THE FUYU RACE AND THEIR MIGRATIONS.
Somewhere north of that vast region watered by the Sungari River,
itself only a tributary to the Amur, there existed, according to
Chinese tradition, in very ancient times, a petty kingdom called Korai,
or To-li. Out of this kingdom sprang the founder of the Corean race.
Slightly altering names, we may say in the phrase of Genesis: “Out of
Korai went forth Ko and builded Corea,” though what may be sober fact
is wrapped up in the following fantastic legend.
Long, long ago, in the kingdom called To-li, or Korai (so pronounced,
though the characters are not those for the Korai of later days), there
lived a king, in whose harem was a waiting-maid. One day, while her
master was absent on a hunt, she saw, floating in the atmosphere, a
glistening vapor which entered her bosom. This ray or tiny cloud seemed
to be about as big as an egg. Under its influence, she conceived.
The king, on his return, discovered her condition, and made up his mind
to put her to death. Upon her explanation, however, he agreed to spare
her life, but at once lodged her in prison.
The child that was born proved to be a boy, which the king promptly
cast among the pigs. But the swine breathed into his nostrils and the
baby lived. He was next put among the horses, but they also nourished
him with their breath, and he lived. Struck by this evident will of
Heaven, that the child should live, the king listened to its mother’s
prayers, and permitted her to nourish and train him in the palace. He
grew up to be a fair youth, full of energy, and skilful in archery. He
was named “Light of the East,” and the king appointed him Master of his
stables.
One day, while out hunting, the king permitted him to give an
exhibition of his skill This he did, drawing bow with such unerring aim
that the royal jealousy was kindled, and he thought of nothing but how
to compass the destruction of the youth. Knowing that he would be
killed if he remained in the royal service, the young archer fled the
kingdom. He directed his course to the southeast, and came to the
borders of a vast and impassable river, most probably the Sungari.
Knowing his pursuers were not far behind him he cried out, in a great
strait,
“Alas! shall I, who am the child of the Sun, and the grandson of the
Yellow River, be stopped here powerless by this stream.”
So saving he shot his arrows at the water.
Immediately all the fishes of the river assembled together in a thick
shoal, making so dense a mass that their bodies became a floating
bridge. On this, the young prince (and according to the Japanese
version of the legend, three others with him), crossed the stream and
safely reached the further side. No sooner did he set foot on land than
his pursuers appeared on the opposite shore, when the bridge of fishes
at once dissolved. His three companions stood ready to act as his
guides. One of the three was dressed in a costume made of sea-weeds, a
second in hempen garments, and a third in embroidered robes. Arriving
at their city, he became the king of the tribe and kingdom of Fuyu,
which lay in the fertile and well-watered region between the Sungari
River and the Shan Alyn, or Ever-White Mountains. It extended several
hundred miles east and west of a line drawn southward through Kirin,
the larger half lying on the west.
Fuyu, as described by a Chinese writer of the Eastern Han dynasty (25
B.C.–190 A.D.), was a land of fertile soil, in which “the five cereals”
(wheat, rice, millet, beans, and sorghum) could be raised. The men were
tall, muscular, and brave, and withal generous and courteous to each
other. Their arms were bows and arrows, swords, and lances. They were
skilful horsemen. Their ornaments were large pearls, and cut jewels of
red jade. They made spirits from grain, and were fond of drinking
bouts, feasting, dancing, and singing. With many drinkers there were
few cups. The latter were rinsed in a bowl of water, and with great
ceremony passed from one to another. They ate with chopsticks, out of
bowls, helping themselves out of large dishes.
It is a striking fact that the Fuyu people, though living so far from
China, were dwellers in cities which they surrounded with palisades or
walls of stakes. They lived in wooden houses, and stored their crops in
granaries.
In the administration of justice, they were severe and prompt. They had
regular prisons, and fines were part of their legal system. The thief
must repay twelve-fold. Adultery was punished by the death of both
parties. Further revenge might be taken upon the woman by exposing her
dead body on a mound. Certain relatives of a criminal were denied
burial in a coffin. The other members of the family of a criminal
suffering capital punishment were sold as slaves. Murderers were buried
alive with their victims.
The Fuyu religion was a worship of Heaven, their greatest festival
being in the eleventh month, when they met joyfully together, laying
aside all grudges and quarrels, and freeing their prisoners. Before
setting out on a military expedition they worshipped Heaven, and
sacrificed an ox, examining the hoof, to obtain an omen. If the cloven
part remained separated, the portent was evil, if the hoof closed
together, the omen was auspicious.
The Fuyu chief men or rulers were named after the domestic beasts,
beginning with their noblest animal, the horse, then the ox, the dog,
etc. Rulers of cities were of this order. Their king was buried at his
death in a coffin made of jade.
Evidently the Fuyu people were a vigorous northern race, well clothed
and fed, rich in grain, horses and cattle, possessing the arts of life,
with considerable literary culture, and well advanced in social order
and political knowledge. Though the Chinese writers classed them among
barbarians, they were, in contrast with their immediate neighbors, a
civilized nation. Indeed, to account for such a high stage of
civilization thus early and so far from China, Mr. Ross suggests that
the scene of the Ki Tsze’s labors was in Fuyu, rather than in Chō-sen.
Certain it is that the Fuyu people were the first nation of Manchuria
to emerge from barbarism, and become politically well organized. It is
significant, as serving to support the conjecture that Ki Tsze founded
Fuyu, that we discern, even in the early history of this vigorous
nation, the institution of feudalism. We find a king and nobles, with
fortified cities, and wealthy men, with farms, herds of horses, cattle,
and granaries. We find also a class of serfs, created by the
degradation of criminals or their relatives. The other Manchurian
people, or barbarians, surrounding China, were still in the nomadic or
patriarchal state. Why so early beyond China do we find a
well-developed feudal system and high political organization?
It was from feudal China, the China of the Yin dynasty, from which Ki
Tsze emigrated to the northeast. Knowing no other form of government,
he, if their founder, doubtless introduced feudal forms of government.
Whatever may be thought of the theory there suggested, it is certainly
surprising to find a distinctly marked feudal system, already past the
rudimentary stage, in the wilderness of Manchuria, a thousand miles
away from the seats of Chinese culture, as early as the Christian era.
As nearly the whole of Europe was at some time feudalized, so China,
Corea, and Japan have each passed through this stage of political life.
The feudal system in China was abolished by Shi Whang Ti, the first
universal Emperor, B.C. 221, but that of Japan only after an interval
of 2,000 years, surviving until 1871. It lingers still in Corea, whose
history it has greatly influenced, as our subsequent narrative will
prove. In addition to the usual features of feudalism, the existence of
serfdom, in fact as well as in form, is proved by the testimony of
Dutch and French observers, and of the language itself. The richness of
Corean speech, in regard to every phase and degree of servitude, would
suffice for a Norman landholder in mediæval England, or for a Carolina
cotton-planter before the American civil war.
Out of this kingdom of Fuyu came the people who are the ancestors of
the modern Coreans. In the same Chinese history which describes Fuyu,
we have a picture of the kingdom of Kokorai (or Kao-ku-li), which had
Fuyu for its northern and Chō-sen for its southern neighbor. “The land
was two thousand li square, and contained many great mountains, and
deep valleys.” There was a tradition among the Eastern barbarians that
they were an offshoot from Fuyu. Hence their language and laws were
very much alike. The nation was divided into five families, named after
the four points of the compass, with a yellow or central tribe.
Evidently this means that a few families, perhaps five in number,
leaving Fuyu, set out toward the south, and in the valleys west of the
Yalu River and along the 42d parallel, founded a new nation. Their
first king was Ko, who, perhaps, to gain the prestige of ancient
descent, joined his name to that of Korai (written however with the
characters which make the sound of modern Korai) and thus the realm of
Kokorai received its name.
A Japanese writer derives the term Kokorai from words selected out of a
passage in the Chinese classics referring to the high mountains. The
first character Ko, in Kokorai, means high, and it was under the
shadows of the lofty Ever White Mountains that this vigorous nation had
its cradle and its home in youth. Here, too, its warriors nourished
their strength until their clouds of horsemen burst upon the frontiers
of the Chinese empire, and into the old kingdom of Chō-sen. The people
of this young state were rich in horses and cattle, but less given to
agriculture. They lived much in the open air, and were fierce,
impetuous, strong, and hardy. They were fond of music and pleasure at
night. Especially characteristic was their love of decoration and
display. At their public gatherings they decked themselves in dresses
embroidered with gold and silver. Their houses were also adorned in
various ways. Their chief display was at funerals, when a prodigal
outlay of precious metals, jewels, and embroideries was exhibited.
In their religion they sacrificed to Heaven, to the spirits of the
land, and of the harvests, to the morning star, and to the celestial
and invisible powers. There were no prisons, but when crimes were
committed the chiefs, after deliberation, put the criminal to death and
reduced the wives and children to slavery. In this way serfs were
provided for labor. In their burial customs, they made a cairn, and
planted fir-trees around it, as many Japanese tombs are made.
In the general forms of their social, religious, and political life,
the people of Fuyu and Kokorai were identical, or nearly so; while both
closely resemble the ancient Japanese of Yamato.
The Chinese authors also state that these people were already in
possession of the Confucian classics, and had attained to an unusual
degree of literary culture. Their officials were divided into twelve
ranks, which was also the ancient Japanese number. In the method of
divination, in the wearing of flowery costumes, and in certain forms of
etiquette, they and the Japanese were alike. As is now well known, the
ancient form of government of the Yamato Japanese (that is, of the
conquering race from Corea and the north) was a rude feudalism and not
a monarchy. Further, the central part of Japan, first held by the
ancestors of the mikado, consists of five provinces, like the Kokorai
division, into five clans or tribes.
At the opening of the Christian era we find the people of Kokorai
already strong and restless enough to excite attention from the Chinese
court. In 9 A.D. they were recognized as a nation with their own
“kings,” and classified with Huentu, one of the districts of old
Chō-sen. One of these kings, in the year 30, sent tribute to the
Chinese emperor. In 50 A.D. Kokorai, by invitation, sent their warriors
to assist the Chinese army against a rebel horde in the northwest. In
A.D. 70 the men of Kokorai descended upon Liao Tung, and having now a
taste for border war and conquest, they marched into the petty kingdom
of Wei, which lay in what is now the extreme northeast of Corea.
Absorbing this little country, they kept up constant warfare against
the Chinese. Though their old kinsmen, the Fuyu men, were at times
allies of the Han, yet they gradually spread themselves eastward and
southward, so that by 169 A.D. the Kokorai kingdom embraced the whole
of the territory of old Chō-sen, or of Liao Tung, with all the Corean
peninsula north of the Ta-tong, and even to the Tumen River.
This career of conquest suffered a check for a time, when a Chinese
expedition, sailing up the Yalu River, invested the capital city of the
king and defeated his army. The king fled beyond the Tumen River. Eight
thousand people are said to have been made prisoners or slaughtered by
the Chinese. For a time it seemed as though Kokorai were too badly
crippled to move again.
Anarchy broke out in China, on the fall of the house of Han, A.D. 220,
and lasted for half a century. That period of Chinese history, from 221
to 277, is called the “Epoch of the Three Kingdoms.” During this
period, and until well into the fifth century, while China was rent
into “Northern” and “Southern” divisions, the military activities of
Kokorai were employed with varying results against the petty kingdoms
that rose and fell, one after the other, on the soil between the Great
Wall and the Yalu River. During this time the nation, free from the
power and oppression of China, held her own and compacted her power. In
the fifth century her warriors had penetrated nearly as far west as the
modern Peking in their cavalry raids. Wily in diplomacy, as brave in
war, they sent tribute to both of the rival claimants for the throne of
China which were likely to give them trouble in the future. Dropping
the family name of their first king, they retained that of their
ancestral home-land, and called their nation Korai.
Meanwhile, as they multiplied in numbers, the migration of Kokorai
people, henceforth known as Korai men, set steadily southward. Weakness
in China meant strength in Korai. The Chinese had bought peace with
their Eastern neighbors by titles and gifts, which left the Koraians
free to act against their southern neighbors. In steadily displacing
these, they came into collision with the little kingdom of Hiaksai,
whose history will be narrated farther on. It will be seen that the
Korai men, people of the Fuyu race, finally occupied the territory of
Hiaksai. Already the Koraians, sure of further conquest southward,
fixed their capital at Ping-an.
In 589 A.D. the house of Sui was established on the dragon throne, and
a portentous message was sent to the King of Korai, which caused the
latter to make vigorous war preparations. Evidently the Chinese emperor
meant to throttle the young giant of the north, while the young giant
was equally determined to live. The movement of a marauding force of
Koraians, even to the inside of the Great Wall, gave the bearded dragon
not only the pretext of war but of annexation.
For this purpose an army of three hundred thousand men and a fleet of
several hundred war-junks were prepared. The latter were to sail over
from Shantung, and enter the Ta-tong River, the goal of the expedition
being Ping-an city, the Koraian capital
The horde started without provisions, and arrived in mid-summer at the
Liao River in want of food. While waiting, during the hot weather, in
this malarious and muddy region, the soldiers died by tens of thousands
of fever and plague. The incessant rains soon rendered the roads
impassable and transport of provisions an impossibility. Disease melted
the mighty host away, and the army, reduced to one-fifth its numbers,
was forced to retreat The war-junks fared no better, for storms in the
Yellow Sea drove them back or foundered them by the score.
Such a frightful loss of life and material did not deter the next
emperor, the infamous Yang (who began the Grand Canal), from following
out the scheme of his father, whom he conveniently poisoned while
already dying. In spite of the raging famines and losses by flood, the
emperor ordered magazines for the armies of invasion to be established
near the coast, and contingents of troops for the twenty-four corps to
be raised in every province. All these preparations caused local
famines and drove many of the people into rebellion.
This army, one of the greatest ever assembled in China, numbered over
one million men. Its equipment consisted largely of banners, gongs, and
trumpets. The undisciplined horde began their march, aiming to reach
the Liao River before the hot season set in. They found the Koraian
army ready to dispute their passage. Three bridges, hastily
constructed, were thrown across the stream, on which horse and foot
pressed eagerly toward the enemy. The width of the river had, however,
been miscalculated and the bridges were too short, so that many
thousands of the Chinese were drowned or killed by the Koraians, at
unequal odds, while fighting on the shore. In two days, however, the
bridges were lengthened and the whole force crossed over. The Chinese
van pursued their enemy, slaughtering ten thousand before they could
gain the fortified city of Liao Tung. Once inside their walls, however,
the Korai soldiers were true to their reputation of being splendid
garrison fighters. Instead of easy victory the Chinese army lay around
the city unable, even after several months’ besieging, to breach the
walls or weaken the spirit of the defenders.
Meanwhile the other division had marched northward and eastward,
according to the plan of the campaign. Eight of these army corps,
numbering 300,000 men, arrived and went into camp on the west bank of
the Yalu River. In spite of express orders to the contrary, the
soldiers had thrown away most of the hundred days’ rations of grain
with which they started, and the commissariat was very low. The Koraian
commander, carrying out the Fabian policy, tempted them away from their
camp, and led them by skirmishing parties to within a hundred miles of
Ping-an. The Chinese fleet lay within a few leagues of the invading
army, but land and sea forces were mutually ignorant of each other’s
vicinity. Daring not to risk the siege of a city so well fortified by
nature and art as Ping-an, in his present lack of supplies, the Chinese
general reluctantly ordered a retreat, which began in late summer, the
nearest base of supplies being Liao Tung, four hundred miles away and
through an enemy’s country.
This was the signal for the Koraians to assume the offensive, and like
the Cossacks, upon the army of Napoleon, in Russia, they hung upon the
flanks of the hungry fugitives, slaughtering thousands upon thousands.
When the Chinese host were crossing the Chin-chion River, the Koraian
army fell in full force upon them, and the fall of the commander of
their rear-guard turned defeat into a rout. The disorderly band of
fugitives rested not till well over and beyond the Yalu River. Of that
splendid army of 300,000 men only a few thousand reached Liao Tung
city. The weapons, spoil, and prisoners taken by the Koraians were
“myriads of myriads of myriads.” The naval forces in the river, on
hearing the amazing news of their comrades’ defeat, left Corea and
crept back to China. The Chinese emperor was so enraged at the utter
failure of his prodigious enterprise, that he had the fugitive officers
publicly put to death as an example.
In spite of the disasters of the previous year, the emperor Yang, in
613, again sent an army to besiege Liao Tung city. On this occasion
scaling ladders, 150 feet long, and towers, mounted on wheels, were
used with great effect. Just on the eve of the completion of their
greatest work and tower the Chinese camp was suddenly abandoned, the
emperor being called home to put down a formidable rebellion. So
cautious were the besieged and so sudden was the flight of the
besiegers, that it was noon before a Koraian ventured into camp, and
two days elapsed before they discovered that the retreat was not
feigned. Then the Koraian garrison attacked the Chinese rear-guard with
severe loss.
The rebellion at home having been put down the emperor again cherished
the plan of crushing Korai, but other and greater insurrections broke
out that required his attention; for the three expeditions against
Corea had wasted the empire even as they had sealed the doom of the Sui
dynasty. Though no land forces could be spared, a new fleet was sent to
Corea to lay siege to Ping-an city. Even with large portions of his
dominions in the hands of rebels, Tang never gave up his plan of
humbling Korai. This project was the cause of the most frightful
distress in China, and seeing no hope of saving the country except by
the murder of the infamous emperor, coward, drunkard, tyrant, and
voluptuary, a band of conspirators, headed by Yü Min, put him to death
and Korai had rest.
To summarize this chapter. It is possible that Ki Tsze was the founder
of Fuyu. The Kokorai tribes were people who had migrated from Fuyu, and
settled north and west of the upper waters of the Yalu River. They
entered into relations with the Chinese as early as 9 A.D., and coming
into collision with them by the year 70, they kept up a fitful warfare
with them, sustaining mighty invasions, until the seventh century,
while in the meantime Korai, instead of being crushed by China, grew in
area and numbers until the nation had spread into the peninsula, and
overrun it as far as the Han River.
Thus far the history of Corea has been that of the northern and western
part of the peninsula, and has been derived chiefly from Chinese
sources. We turn now to the southern and eastern portions, and in
narrating their history we shall point out their relations with Japan
as well as with China, relying largely for our information upon the
Japanese annals.