officer who had reached the top of the military hierarchy.2 Ch’oe served as the toryŏng (military commander) and wrote a Ten-Point Memorial expressing dissatisfaction with the military rule under King Myŏngjong (r. 1170–1197), its corruption, its inferior officials, and the interference of Buddhism in politics. He killed Yi Ŭi-min and became the new paramount military leader, thus the de facto ruler of Korea. Ch’oe restored order to the areas that had been plagued by frequent peasant and slave revolts. He did this in part by offering some rebel leaders ranks and offices, and by freeing low-born inhabitants of special districts called pugok and hyang and merging them into the regular county system of local administration. He also broke the power of the Buddhist monasteries and temples that had ties to the courts and that had even threatened Ch’oe’s authority with their armed monks. He crushed the armed monks and forced many of the clergy, especially the illegitimate princes who had be- come monks, to leave the capital. Ch’oe’s twenty-two-year rule stands out in Korean history. Seldom did a single individual, who was not a king, manage to concentrate so much power in his hands.

Ch’oe created a stable rule by developing an innovative set of institu- tions. These institutions amounted to the establishment of two sets of government.3 The monarchy, the court officials, and civil bureaucracy were maintained, while he created a new parallel government based on house institutions that were under his direct control. The latter, in fact, became the real locus of power. The house institutions were staffed by his own retainers and slaves and by officials personally loyal to him. The most important of these was the Kyojŏng Togam (Office of Decree Enactment), which served as the effective center of political authority. The Kyojŏng Togam functioned as the highest administrative organ of his

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government. It had the power to collect taxes and investigate wrongdo- ing by officials. Having gathered effective power in his hands, Ch’oe preferred to create personal house organs that now had the actual civilian and military functions of government while preserving the older court- centered institutional structure that held only nominal power. Members of these organs were nominally appointed by the king, but were gener- ally chosen by Ch’oe Ch’ung-hŏn. Ch’oe in effect created a sort of parallel dynasty to the Wang royal dynasty, passing his rulership to his son Ch’oe U, and his grandsons Ch’oe Hang and Ch’oe Ŭi.

Ch’oe Ch’ung-hŏn’s son Ch’oe U, who governed Korea from 1218 to 1249, further elaborated on the structure of house organs. He created the Chŏngbang (Personnel Authority), an institution through which civil offi- cials could enter government, the Sŏbang (Household Secretariat) that was formed from the men of letters among his retainers, and the Sambyŏlch’o (Three Elite Patrols) that served as a clan-controlled military force. The Sambyŏlch’o were elite military units that carried out police and combat duties. This military force originated in the two (left and right) Yabyŏlch’o (Night Patrols) Ch’oe U created as military units that would be outside the regular army command. A third unit, the Sinŭigun (Army of Tran- scendent Righteousness), was formed from fighters who escaped after being captured by Mongols. The Ch’oe rulers financed their house organs through sigŭp, extensive lands theoretically granted by the court, in which the Ch’oe family was allowed to directly collect taxes and tribute. In ef- fect these lands provided an independent base of economic support for it.

Essential to the new government was the use of mun’gaek. Mun’gaek were private military retainers of great clans. The mun’gaek were impor- tant in the armies of the military clans that gained control of the Koryŏ government in 1170. After 1196 the clan of Ch’oe Ch’ung-hŏn was espe- cially effective in promoting its mun’gaek. Under the Ch’oe military rulers many scholars became mun’gaek and served in the Chŏngbang (Personnel Authority) and other offices. The mun’gaek played an important role in the competition for power throughout the Koryŏ period. In addition to mun’gaek who were freedmen, kadong, male house slaves, also served as armed retainers.

Ch’oe Ch’ung-hŏn asserted more direct control over local institutions. His task was an enormous one because under his military predecessors authority of all sorts had broken down in the provinces. Ch’oe had to deal with six peasant rebellions during his first twelve years. He uti- lized a variety of methods to reassert control over the countryside. The military ruler reinvigorated the power of the hojang (local headmen) and expanded the kamugwan, a central government office that oversaw rural jurisdictions. Ch’oe had officials called anch’alsa (appointed governors)

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meet directly with peasants and elevated or demoted a district’s status as a reward or punishment.

The Ch’oe rulers sponsored a vigorous intellectual life through their en- couragement of Confucianism as a means of legitimizing their rule. They carried out civil examinations with considerable frequency, and despite the disdain of civil officials (munban) toward military officials (muban), the Ch’oe succeeded in attracting a large proportion of the former to serve in their government as civil officials or personal retainers. The military rulers were also patrons of Sŏn Buddhism, and through their support Buddhism entered a period of intellectual vigor. At the same time, the military rulers struggled to undermine the power of the capital-area mon- asteries that were often headed by members of cadet branches of the royal family and by court-connected aristocratic families. These efforts led to a rebellion by armed monks in 1217 that Ch’oe Ch’ung-hŏn suppressed. Overall, the Ch’oe rulers appeared to have stabilized the government and developed a set of effective institutions that secured their power. Hardly, however, had they accomplished this when they were faced with the Mongol invasions. The stubborn resistance of the Ch’oe rulers to the Mon- gols from 1231 to 1258, for the most part directed from the island fastness of Kanghwa, eventually contributed to their downfall when a faction su- ing for peace with the Mongols overthrew the last Ch’oe ruler, Ch’oe Ŭi.

SŎN BUDDHISM

Perhaps the most important cultural legacy of this period was the promo- tion of Sŏn Buddhism under the Ch’oe. At this time, Buddhism in Korea had become divided into Kyo, or textual, Buddhism, which emphasized the study of sutras and elaborate rituals, and Sŏn, or meditative, Bud- dhism. The civil aristocracy patronized Kyo and lavished great wealth on temples that supported a large number of monks. Kyo temples became major land and slave owners. The military rulers, while patronizing shamanist shrines, also sought to support Sŏn, which was more austere and centered in mountain temples far from the capital and its politics. By shifting patronage to Sŏn temples they also weakened the Kyo temples as a power base for the aristocrats that supported them. Partly as a result of this support, meditative Buddhism flourished during the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

A key development in Korean Buddhism at this time was its revital- ization under the monk Chinul, also known as Pojo Kuksa (National Preceptor Pojo) (1158–1210). Born in an aristocratic family, he took and passed the monk exams. But he quickly became disenchanted with the

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atmosphere of official Buddhism with its wealthy temples and politically ambitious monks. He sought to reestablish the spirit of Buddhism by working outside the official court-sponsored religious hierarchy. Trained in the Sŏn tradition, he spent most of his active years in remote mountain areas and founded Sŏngwang-sa temple in Chŏlla Province, which be- came an important center for his teachings. Chinul was the first Korean Buddhist to practice koans (to use the Japanese term), the insoluble or nonsense problems that are designed to jolt one into sudden intuitive enlightenment. Derived from Chinese practice, the koan came to be prac- ticed in Korea about the same time it was introduced to Japan. But for Chinul it was only a minor “supplementary” technique.4 His aim was to bring together and reinvigorate the various Buddhist practices.

More successfully than the earlier effort by Ŭich’ŏn, Chinul established a Buddhist doctrine and practice that could embrace the many scholastic teachings with the antitextual Sŏn, a form of Sŏn that became known as Chogye. He did so by developing an original synthesis combining the emphasis on sudden enlightenment of the Sŏn and the stress on careful study emphasized by the Kyo lineages of Korean Buddhism. This synthe- sis was summed up in the terms tano chŏmsu (sudden enlightenment and gradual cultivation) and chŏnghye ssangsu (twofold training in quiescence [meditation] and activity). Chinul has been credited with unifying Korean Buddhism by creating a broad-based doctrine that was able to incorporate the major strands of Buddhism into a blended whole. Under his immedi- ate successor, Hyesim (Chin’gak Kuksa), Chogye received the patronage of the military rulers of Korea, beginning with Ch’oe U.

Under Chinul and his successors Korean Buddhism deviated some- what from the path of development of Buddhism in China, evolving its own distinctive body of tradition and practices. One of the major features of Korean Buddhism became the tradition of syncretism. Kyo and Sŏn practices began to blend, and sects were defined more by separate lines of transmission from a master than by sharp doctrinal differences. Within this syncretic tradition, Sŏn practices of meditation, austerity, and the disciplined seeking of enlightenment became central, and the influence of Chinul profound. To this day, the majority of Korean Buddhists belong to the Chogye sect of Buddhism.

KOREA, JAPAN, AND FEUDAL EUROPE

Korea under the military governments developed institutions that in some ways resembled feudalism. Feudalism is usually defined as a de- centralized political system in which a landowning or land-controlling warrior aristocracy supported by peasantry bound to the land is linked in

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a hierarchical scheme of political loyalty. It became a fully developed and dominant political-social system only in medieval Western Europe and in medieval Japan. Historians have long noted the similarities between Japanese feudalism and Western European feudalism. Less well appreci- ated is that many of the important transformations in Japanese society that took place in the twelfth century to establish the classic Japanese feudal society took place simultaneously in Korea. As historian Edward Shultz has observed, “Civil aristocratic societies characterize both Korea and Japan at the start of the twelfth century.”5 In Japan as in Korea, the court and dynasty lost effective power to new military lineages, and in both after a period of struggle among military leaders a strong military leader emerged. In Japan this leader was Yoritomo, who in 1185 became paramount ruler of Japan, taking the title of Shogun in 1192; and in Korea Ch’oe Ch’ung-hŏn emerged as the effective ruler in 1196. In both coun- tries the military hegemons established a parallel clan government with effective power while maintaining the dynastic organs of government. Both Ch’oe and Yoritomo made use of an elaborate system of personal retainers and military leaders who pledged to serve their military ruler through ties of loyalty, and who derived income from their extensive per- sonal landholdings. Both recruited men of letters to serve in their private agencies and relied on these educated men to help them in administering the country. In both cases members of the old clans that had supplied the court with officials continued to serve as officials, although without the power and influence they previously had. Both patronized Zen (Sŏn) Buddhism, which became the religion of the warriors. In Japan, as well as in Korea, the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries became the great age of meditative Buddhism, which with the help of official support emerged as a major religious and cultural force. Military rulers in both Korea and Japan fiercely resisted the Mongol invasions.

But there were important differences. Yoritomo came out of a Heian order that witnessed the expansion of warrior and regional autonomy, while Ch’oe emerged from the Koryŏ system in which the military was closely tied to the dynasty. In Japan local autonomy and military culture grew stronger, while in Korea the Ch’oe, searching for appropriate forms of governance, restored many dynastic agencies, working closely with the king and his officials, thus reaffirming the importance of civil traditions in Korea. While in Japan the military traditions emerged as dominant, in Korea the civil traditions prevailed. Partly this was due to the use of the civil exams by the Ch’oe family to recruit men of learning for office, thus reinforcing the importance of scholarship. There was no civil exam system in Japan. In Japan, the emergence of military rule was a consolida- tion of trends that had been taking place for several centuries as power slipped away from the court and into the hands of local military elite. By

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contrast, in Korea, the emergence of military rule was a more dramatic break with tradition. Koryŏ monarchs were active in governing in the twelfth century, private armies had been effectively uprooted in the tenth century, the military was clearly subordinated to civil authority, and the central hierarchy was more clearly defined than in Japan.

Even under the Ch’oe the Korean government remained more central- ized than was the case in either Europe or Japan. The military rulers of Koryŏ were based in the capital and maintained an orientation toward centralized rule. Yoritomo, by contrast, led a coalition of warriors rooted in the countryside. Furthermore, he had his own large provincial power base on the Kanto plain. Ch’oe had no such power base and was much more reliant on key court and military officials to support him.6 Also the mun’gaek retainers were considerably smaller in number than those available to Yoritomo and the shoguns who succeeded him. More sig- nificantly, retainers in Korea could not own land, unlike the vassals who served their lords in Europe and in Japan. An entire system of feudal law emerged in Japan and in Europe, but in Korea the Chinese-patterned legal system continued to function. So for all the parallels with developments in Japan, Korea never developed a truly feudal system. It is possible, of course, that with time Korea might have developed a more feudal-like system, but the tendency to recruit ever more civil officials during the Ch’oe clan’s rule does not suggest this was going to happen. Perhaps Korea, unlike Western Europe and Japan, which were relatively free from outside invasions, simply could not function without a centralized state. Geography made Korea less secure. Unlike Europe or Japan, Korea had to deal with powerful and often aggressive neighbors from the Manchurian plains and grasslands of Inner Asia.

The final question is why such institutions appeared in Japan and Ko- rea around the same time, in fact, at almost exactly the same time. The answer to this is not well understood, but the fact they did suggests that Korean and Japanese historical developments are more closely linked than most scholars have previously appreciated. Both were in contrast to China, where no similar trends occurred in the twelfth and thirteenth cen- turies. The power of the Chinese military aristocratic clans had declined sharply in the eighth to tenth centuries and saw no revival.

THE MONGOL INVASIONS

Would the Ch’oe family or another family have developed a dynastic system similar to the Japanese shogunate? We simply do not know, since Korea’s period of rule by military warlords came to an end with the Mongol invasions. Emerging as a unified group in the thirteenth cen-

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tury under their leader Chinggis (Genghis) Khan and his successors, the Mongols built a great empire based on the grasslands of Inner Asia and subjugated the greater part of Eurasia. Few countries suffered more from the ravages of the Mongols than Korea. From 1217 to 1258 Korea endured repeated invasions as a result of the rise of the Mongols. In 1217, Khitan tribes fleeing the Mongol invasions of northern China crossed the Yalu and plundered northern Korea.7 In 1218 the Mongols, pursuing the Khi- tans, aided Koryŏ forces in defeating them. The Mongols then demanded tribute from the Koreans: clothes, furs, and horses. They also demanded virgins, which the Koreans refused. For the Koreans the tribute demands were burdensome, especially horses in a country with little grazing land. In 1224, the Koryŏ stopped tribute payments and murdered the Mongol envoys. In retaliation the Mongols invaded in 1231.

The Mongols withdrew the following year after the Koryŏ government agreed to accept tributary status and to accept the placing of Mongol representatives, called darughachi, in Korea to oversee tribute collections. Later, in 1232, the Ch’oe house military rulers ordered the Koryŏ court to retreat to Kanghwa Island and killed the darughachi. The military rulers then declared all-out resistance. From the protection of Kanghwa Island the Ch’oe rulers and their successors carried out a fierce and stubborn resistance that lasted four decades. The Ch’oe transferred the entire gov- ernment to the small ten-by-seventeen-mile island, constructing palaces, temples, and administrative buildings where thousands of officials, sol- diers, and monks carried out the functions of government. Some officials objected to abandoning the people; nonetheless, the small but easily defendable island proved to be an effective stronghold against the Mon- gols. The state was not, however, able to protect the countryside, where the Mongol destruction was devastating. Much of the country’s heritage, including the 80,000 wood blocks for the Tripitaka, was destroyed.

The 1232 invasion ended when the Mongol commander Sartaq was killed from an arrow shot by the monk Kim Yun-hu. In 1233, the Mongols launched a new series of invasions, led by Tanqut-batu and Prince Yeku, that dragged on for several years and eventually resulted in a six-year truce from 1241 to 1247. During this time, distant members of the royal family were sent to the Mongol court as hostages under the pretense that they were crown princes. But the Koryŏ government continued to resist the Mongols, refusing to send tribute. As a result, further invasions oc- curred in 1247–1248. The most destructive invasions were a series that began with the Mongol attack of 1254 led by Jalairtai. Small bands of Mongol warriors were sent to lay waste to the countryside in an attempt to wear down Korean resistance and cut off the grain supply to the court on Kanghwa. According to later Korean accounts, the Mongols killed vast numbers of people and took away over 200,000 as prisoners. Historians

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recorded that “The fields were covered with the bones of the dead; the dead were so many