Kyŭn-whŭn’s sons defeated.... Buddhist teachers from China.... The
Emperor recognizes Koryŭ.... Wang-gön refuses to treat with the
Kitans.... makes ten rules.... king marries his sister.... plot
detected.... practical Shogunate.... Buddhism flourishes....
P‘yŭng-yang.... Chinamen take office in Koryŭ.... slavery....
examinations.... Chinese favored.... official garments.... incapable
king.... retrogression.... reform.... Confucianism.... Kitan
growing.... bureau of history reorganized.... equilibrium between
Confucianism and Buddhism.... Uk is banished.... quarrel with
Kitan.... concession.... dispute.... China refuses aid.... the
provinces.... the “Emperor” of Kitan gives the king investiture....
first coinage.... reforms.... conspiracy crushed.
Before leaving the kingdom of Sil-la to be swallowed up in antiquity we
must notice a few corollaries. We will notice that Sil-la was the first
power to gain the control of the whole peninsula. It was the language of
Sil-la that became at least the official language of the entire country.
The _yi-t‘u_, or system of diacritical marks, tended to stereotype the
agglutinative endings, so that we find to-day the general
characteristics running through the grammar of Korean are those which
characterized the language of ancient Sil-la. This fact, clearly
grasped, goes a long way toward opening a way for the solution of the
question of the origin of the language.
As the year 936 opens we see king Wang-gön with his two former rivals,
the peaceful one and the warlike one, gathered under his wing, and the
only cloud upon his horizon the attitude of Kyŭn-whŭn’s sons in the
south. This was soon settled. The king in company with Kyŭn-whŭn, at the
head of an army of 87,000 men, marched southward and engaged the
pitiable force that was all the malcontents could now muster. When they
saw this tremendous army approaching and knew that Kyŭn-whŭn was there
in person, surrender was immediate. Wang-gön’s first demand was “where
is Sin-geum?” He was told that he was in a fortress in the mountains
with a small force and was prepared to fight to a finish. He was there
attacked and 3,200 men were taken and 5,700 killed, which shows how
desperate the battle was. Sin-geum and his two brothers were captured.
The two other sons of Kyŭn-whŭn were executed, because they had driven
their father away, but Sin-geum in some way showed that he had not been
a principal actor in that disgraceful scene and so escaped what we may
well believe was merited punishment. There on the field the old man
Kyŭn-whŭn died. It is said that his death was caused by chagrin that
Sin-geum was not killed with his brothers.
It was in 938 that Wang-gön went outside the walls of the capital to
meet a celebrated monk named Hong-bŭm, who had come originally from
Ch’un-ch’uk monastery in the land of Sŭ-yŭk.
All this time interesting reforms were in progress. The names of all the
prefectures throughout the country were changed. This has always been
customary in Korea with a change of dynasty. The next year, 939, the new
king of Koryŭ was formally recognized by the Emperor who sent and
invested him with the insignia of royalty. The crown prince of T‘am-na,
on Quelpart, came and did obeisance at the court of Koryŭ. A
redistribution of the farming lands throughout the country was effected,
by which, the records say, the worthy received more while others
received less. It would be interesting to know in what way the test of
worthiness was applied.
In 942 the Kitan power in the north tried to make friendly advances and
sent a present of thirty camels. But Wang-gön remembered the way in
which Kitan had feigned friendship for Pal-hă and then treacherously
seized her; and for this reason he showed his opinion of Kitan now by
banishing the thirty men and tying the thirty camels to Man-bu bridge
and starving them to death.
King Wang-gön was now sixty-five years old. His life had been an active
one; first as a warrior and then as the administrator of the kingdom
which he had founded. Feeling that his end was approaching, he set
himself to the task of formulating rules for his successor. As a result
he placed in the hands of his son and heir ten rules which read as
follows:
(1) Buddhism is the state religion.
(2) Build no more monasteries.
(3) If the first son is bad let the second or some other become
king.
(4) Do not make friends with Kitan.
(5) Do honor to P‘yŭng-yang, the ancient capital.
(6) Establish an annual Buddhist festival.
(7) Listen to good men and banish bad ones.
(8) As the south is disaffected towards us do not marry from among
the people of that section.
(9) Look after the interests of the army.
(10) Be always ready for emergencies.
After urging his son to lock all these precepts in his heart the aged
king turned to the wall and died. These ten laws are typical of the man.
They inculcated reverence for the best religion that had come under his
notice, but in the same breath forbade the disproportionate growth of
priest-craft, for he had seen what a seductive influence lay hidden
within the arcana of this most mystical of all heathen cults. He advised
temperance in religion. He forbade the throning of a man simply because
he was the king’s firstborn. By so doing he really proclaimed that the
king was for the people and not the people for the king. He hated
treachery and forbade making alliances with the forsworn. He believed in
doing honor to the best of the old traditions and ordered that the
ancient city of P‘yŭng-yang be remembered. He believed in loving his
friends and hating his enemies and forbade descendants taking a wife
from among the people of the south who had so desperately supported the
claims of Kyŭn-whŭn, the one-time bandit. He was a military man and
believed in having a strong army and in treating it in such a way as to
insure its perfect loyalty. It was in the last injunction, however, that
he struck the key-note of his character. Be always ready for
emergencies. Reading his character in the light of his actions we can
well imagine one more precept that would have been characteristic of
him; namely, that it is better to make a friend of an honest enemy than
to kill him. And so in the year 942 the great general, reformer, king
and administrator was laid to his fathers and his son Mu reigned in his
stead. The latter’s posthumous title is Hye-jong.
The reign of this second king of Koryŭ starts with the statement that
the king gave his own sister to his brother for a wife. It was one of
the peculiar institutions of the dynasty that whenever possible the king
married his own sister. In this instance he gave his sister to his
brother, but the king had probably already married another of his
sisters. This custom, which has prevailed in other countries besides
Korea, notably in ancient Egypt, rests upon the assumption that by
marrying one’s own sister more of royalty is preserved in the family and
the line is kept purer, the royal blood not being mixed with any of
baser quality. We are told that, in order to make it seem less
offensive, the sister, upon marrying her brother, took her mother’s
family name. This shows that the custom was looked down upon, else this
device would not have been resorted to. We find also that the kings of
Koryŭ were accustomed to have more than one real wife, contrary to the
custom of the present dynasty. We read that this king, who had none of
the elements of his father’s greatness, took as his sixteenth wife the
daughter of one Wang-gyu and by her had a son. Through her influence
Wang-gyu had risen to the position of prime minister and it was his
ambition to see his daughter’s son ascend the throne. It had been the
king’s plan to give the throne to his brother Yo and the prime minister
began by plotting against the life of this possible successor. The king
learned of this and frustrated it by immediately abdicating in favor of
his brother. Wang-gyu seems to have possessed considerable power
independently of the king for we learn that he not only was not punished
but that he continued to plot against Yo even after he had assumed the
reins of power. An assassin whom he had hired to kill the king was
himself killed by the king while attempting to carry out the deed. When
the king fell ill he was advised to move secretly to another palace for
safety. He did so and that very night the myrmidons of Wang-gyu broke
into the palace that he had left, but found that their bird had flown.
In spite of all this the king did not proceed against his minister but
went about with an armed escort. This signal failure to punish a traitor
is said to have been the reason why, during the whole dynasty, the
officials overruled the king and made a puppet of him. In fact many
times during the dynasty we find the condition of affairs somewhat like
those in Japan where the emperor himself had little practical power but
the government was carried on by a shogun. But at last this Wang-gyu met
his deserts for he was banished to Kap-whan and there executed, and with
him 300 men who had been in his pay.
It is interesting to notice how soon after the death of Wang-gön his
ill-considered advice about Buddhism was to bear its legitimate fruit.
The third king of Koryŭ was thoroughly in the hands of the sacerdotal
power. He was a devout worshipper of Buddha and spent large sums of
money upon the priesthood. He favored the monks in every way and thus
added one more blow to the wedge which ultimately split the land and
brought the dynasty to a close.
Following the directions of Wang-gön in regard to the city of
P‘yŭng-yang, he decided to make this town a secondary capital. In the
prosecution of this work many people were compelled to give their time
and labor, and great suffering was the natural result. Many of the
people of Song-do were compelled to move to the northern capital. This
was very distasteful to them, and, joined with the king’s blind
adherence to Buddhism, made it easy for the people to rejoice when in
970 he died and his younger brother So became king. His posthumous title
is Kwang-jong. He in turn married his own sister, and the records
intimate that another reason for marrying in the family was that it kept
out undesirable connections who would naturally expect to receive
positions under the government.
When in 953 the emperor sent an envoy to the court of Koryŭ approving of
the coronation of the new king, he was accompanied by a great scholar,
Sang Geui, who found such favor in the eyes of the king that he remained
and took office under the government. It is said that this caused a
serious set-back to the fortunes of Buddhism. Well would it have been
could he have seen that insidious power crushed and driven from the
country. But it had gained too strong a foothold to be overcome by the
teaching or example of a single man or coterie of men. It is not
unlikely that it was at the suggestion of this man that the king changed
the law concerning slavery. Heretofore slavery had been the punishment
for comparatively venial offences and the country was overrun with
slaves. The king manumitted many of these and by so doing gained the
enmity of many who thus lost valuable property. It also resulted in
outbreaks among slaves, incipient riots, because this humane tendency in
the king emboldened them to claim more than he had intended. It showed
that sometimes the indiscriminate franchisement of slaves may be a
dangerous thing.
The most radical reform instituted at the advice of this Sang Geui was
the establishment of a national competitive examination similar to those
held in China. In Korea it is called the _kwaga_. The examination was a
six-fold one; (1) heptameter verse, (2) hexameter verse, (3) commentary,
(4) historic citation, (5) medicine, (6) divination.
Communication with China seems to have become more frequent and close,
for we find that in 960 an envoy went to China carrying as gifts 50,000
pounds of copper and 4,000 pieces of rock crystal used in making
spectacles. This was likewise a period of Chinese immigration,
encouraged without doubt by the flattering reception given to Sang Geui.
The king gave the visitors a hearty welcome, provided them with houses,
gave them office and even secured them wives. So far did he go in the
way of providing houses that he incurred the resentment of some of his
highest officials, one of whom, So P‘il, asked the king to take his fine
residence from him as a gift. In surprise the king asked him why he
wanted to give it up. The answer was, “It will be seized anyway when I
die and I would rather give it up now and spend the rest of my days
preparing a little home somewhere for my children.” This threw the king
into a rage; but the shot told, for he stopped the form of injustice
from that very day.
The following year, 961, a sweeping change was made in the style and
color of official garments. This was also under the direction of Sang
Geui. For the highest rank purple was used, and for the second rank red,
for the third rank deep red, and for the fourth rank blue.
How far this king had degenerated from the standard set by the founder
of the kingdom, less than fifty years before, is apparent from the fact
that he was the pliant instrument of anyone who had access to his ear.
He believed anybody and everybody. Enemies accused each other before him
and he accepted every statement as true. The result was that the prisons
were simply bursting with inmates and the executioner’s axe was busy
night and day. Hundreds of men were executed whose only crime was that
they had been accused before the king. Added to this was a prodigal
waste of treasure in the building of palaces, the assumption throughout
of Chinese clothes and the entertainment of countless “friends” who came
from across the border, on the principle, no doubt, that where the
carcass is there will the eagles be gathered together. This state of
things continued up to 969, going from bad to worse. That year the king
took to himself two Buddhist monks as mentors. He suddenly awoke to the
fact that many murders lay at his door and he began to have twinges of
conscience. He thought to make it right by a wholesale favoring of
Buddhism. He put himself entirely into the hands of the monks and let
them manage all the affairs of state to suit themselves. But this, while
it may have eased his conscience, brought no betterment to the state. He
was imposed upon in the grossest manner and never once guessed it. He
lost the respect of all men of sense and reason. His useless reign
dragged on till 976 when the country was relieved of the mighty incubus
by his death. The prisons were overrun with innocent men, priestcraft
had wound its octopus tentacles about every branch of the government.
Energy and patriotism had been eradicated; for, the moment a man
possessing these traits appeared, jealousy caused him to be accused to
the credulous king and he was thrown into prison.
But now his son, Chu, came to the throne. His posthumous title is
Kyong-jong. His first act was to open the prison doors and liberate all
who were not condemned felons. This act of mere justice was greeted by
applause from the people. It was the signal for a general reform in the
methods of administration. The monks were sent back to their
monasteries. The competitive examinations were renewed and an impetus
was given to the study of the classics. The king in person examined the
papers of the candidates. But death put an end to his promising career
after six short years and in 982 his younger brother, Ch’i, posthumous
title Song-jong, ascended the throne. Fortunately he was of the same
mind as his deceased brother and the good work went on unchecked. He
first did away with the senseless festivals described under the reign of
Wang-gön, at which all manner of animals were represented. He changed
the names of official grades to correspond with those of the Tang
dynasty in China. Intercourse with China was revived and frequent envoys
passed back and forth. It was in the second year of his reign, namely
983, that the time-honored custom was instituted of the king plowing a
piece of land in person each year. This too was borrowed from China.
Confucianism received a great impetus during these days; an envoy to
China brought back a picture of the emperor’s shrine, of the patron
genius of China, of Confucius’ shrine, and a history of the seventy-two
disciples of the great sage. Financial affairs engaged his attention
too, for we find that in this year 984 the legal rate of interest on
money was set at ten per cent _per mensem_. The defenses of the country
were not neglected. A fortress was begun on the banks of the Yalu River
but the people of the Yŭ-jin tribe caused the work to be suspended.
The Kitan tribe were still in the ascendant and so ominous was the
growth of their power that the envoy from China who came to perform the
ceremony of investiture of the new king, intimated that China would be
glad to join the forces of Koryŭ in an invasion of the Kitan territory.
We are not told what reply was given but nothing seems to have come of
it. Buddhistic encroachments were checked and a stop was put to the
seizure of houses for the purpose of erecting monasteries. Mourning
customs were changed; the three years’ limit was shortened to one
hundred days, the one year limit to thirty days, the nine months’ limit
to twenty days, the six months’ limit to fifteen days and the three
months’ limit to seven days. Special instructions were given to the
governors of the provinces to foster agriculture, and prizes were
offered for superior excellence in agricultural methods as proved by
their results. The governors were allowed to take their families with
them to the provincial capitals. This marks a long step in advance, for
it would seem that heretofore the families of provincial governors had
been held at the national capital as a guarantee of good behavior on the
part of the governors while in the country.
The king caused the erection of great store-houses in the various parts
of the country for the storage of rice to be used in time of famine. The
students in the Confucian school were encouraged by gifts of clothes and
food, and several were sent to China to prosecute their studies. In 987
the soldiers’ implements of war were beaten into agricultural
implements, especially in the country districts. A second trial was made
of liberating slaves but without satisfactory results. It made those
that were not freed so arrogant that the attempt was given up. A further
invasion was made into the territory of priest-craft by the
discontinuance of certain important festivals, but the fact that the law
against the killing of any animal in the first, fifth or ninth moons was
still in active force shows that Buddhism was still a powerful factor in
the national life. Kyöng-ju, the ancient capital of Sil-la, was made the
eastern capital of the kingdom, a merely honorary distinction.
The annals state that this reign beheld the inauguration of the humane
custom of remitting the revenues, in part or in whole, in times of
famine, also the custom of the king sending medicine to courtiers who
might be ill.
The growing power of Kitan in the north was a cause of uneasiness for we
find that in 989 the whole north-east border was thoroughly garrisoned.
The time was approaching when this half-savage tribe would add another
proof that conquest is usually from the cooler to the warmer climate.
During the commotion incident upon the founding of the dynasty and the
extinction of the kingdom of Sil-la, the bureau of history had been
largely neglected. Now it was reorganized and the annals of the kingdom
were put in proper shape.
The king was apparently trying to steer a middle course between Buddhism
and Confucianism, for the pen of the annalist records that no animals
were to be killed on the king’s birthday, and in the next stroke that
wives were to be rewarded for unusual virtue, and again that the king
went out of the city to meet an envoy bringing the great Buddhistic
work, Tă-jang-gyŭng, from China, and still again that the first
ancestral temple was erected. Well would it have been could this
equilibrium have been maintained.
One of the sons of Wang-gön was still living. His name was Uk. He was
the author of a court scandal which illustrates the lax morals of the
time. He formed a liaison with the widow of his younger brother. The
king learned of it and visited his anger upon the offender by banishing
him. The woman bore a son and then went forth and hanged herself on a
willow tree. The nurse brought up the child and taught it the word
father. One day the child was brought into the presence of the king,
when it rushed forward, caught the king by the garments and cried
father. The king was deeply moved and sent the child to its father in
banishment. When Uk died the boy was brought back to the capital and
given office. He eventually became king.
In 993 the cloud in the north began to assume a threatening aspect. A
feeble attempt was made to stem the march of the now powerful Kitan
tribe, but without avail. The Kitan general, So Son-ryŭng, made this a
_casus belli_, and, mustering a strong force, pushed down into Koryŭ
territory. The king put Gen. Păk Yang-yu at the head of the Koryŭ forces
and himself went with the army as far as P‘yŭng-yang. At that point news
came that the enemy was going around the flank and had already taken one
important fortress there. The king hurried back to Song-do. Gen. So
Son-ryŭng sent a curt message saying “Ko-gu-ryŭ once belonged to Kitan.
We have come to claim only our own. It remains therefore only for you to
surrender and become our vassals.” In answer the king sent Yi Mong-jun
to negotiate a peace on the best possible terms. Arriving at the camp of
Gen. So he boldly demanded why the northern tribe had presumed to break
across the boundary. Gen. So replied that the land was the property of
his master and the sooner the king acknowledged it and accepted Kitan as
his suzerain the better for all parties. The envoy returned to the
capital and a great council of war was held. Some advised to surrender,
but some said “Offer them all the territory north of the Tă-dong River
as a compromise measure.” The king chose the latter alternative and
began by having the people there throw into the river all grain that
they could not carry away, so that it might not fall into the hands of
the enemy. The Kitan general was highly pleased with this concession but
his pride had a fall when, a few days later, he was defeated by the
Koryŭ forces under Gen. Yu Bang. Thereupon he modified his demands to
the mere recognition of the suzerainty of Kitan; but this the king was
unwilling, under the circumstances, to agree to. Gen. So was not
satisfied with the grade of the general sent to negotiate the treaty and
demanded that the prime minister of Koryŭ be sent to do it. A high
official was therefore sent but he refused to bow before the Kitan
general. The latter said, “You are from Sil-la and we are from
Ko-gu-ryŭ. You are trespassing on our territory. We are your neighbors.
Why do you persist in sending envoys to the court of China? That is the
reason we are now at war with you. Restore our land, become our vassals
and all will go well.” The envoy refused to agree to this. He said “We
are Ko-gu-ryŭ people. How else could our land be Koryŭ? The capital of
Ko-gu-ryŭ was at P‘yŭng-yang and you formed a small part of that
kingdom; so why do you claim that we have usurped the power? Our
territory extended far beyond the Yalu River, but the Yŭ-jin people
stole it from us. You had better first go and recover that part of
Ko-gu-ryŭ which the Yŭ-jin stole and then we will gladly bow to you as
suzerain.” What there was in this argument that convinced the hardy
warrior of the north we cannot say, but it served its purpose, for he
first spread a great feast and afterwards broke camp and marched back to
his own country without obtaining the coveted surrender. The king, in
order to maintain the semblance of good faith, adopted the Kitan
calendar. The next step, however, showed the true bent of his mind, for
he sent a swift messenger to the court of China with an urgent request
for aid against the arrogant people of the north. But the Sung emperor
apparently thought he had his own hands full in watching his own borders
and declined to send the aid requested. This put an end to the
friendship between Koryŭ and the Chinese court, and all communication
was broken off. The king of Kitan sent a commissioner to Koryŭ to look
after his interests there and when he returned to the north he took a
large number of women as a gift from the Koryŭ king to his master.
It was now, near the end of the tenth century, that Koryŭ was first
regularly divided into provinces. There were ten of them. Their names
and positions were as follows. Kwan-nă, the present Kyŭng-geui;
Chung-wŭn, now Chung-ju; Ha-nam, now Kong-ju; Yong-nam, now Sang-ju;
Kang-nam, now Chŭn-ju; San-nam, now Chin-ju; Hă-yang, now Na-ju;
Sak-pang, now Ch‘un-ch‘ŭn, Kang-neung and An-byŭn; P‘ă-su, now
P‘yŭng-yang; and Kă-sŭng, another name for Song-do. These were rather
the provincial centers than the provinces themselves.
In pursuance of the policy adopted in reference to the kingdom of Kitan,
ten boys were sent northward to that country to learn its language and
marry among its people. The final act of suzerainty was played when in
996 the “emperor” of Kitan invested the king of Koryŭ with the royal
insignia. The end of the reign was approaching, but before it was
reached one of the most important events of that century transpired. It
occupies little space on the page of history. Many a court intrigue or
senseless pageant bulks larger in the annals, but it was one of the most
far-reaching in its effects. It was the first coining of money. It was
in this same year, 996. These coins were of iron but without the hole
which so generally characterizes the “cash” of to-day.
In 998 the king died and his nephew, Song, posthumous title Mok-jong,
ascended the throne. His first act was to revise the system of taxation,
probably by causing a remeasurement of arable land. Officials received
their salaries not in money nor in rice, but to each one was assigned a
certain tract of land and his salary was the produce from that
particular tract. In the third year of his reign, 1000 A.D., he received
investiture from the Kitan emperor. His fifth year was signalized by a
five days’ eruption of a volcano on the island of Quelpart. This reign
was destined to end in disaster. The widow of the late king formed a
criminal intimacy with one Kim Ji-yang, whom she raised to a high
official position. The whole kingdom was scandalized. She had the walls
of her palace decorated with sentiments expressive of the epicurean
dictum “Eat, drink and be merry”; and curiously enough expressed the
belief that after enjoying all this world had to give they would all
become Buddhas in the next. This is probably a fair sample of the
Buddhistic teaching of the times, at least this was its legitimate
fruit. She and her lover soon began to plot against the young king. The
latter was ill at the time but knew well what was going on. He sent for
Sun, the illegitimate son of Uk, of whom we spoke in the last chapter,
with the intention of nominating him as his successor. At the same time
he sent post-haste to the country and summoned Gen. Kang Cho, a faithful
and upright man. On his way up to the capital the general was falsely
told that it was not the king who had summoned him but the queen
dowager’s lover. Enraged at being thus played upon, the stern old
general marched into the capital and seized the lecherous traitor and
gave him his quietus. He then turned upon the king and put him to death
as well. He had not looked carefully into the case, but he deemed that
the whole court needed a thorough cleaning out. He completed the work by
driving out the queen dowager who deserved the block more than any
other; and then he seated the above-mentioned Sun on the throne. His
posthumous title is Hyön-jong. This was in 1010 A.D.