The king moves to Kang-wha.... a slave rebellion.... Mongol anger....
second invasion.... Mongol charges.... popular insurrections....
palace building.... the north occupied by Mongols.... Mongols not
good seamen.... suffering and distress.... nature of Mongol
occupation.... diplomacy.... temporary peace.... Gayuk Khan....
Mangu Khan.... efforts to get the king out of Kang-wha.... great
invasion of 1253.... an urgent letter.... king decides not to
remove.... great fortress falls.... impossible demands.... siege of
Ch‘un-ch‘ŭn.... Ya Gol-dă meets the king.... the king promises to
return to the capital.... a ferocious governor-general.... exchequer
depleted.... Cha Ra-dă before Kang-wha.... a beautiful reply.... a
new viceroy.... succession of disasters.... viceroy overthrown....
Mongol ravages.... the north defenseless.
That neither the Koryŭ king nor any of the officials believed that the
end of the trouble had come is evident. No sooner had the tumult of war
subsided than the question arose in the Koryŭ councils as to the moving
of the court. Some objections were made, but Choe U silenced them by
killing off a few of the objectors. As for the king, he could not make
up his mind to go; but the viceroy showed no hesitation. Seizing the
government carts he loaded his household effects upon them and moved to
the island of Kang-wha. He also urged the people to do likewise, and put
up placards threatening with death anyone who should speak against
removing. Meanwhile the people throughout the country were rising in
revolt against the Mongol governors and were driving them out. This was
sure to call down upon the troubled land another invasion, and the king
at last made up his mind to follow the example of his viceroy and move
to Kang-wha. A palace had been prepared for him there and on the
appointed day a start was made from the capital. It happened to be in
the midst of the rainy season when the roads are well-nigh impassable.
The whole cavalcade soon found itself mired, and torrents of rain added
materially to the discomfort. Even ladies of noble rank were seen wading
with bared limbs in the mud and carrying bundles on their heads. The
wailing and crying of this forlorn multitude was audible for a long
distance. Gen. Kim Chung-gwi was left to guard the capital. When the
king at last arrived on the island he found that the palace was not
ready for occupancy and he was obliged to live in a common house while
the officials shifted for themselves. Messengers were immediately sent
in all directions ordering the people to leave the mainland and seek
refuge on the islands.
The common people in Song-do were in utter confusion. Anarchy stared
them in the face. A slave by the name of Yi T‘ong gathered about him a
band of slaves and raised an insurrection. The general who had been
placed in charge was driven out, the monks were summoned to help in the
sack of the town and all the government buildings were soon looted. It
is hardly complimentary to Buddhism that her monks were invited by this
seditious rabble to help in these lawless acts but it is probably a true
picture of the times. When this came to the ears of the king he sent
Gen. Yi Cha-sung to put down the insurrection. The slaves barricaded the
road but the general dispersed them and at night gained admittance to
the city by feigning to be a deserter. Once within, he caught the slave
leader Yi T‘ong and the rest soon dispersed.
When the news of this exodus from the capital and the driving out of the
Mongol governors reached the Mongol capital is caused a sensation. The
emperor, in a white heat, sent a messenger post-haste to Song-do and
behind him came a powerful army. The demand was “Why have you changed
the capital? Why have our people been driven out?” The king replied that
the capital was changed because all the people were running away, but he
affirmed that although he had removed to Kang-wha his friendly feelings
toward the Mongols had not changed. To this the Mongols made the only
answer that was to be expected from them. They fell upon the northern
towns and put them to indiscriminate slaughter. Men, women and children
fell beneath their swords. Gen. Sal Ye-t‘ap himself came to attack
Cho-im fortress. In that place there was a notable archer. He shot with
unerring skill and every arrow found its victim. Aided by this man the
garrison offered such a stubborn resistance that the Mongols at last
fell back in disorder. It is said that Gen. Sal Ye-t‘ap himself was one
of the victims of this man’s superb marksmanship. The king offered him
official position but he would not accept it.
The spring of 1233 found the emperor’s anger somewhat abated and instead
of sending another army he sent another envoy with four formulated
charges. (1) No Koryŭ envoy had come to do obeisance. (2) Highwaymen had
killed a Mongol envoy. (3) The king had run away from his capital. (4)
The king had given false figures in the census of Koryŭ. We are not told
whether these were answered but we may infer that they were, and in the
humblest tone.
It would be singular indeed if, in such lawless times, there were not
many insurrections in the country. A considerable insurrection was
gotten up in Kyŭng-sang Province but was put down with a heavy hand, for
the records say that after the battle between the rebels and the loyal
troops the road for six miles was lined with dead. In P‘yŭng-yang
likewise there was a rising led by one Pil Hyŭn-bo. The King sent Gen.
Chöng I alone to settle the difficulty. He had already been a
P‘yŭng-yang prefect and had put down one insurrection. He was feared
throughout the whole section. As he approached the northern city his
servant besought him not to enter it, but he replied that such were the
king’s orders. So he went to his death, for the insurrectionists,
failing to win him over to their side, gave him his quietus. The viceroy
then sent 3,000 picked troops to the rebellious city. They took the
rebel leader, cut him in two and sent the fragments of his body to the
king. The second in command named Hong Pok-wŭn, fled to the Mongols, by
whom he was warmly welcomed. He became their guide in many subsequent
expeditions. These renegades were a source of constant trouble between
Koryŭ and the Mongols; so much so that the King took pains to show favor
to the parents and relatives of those who had fled to the Mongol flag.
This same year a second wall was built about Kang-wha. The king sent
asking the Mongols to recall the rest of their troops, and it was done.
With the opening of the following year, 1234, great numbers of people
were summoned to help in the building of a palace on Kang-wha. At this
time the utmost favor was shown to Buddhism. Sacrifices were offered on
all the mountains and beside the streams with the hope of enlisting the
sympathy of the gods. The viceroy also looked out for himself, for we
are told, probably with some exaggeration, that he built himself a house
twenty _li_ in circumference. It was in this same year that the Kin
dynasty became extinct.
With the opening of the next year the real occupation of the land by the
Mongols commenced. The north was systematically occupied, scores of
prefects being seized. The king of Kang-wha meanwhile was trying to
secure a cessation of these hostilities by turning sun-worshipper, for
every morning from seven to twelve the officials spent their time
worshipping that very useful, but hardly divine, luminary. The year
following increased the hopelessness of Koryŭ’s position a hundred fold,
for the Mongols established seventeen permanent camps in P‘yŭng-an and
Whang-hă Provinces. They came as far south as Han-yang, the present
Seoul. They then proceeded southward to the very extremity of the
peninsula, and camps were established through all that portion of the
land. The only reverse the Mongols met in this triumphal march was at
the hands of Son Mun-ju the prefect of Chuk-ju, now Chuk-san, who had
learned the tactics of the Mongols while serving in the north. Every day
he foretold successfully at what point the enemy would make the next
attack. People said he was inspired.
It would seem that the Mongols, however, did not remain long in the
south, for we read that when the standard of revolt was raised the
following year at Na-ju, the Koryŭ forces, sent by the king, speedily
overcame them. This would hardly have been likely had the Mongols been
in force in that vicinity.
We must remember that the Mongols were continental people and knew
nothing of the sea. Even the narrow strip of water between Kang-wha and
the mainland daunted them. And so it was that the king from his island
retreat defied the tremendous Mongol power.
By 1238, when the Mongols again flooded the country with their soldiery,
the people had mostly found refuge among the mountains and on the
thousands of islands which lie off the western coast of Korea. It would
be impossible for anyone to imagine the suffering and distress entailed
by these invasions. The records say that the people simply left their
houses and fields and fled to these places of refuge. What did these
hundreds of thousands of people live on as they fled, and after they
reached their places of retreat? What breaking of old bonds of
friendship and kinship, what rending of family ties and uprooting of
ancient landmarks! It is a marvel that the land ever recovered from the
shock. These Mongols were fiercer and more ruthless than the Japanese
who overran the country three centuries later and they were far more
numerous, besides. Plunder being their main motive, their marauding
bands covered a much greater territory and mowed a much wider swath than
did the soldiers of the great Hideyoshi, who kept to comparatively
narrow lines of march. Nor did these Mongols meet the opposition which
the Japanese met. The Mongols made a clean sweep of the country, and
never again do we read of those splendid armies of 200,000 or 300,000
men which Koryŭ was once able to put into the field, even when groaning
under the weight of a corrupt court and a rampant priesthood. It is from
these days that dates that utter prostration of Koryŭ’s power which left
her an easy prey to every Japanese freebooter who had 100 good swords at
his back.
After ravaging to their hearts’ content the Mongols withdrew in 1236 to
their own territory but sent a messenger ordering the king to go to
Peking and bow before the Mongol emperor. He refused, but sent instead a
relative by the name of Chŭn with a letter asking the emperor to excuse
him from attempting the difficult journey to the Mongol court. Again the
next year the same demand was made, but this time the king simply
declined to go. The Mongols then modified their demand and ordered the
King to come out from his island retreat and return to Song-do. This the
king had no intention of doing; but the next year he sent another
relation named Sun as a hostage to the Mongol court asserting that this
was his son. The emperor believed this and married Sun to one of his own
near relatives.
The Mongol emperor Ogdai died in 1242 and the queen dowager took charge
of affairs during an interval of four years, until 1246, when Gayuk
became emperor. This brought peace to troubled Koryŭ for a period of
five or six years. During this time, all that was left of her resources
was used up in sending five or six embassies to the Mongol court each
year. The moment the pressure of war was raised the king followed once
more the bent of his inclinations, and while the country was in the very
lowest depths of distress he feasted royally in his island retreat,
while the viceroy vied with him in the splendor of his entertainments.
It is said that at one feast 1300 musicians performed. Meantime the
people were slowly returning to their homes.
Gayuk Khan came to the Mongol throne in 1246, and it was the signal for
the renewal of hostilities against Koryŭ. At first four hundred men
came, ostensibly to catch sea-otter but in reality to spy out the
country and learn the mountain passes of the north. The king was not
expecting a renewal of hostilities, or else was too much taken up with
his feasting to attend to the defenses of the north; so the people fled
in panic before this handful of invaders. Many of them took refuge on
Wi-do Island off P‘yŭng-an Province and there engaged in agriculture.
They built a great dam across an estuary of the sea and reclaimed a
large tract of cultivable land, but they suffered badly from lack of
wells.
In 1249 Gayuk died and the regency again devolved upon the queen
dowager. Peace again reigned for a time, broken only by a single
attempted invasion by the Yŭ-jin people, which was unsuccessful. The
king began the erection of a new palace at Song-do in order to make it
appear that he intended to obey the standing injunction of his suzerain
to go back to the capital.
The Mongol regency ended in 1251 and Mangu Khan became emperor. An envoy
was immediately despatched to inquire whether the king had yet obeyed
this command, but as the answer was unsatisfactory the Koryŭ envoy who
appeared at the emperor’s court the following year was thrown into
prison and a last envoy was sent with instructions to settle the
question definitely. If the king would come out and return to his
capital the people might remain on Kang-wha, but if the king refused,
the envoy was to return with all haste to the Emperor and war would be
declared at once. A certain Korean, hearing about these instructions,
hastened forward and informed the king and urged that he go out and meet
the envoy. To this the king did not assent. When the envoy arrived the
king set a great feast for him, in the midst of which the Mongol arose
and, assuming a terrible aspect, demanded loudly why the king did not
leave the island and return to Song-do. Without waiting for an answer to
the question he strode out of the hall and posted back to the north. The
people were in dismay and said to each other, “This means war again.”
When the lengthening vernal sun of 1253 had melted the northern snows
this prophetic word was verified. The renegade Koryŭ general, Hong
Pok-wŭn, told the emperor that the king had triple-walled the island of
Kang-wha and would not move therefrom. War, ever welcome to these first
Mongol emperors, was now afoot. The first detachment of 10,000 troops
was led by the Emperor’s brother Song-ju. With many allies from the
Yŭ-jin and other tribes he crossed the Yalu. Then the Mongol general, A
Mo-gan, and the renegade Hong crossed and advanced as far as the Ta-dong
River. Following these came Gen. Ya Gol-dă with sixteen chieftains in
his train and with a formidable array of troops.
The envoy Sun who, we will remember, had married a Mongol princess, now
wrote an urgent letter to the king saying “The emperor is angry because
you persist in disobeying him and he is sending seventeen kings against
you. But he says that if you will leave the island and follow out his
commands he will even now recall the army. You have now an opportunity
of giving your country a lasting peace. If you leave the island, send
your son to the emperor and receive the Mongol envoy well, it will be a
blessing to the kingdom of Koryŭ. If you will not do this, I beg of you
to put all my family to death.”
Beneath this last appeal lay a terrible threat and the king realized it.
A great council was convened and the universal voice was in favor of
compliance; but a single voice was raised in opposition. It said “How
much treasure have we squandered on this insatiable barbarian, and how
many good men have gone as envoys and never returned. Let the king go
out now from this place of safety and when we behold him a corpse our
condition will be enviable indeed!” This word startles the assembly.
Cowards that they are, they rise to their feet and with one voice
applaud the stirring words and charge the king to stay in his island
fortress and still defy the savage of the north.
Gen. Ya Gol-dă now sent a messenger to the King purporting to be from
the Emperor saying “I have begun from the rising sun and I will conquer
to its going down. All people rejoice but you, who do not listen. I now
send Gen. Ya Gol-dă. If you receive him well, I will leave you in peace;
if not, I will never forgive the offense.” Immediately putting his
troops in motion the redoubtable general approached the strongest
fortress in Whang-ha Province. It was surrounded by almost perpendicular
precipices. The commandant laughed at the Mongols and defied them, and
feasted in their sight. But the Mongols, directing all their energy at a
single point, soon battered down a portion of the wall, set fire to the
buildings with fire arrows, and with scaling ladders effected an
entrance. The commandant hanged himself, and 4,700 of the garrison were
put to the sword. All children above ten years old were killed and all
the women were ravished.
Gen. Ya Gol-dă, being at To-san in Whang-ha Province, received a
plaintive letter from the king asking him to retire from the country. He
told the bearer of this missive “The Emperor says the king is too old to
bow. I am going to find out whether this is true. I will give him just
six days to get here.” The messenger argued the dangerous condition of
the road and said it could not be done in that time. Then the Mongol
forces turned eastward and began to destroy the fortresses and loot the
store-houses, at the same time sending to the king saying “If every
prefect in the land will send in a written surrender I will retire.”
This was impossible in the present state of turmoil, and it probably was
a mere pleasantry on the part of the Mongols.
The town of Ch‘un-ch‘ŭn was a rather formidable place and its siege and
fall offer some interesting indications of the method of Mongol warfare.
First a double fence or stockade was built around the town and outside
this a bank six feet high and a ditch correspondingly deep. Ere long the
supply of water in the town gave out and the people killed their cattle
and drank the blood. The distress was terrible. Cho Hyo-ip, a leading
man, seeing that there was no escape, first burned up his family and
then killed himself. The prefect fought until he was exhausted and then
threw himself into a burning house and perished. A party of the
strongest of the remaining soldiers made a fierce attack upon one
portion of the stockade and succeeded in breaking through, but they
could not force the bank and trench beyond. The enemy entered, razed the
town and burned the grain, and the women were carried away. During this
time the king was using the only means left for turning the tide of war.
He was worshipping every spirit that he could think of, and before every
large boulder. He raised all his ancestors several rounds in the ladder
of apotheosis; but it all seemed to have little effect upon the progress
of events. Another renegade, Yi Hyŭn, arose in the north and forced many
districts into his following.
In the course of time Gen. Ya Gol-dă arrived before the town of
Ch‘ung-ju in Ch‘ung-ch‘ŭng Province, but being unable to reduce it
without a regular siege, he left his main army there and came north to
the vicinity of Kang-wha. He then announced, “If the King will come out
and meet me here I will take my forces back across the Yalu.” With this
message he sent ten Mongol generals to the king. The latter complied,
and with a heavy guard came across the straits and met Ya Gol-dă at
Seung-ch‘ŭn-bu. Gen. Mong Go-dă was present with Ya Gol-dă at the
interview which followed. The Mongol general said “After we crossed the
Yalu into Koryŭ, thousands of your people fell every day. Why should you
think only of your own comfort while your people are dying thus by tens
of thousands? If you had consented to come out sooner, many lives would
have been saved. We now ought to make a firm treaty.” He added that
Mongol prefects must be placed in each district and that a force of ten
thousand in all must be quartered upon Koryŭ. To this the king replied
that with such conditions it would be extremely difficult for him to
return to Song-do. In spite of this the Mongol leader placed one of his
men in each of the prefectures. The only question which was discussed in
the royal councils was how to get rid of the Mongols. One man dared to
suggest that the Crown Prince be sent to intercede with the emperor. The
king flew into a rage at this but soon he was so far mollified as to
consent to sending his second son, Chang, with rich gifts to the Mongol
court, a course of procedure which once more drained the royal coffers
to the last farthing. The king had promised the Mongols to go back to
Song-do “gradually” as fast as preparations could be made, and also to
destroy the palaces in Kang-wha. The Mongols kept their word and retired
but as they went they plundered and ravaged. When they had gone the king
caught the renegade Yi Hyŭn and killed him and his son, and banished all
his adherents. This was a dangerous course, for this man had acted as
guide to the Mongols and the latter were more than likely to resent his
death. So it turned out, for an envoy came post from the Mongol court
complaining that only the king alone had come out from Kang-wha, and
that a man who had helped the Mongols had been slain for it. Whether the
king answered these complaints satisfactorily we do not know, but soon
the emperor developed a new plan. He sent Gen. Cha Ra-dă with 5,000
troops to become governor-general of Koryŭ. The emperor little knew what
sort of a man he was letting loose upon Koryŭ. No sooner had this beast
in human shape crossed the frontier than he began a systematic course of
extermination. He killed right and left, every living thing. The king
hastened to remonstrate but he answered “Unless all the people have
their hair cut I shall continue to kill.” The records say that he
carried into captivity the enormous number of 206,800 souls, both men
and women, and that of the dead he left behind no estimate was ever
made. When the emperor heard of this, even his fierce heart was touched,
and the next year, 1255, he recalled the monster. The latter obeyed but
on his way north he built fortified camps along the way, for future use.
In spite of the thanks which the Koryŭ king sent to the emperor for this
deliverance, the latter allowed this same general to come back with a
powerful force, and accompanied by the same former envoy, Sun, who had
married the Mongol princess. The king had to go out and meet them and
waste his remaining treasure in useless presents. So thoroughly was his
exchequer depleted that his own table was but ill supplied.
The two countries were now nominally at peace, but as Gen. Cha seemed
bent on fighting, there seemed to be nothing to do but to fight. Some of
his soldiers were roughly handled at Chung-ju where a thousand were
killed. Again in the east a large detachment of his troops were heavily
defeated.
At last Gen. Cha came, in his sanguinary wanderings, to the vicinity of
Kang-wha and displayed his banners in sight of that island, to the great
uneasiness of its occupants. Sun, the renegade, was now a Mongol general
and was as bitter against Koryŭ; as any of the northern savages.
The king, in despair, sent Kim Su-gan to the emperor to make a last
appeal to his clemency, but the emperor replied “I cannot recall my
troops, for your king will not come out from his retreat”. To this the
envoy made the beautiful reply, “The frightened quarry will not come
forth from its hole till the hunter has departed. The flower cannot
spring from the frozen sod”. Upon hearing this the emperor immediately
gave orders for the recall of the ruthless Gen. Cha.
Ch‘oe Hang the son of Ch‘oe U, had held the position of viceroy for
eight years. His course had been one of utter selfishness and
oppression. Many honorable men had met their death at his hands. He now
died, leaving a son, Ch‘oe Chung, a young man of considerable power.
When the viceroy died his retainers did not announce the fact until the
household had been put in readiness for any emergency and a strong armed
guard had been stationed at every approach. We can argue from this fact
that the viceroyalty was anything but pleasing to the king and that in
case the viceroy died the king would be glad of an opportunity to
abolish the office altogether. Subsequent events proved the truth of
this supposition. When everything was in readiness the death was
announced and the young man Ch‘oe Chung was put forward as viceroy. The
king was obliged to confirm him in the office. He had no power to
refuse. Ch‘oe Jung was a son by a concubine and from this time the
annals contain no mention of men’s birth on the mother’s side. This was
because Ch‘oe Jung killed everybody who was heard speaking slightingly
of his birth. If anyone had a spite against another he could always
effectually vent it by charging him with having said that Ch’oe Chung
was of common birth.
Disaster and distress followed each other thick and fast in these days.
An insurrection arose in Kang-wŭn Province under the leadership of one
An Yul, but was put down. A famine wasted the country and the poor were
fed out of the government supplies. The Mongols though nominally at
peace with Koryŭ seemed to consider the territory as their legitimate
foraging ground, and now they came walking through the land, coming even
to the gates of Song-do. The king sent Gen. Yi Eung and feasted the
unwelcome guests in the hope of inducing them to leave the unhappy
country. It was a vain hope. They turned southward and continued their
thieving across the Han River even to Chik-san. The king feasted them
again and asked them to desist. The leader replied that he would do so
if the king would come out of Kang-wha and send the Crown Prince to the
Mongol court. As this leader was that same Gen. Cha who had once been
recalled by the emperor for cruelty, we may easily understand how
anxious the king was to be rid of him, at any cost. He therefore
consented to the conditions, and Gen. Cha retired as far as Yŭn-ju and
ordered all the detachments of his army to desist from plundering. The
king kept his word, in part at least, for he sent not the Crown Prince
but his second son together with Ch’oe Chung.
Ch’oe Chung used his wits for the purpose of personal emolument and his
credulity also led him into all kinds of difficulties. His grand mistake
was in casting off an aged slave, Kim In-jun, who had served his father
and grandfather faithfully and deserved better treatment at the young
man’s hands. The worm, thus trodden upon, turned and bit to the bone. It
was as follows. The aged servant, gaining access to the king, told him
that the young viceroy was dead and in a moment secured another man as
leader of the soldiers. Clad with his new power the vengeful old man
caught and killed some of the most intimate friends of the viceroy and
in the early morning gained access to the viceroy’s house and hunted him
from room to room. He found him hidden in a disused chimney flue from
which he was speedily drawn forth and dispatched. When the old slave
announced this to the king the latter said “You have done me a great
favor”, and could hardly refrain from tears. The king then destroyed the
picture of Ch’oe Chung-heun who had founded the viceroyalty, and
distributed the ill-gotten wealth of the Ch’oe family among the people.
It is said that even the lowest citizen received at least three bags of
rice or other grain. At the same time all Ch’oe’s following were
banished.
The year 1258 had now come, the last that the aged king Ko-jang was
destined to see. In this year the Mongols came again as usual. They
began by building and garrisoning a fortress at Eui-ju. Then Gen. Cha
Ra-dă with a small body of a thousand troops came southwards as far as
Su-an in Whang-hă Province. It shows how utterly shorn of power Koryŭ
was, that this general should dare to penetrate so far into the land
with only a thousand men at his back. Hearing of this the aged king
decided to try a little artifice. He came out of Kang-wha, across the
straits to Tong-jin on the opposite bank, in order to make it appear
that he had complied with the emperor’s command. Gen. Cha demanded that
the crown prince also come out. He made a line of camps all the way from
Song-do to Tong-jin and settled down as if he intended to stay and see
his orders obeyed. The king had retired to the island again upon the
near approach of the Mongols and now the latter redoubled their demands
and ravaged more remorselessly than ever. They swarmed all about
Kang-wha and nothing but a narrow strip of water lay between the king
and that more than half savage army. The water proved, however, an
effective barrier. All this time another Mongol force under Gen. San
Gil-dă was wasting the northern and eastern districts, The people of
Wha-ju and of fourteen other towns, led by one Sin Chip-pyŭng sought
refuge on Cho-do island but finding this insecure, moved to another; but
some Koryŭ renegades led Mongol troops there and overthrew the little
colony.
The king now altered his tactics. Sending an envoy to China he said “I
have desired to obey the emperor but hitherto I have been prevented by
the powerful officials. Now that the viceroy has been put out of the way
I will go back to Song-do and do as you shall direct. But we are
surrounded by your soldiery and it is hard to move. We are like mice
when the cat is about. Let them be ordered back home and I will do as
you direct.”
Meanwhile two traitors in the north had overpowered the Koryŭ general
and had gone over to the enemy. The whole north was therefore without a
single defence and was being held by these two traitors under Mongol
orders. Such was the unhappy condition of affairs when the year 1258
came to a close.