At the conclusion of our last episode, it was the late 9th century CE, and in Korea, the Silla dynasty which had ruled a unified kingdom for more than 300 years was tottering. A dashing military commander was trying to hold things together even as the king descended into madness, while in the countryside, the weakness of the court translated into fiery rebellion – and if it sounds like the kind of story that's been played out in a thousand different courts, eras, and venues, well it probably is.
Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we'll look at how Korea navigated the years in which the Europeans saw Viking and Norman invasions, the Crusades, and the Black Death – perhaps discovering in the process that even if the background sounds a little familiar, the stories that come out of tumultuous eras are the kind of thing that tend to forge a national character.
Haven't We Seen This Movie Before?
Korea's Later Three Kingdoms period (892-936 CE) came as the (anti)climax to a long period in which the Unified Silla dynasty lost its hold over Korea's aristocracy and, with its court engaged in internecine navel-gazing, thoroughly ignored the plight of its people. Confident that the king would be unable to bring them to heel, the court's powerful lords had, for the past few decades, retreated to their own rural holdings and began doing pretty much whatever they wanted – peasantries were oppressed, taxes levied, labor forced, yadda yadda yadda – and since there wasn't a damn thing the king could do about it, the Silla monarch wound up being one of the focal points of the rising tide of anger. The story is only too familiar, whether it be Korea 1000 years ago, or America tomorrow:
The years of neglect and indifference by Silla's central government seriously weakened its ruling power. Faced with a shift in financial control of the kingdom from Kumsong to the castle lords, a steadily shrinking tax base, the growing erosion of its economy, and the aristocracy's ever-increasing demands on the treasury to support its opulent lifestyle, the government took the unbelievable step of forcibly collecting taxes from county and provincial areas. This became the final straw laid upon the backs of an already heavily-burdened peasantry. The high taxes and forced labor demands of both the government and the castle lords forced large numbers of peasants to abandon their land and roam the countryside. It also triggered a response that paralleled what happened in China under similar circumstances; it drove the peasantry into seething rebellion.
The Later Three Kingdoms
Beginning in the late 9th century, the two kingdoms that had been conquered by the Silla around 250 years before reasserted themselves, setting in motion a complicated series of alliances, betrayals, and wars that would last two generations and provide fodder for hundreds of hours of period-piece dramas for Korean cinema and television. The last Unified Silla monarch, the 51st of the line, was Queen Jinsung, whom history remembers less than favorably – sources seem to agree that she was possessed of little leadership skill, while her Wikipedia article references Korea's oldest extant history, the Samguk sagi, in claiming that lust was her ultimate undoing. Regardless, her attempts to collect taxes and conscript soldiers failed, and she was powerless to keep a peasant-cum-warlord named Gyeon Hwon from raising an army and declaring himself king of the new nation of Hubaekje ("New Paekje"), in the southwestern part of the peninsula. Gyeon Hwon then went one step further, and declared himself bent on avenging the Silla usurpation of the last Paekjae king, two-and-a-half centuries prior.
With cracks now appearing in Silla's armor, others decided to take a shot at the independence game. In the north, Gung Ye re-established the kingdom of Goryeo, and took the sensible step of hiring an aristocrat named Wang Kon to serve as his main general. Wang Kon prosecuted wars throughout Korea, gaining fame and glory as he went, even as his liege was losing his grip on reality. Gung Ye declared himself a Buddha, began oppressing his people, and had monks and family members executed for failing to see things his way. By 918, Gung Ye's cadre of aristocrats was ready to turn on him, and they invited Wang Kon to be beneficiary of the coup. Wang Kon at first refused, but later accepted the throne after Gung Ye was assassinated.
Wang Kon styled the kingdom Koryo, from which the modern name "Korea" is derived. He also moved the capital to his hometown of Kaesong (located in modern North Korea and visible from parts of the DMZ), and from there plotted the unification of all the kingdoms on the peninsula. He was one of those ambitious, ruthless, and capable warlords that always seem to crop up toward the end of an Asian nation's "warring states" period, but it took some time for him to compel the rest of Korea's petty kingdoms to realize it – there was another decade of diplomacy and skirmishing before the war that finally settled matters began.
Weird Historical Sidenote: The North Koreans make a big deal of the ginseng grown in the Kaesong area. From some of their promotional literature:
"...pharmacologically the Koryo insam of Kaesong is incomparably better than other kinds of ginseng owing to the particular soil and water conditions and the meteorological factors peculiar to the Kaesong area and the singular methods of cultivation and processing employed."
Having never had Kaesong ginseng, I can't vouch for the veracity of these claims. That said, Koreans do take their ginseng seriously, and I suppose that there has to be some place in the world that's better for growing it than anyplace else.
A Warring States End Game
In 927, Gyeon Hwon marched on Silla's capital at Kyungju, capturing it and executing the king. He placed a puppet monarch on the Silla throne, then began moving his (and Silla's) armies north, toward Koryo. Wang Kon, thinking he'd defeat Gyeon Hwon before the latter got too close to Kaesong, attacked the Hubaekje and Silla forces near modern Taegu (South Korea), but he was mistaken: Wang Kon's army was decimated, and several of his best generals (including the guy who'd placed the crown on his head) were lost. The victory was a Pyrrhic one for Gyeon Hwon, though, and he was unable to exploit Koryo's momentary weakness – a situation which was exacerbated in 932, when one of Hubaekje's most powerful generals defected (with all his troops and castles) to Koryo.
For a while there, it looked like it might have gone either way: Silla was definitely on the decline, but either Hubaekje or Koryo had the potential to conquer and unify the peninsula. Eventually, it came down to diplomacy. While both Gyeon Hwon and Wang Kon established relations with Tang China and sent emissaries around Korea and as far afield as Japan, the fact remained that Gyeon Hwon was descended from peasant stock, while Wang Kon was an aristocrat by birth. As a result, Wang Kon was able to sell his plans to more of the upper caste than Gyeon Hwon, whom the nobles considered an inferior regardless of his pretensions to the throne.
935 was the year it all fell apart for Gyeon Hwon. In exchange for a princely title and marriage to Wang Kon's eldest daughter, the last king of Silla surrendered his holdings to Koryo. To make matters worse, Gyeon Hwon's own father, who held claim to the Sangju region, also defected. Finally, he made the decision that his fourth son, rather than his first, should succeed him to the kingship of Hubaekje. This didn't sit well with the jilted would-be crown prince, who allied with another couple of siblings to kill his brother and throw Gyeon Hwon in prison - afterwhich Gyeon Hwon escaped, made his way to Kaesong, and threw himself upon the mercy of his old rival, Wang Kon. The following year, the two warlords together led their combined armies against Hubaekje and Gyeon Hwon's renegade son, and with the resulting victory, unified Korea once again.
Weird Historical Sidenote: If you have copy of Civilization III (or Civ IV) at home, you might get a kick out of playing the role of Wang Kon as leader of the Koreans. You'll get the benefits of a scientific/commercial (or financial/protective) ruler, plus you'll get to attack enemy cities with a weapon that Wang Kon never had available to him - Hwacha rocket launchers (more on these below).
Koryo
Wang Kon died in 943, but he'd laid the foundations for a solid dynasty, even if it did get off to a somewhat rocky start. There seems to have been some disagreement among his sons as to who would rightfully take his place – the first post-Wang Kon king died only two years into his reign, and was succeeded by a brother who was chosen by a council of nobles (as opposed to being designated heir in the slain ruler's will). The Koryo government seemed to hit its stride during the reign of the dynasty's fourth king, Gwangjong, who ruled from 949 to 975. It was during this period that slaves were emancipated – creating goodwill among the people, as well as increasing revenues – and instituted a Confucian-style civil service exam, which provided at least the veneer of a merit-based governmental hiring system. Somewhat more controversially, Gwangjong spent a lot of the treasury promoting things Buddhist, as well as declaring himself an emperor and Koryo a free and independent nation.
The next couple of kings enacted land reforms and instituted a practice of appointing governors for the various regions, as opposed to the earlier system of hereditary ownership among the nobles. By the late 11th century, the government had been effectively centralized and the power of the aristocrats greatly diminished – King Munjong (1046-1083) even stressed the importance of civilian control of the military, ironically at the same time that England was being invaded by William the Conqueror.
The lands bordering Koryo were undergoing their own turmoil while the Later Three Kingdoms sorted stuff out. In China, the Song Dynasty came to power in 960, but they never managed to bring the far north under control – the lands of Liao (inhabited by a people called the Khitans), Western Xia (the Tanguts), and Jin (the Jurchens) all caused problems for China, Koryo, and one another for centuries. Between China and Koryo, however, trade and peace flourished, with the resultant high tide lifting all cultural boats.
Koryo pottery, especially jade-green celadon porcelain, was revered in China, as were the craftsmen who knew the secret of how fashion it. Like so much beautiful art, celadon had its origins in religion:
Buddhist temples flourished during the Koryo period, and with them grew a need for fine vessels to be used during the many ritual ceremonies. In the middle of the 10th century Korean artists, some who had been schooled in China, began creating celadon by using inlay and copper glazing techniques which were developed first in China but only fully developed and perfected by Korean artisans. The Korean use of these techniques were unique in the history of pottery. The level of fine quality and beauty they were able to achieve in their work surpassed that of other countries and came to be revered by even the Chinese for it's elegant, yet simple beauty. The Koryo Royal Court also used some of the finest examples of celadon pottery in their palaces both as vessels for daily use and as objects of fine art.
...and as late as the 20th century, scholars and critics were still subtly going ga-ga over the stuff's beauty:
On seeing Korean celadons for the first time, many find little to attract them, or are even somewhat repelled by the subdued bluish or greyish green tones, which they consider monotonous and far removed from the brightly coloured porcelains with which they are more familiar... Chinese wares shine brightly. For guests it is well to have Ming blue-and-white, for it stimulates the appetite. But if we wish to hold quiet colloquy with them or have them in our room for a long time, such wares are too strong... The quietness and subtlety of Korean pottery are said to show the quintessence of the Oriental spirit: its quiet elegance, simplicity of form and style of make have been compared with the profound and exalted spirit of Zen Buddhism.... The forms of these wares have an instant appeal to one's heart; their colours have unique transparent depth, and their freely carved decoration is no less affecting... they exude quietness of spirit...
An Army of Horsemen This Way Comes
There's still plenty of green pottery for sale in Korea today, but the secret of how to make the same stuff as the artisans of early Koryo was lost during the 80 years that Koryo was vassal to the Mongols. This began with attacks from the north in 1231, forcing the government to relocate to an island off the coast. For almost 30 years, the Koreans fought back against Mongol raids that ravaged the countryside, until the feared horsemen decided to get really serious about things and launched four huge incursions between 1253 and 1258. In 1259, Koryo became a tribute-paying ally to the Mongol emperor, and its monarchs sent more than thirty enormous sums to Kublai Khan's court.
The Koreans were also expected to provide the Yuan (as Kublai styled his dynasty after 1271) with military assistance, and Kublai was not bashful about asking for it. In 1266, he had begun sending emissaries to Japan, and they kept returning without any imperial reply to the Khan's slightly-threatening offer of peace. By 1268, Kublai was ready for war, but his military was not – the Mongols never did go in for navies, and that's exactly what Kublai was gong to need in order to launch an attack on Japan. Fortunately, the Mongols gained access to the Koryo court around the same time (a Mongol princess was married to the Koryo crown prince), and soon the southeastern part of the peninsula was fully engaged in building a fleet of 300 (sources vary widely on the numbers) transport vessels with which to bring 15,000 Mongol and Chinese soldiers and 8000 Koryo warriors to Japan.
The fleet landed at Hakata Bay, at the site of the modern city of Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu, in November, 1274. The Japanese samurai were as ready as they could be, which is to say: not very. It had been fifty years since anyone in Japan had had to command more than a handful of men on a battlefield. Besides, none had ever fought an enemy that didn't obey the strict formality developed under the code of Bushi-do, and because engagements of Japanese armies were more like a whole bunch of one-on-one duels happening in the same place, the samurai were shocked at the indiscriminate way in which the Mongols advanced. They were presumably awed at the continental's use of proto-hand-grenades, which probably represented the first time gunpowder was used in Japan, and at the way the Mongol archers fired en masse instead of two enemies picking one another and exchanging shots.
Sources differ as to why the first invasion of Japan failed. All seem to agree that the Mongols were able to fight their way several miles inland and put some buildings (including an important temple) to the torch, but after that they begin to diverge. Some say that a thunderstorm drove the Mongols back to their ships (as a rule, Mongols were very superstitious, and were seriously terrified by large storms), others that the Japanese inflicted a surprising amount of damage to the invading force, still others that the Mongols planned to resume the invasion the next day, only to have a storm blow up in the night to scatter and swamp their ships. In any event, the invasion lasted all of one day, afterwhich the remnants of Kublai's army limped back to Korea.
The Great Khan would not be treated with such insolence, of course, and he immediately began preparing a second invasion. This time, the emissaries he sent were beheaded – 5 of them are still buried in Kamakura – and, having cast its lot in full knowledge of what would come next, the Imperial Court ordered every temple in the country to pray for victory over the Yuan. They did so for more than a year, while the Kamakura shogunate fortified the defenses around the Mongol's expected landing site.
After problems in provisioning and crewing delayed its departure until smack dab in the middle of typhoon season, the Mongol's second, larger invasion force headed for Japan in the summer of 1281. This time, the Japanese were ready: a stone wall 2 meters high and 20 kilometers long ringed Hakata Bay, and the Mongols found themselves unable to replicate their earlier success. They returned to their boats, but found no safety there: for the next two days, a typhoon lashed the western coast of Kyushu, again scattering and swamping the Yuan fleet. Untold thousands died, the invasion failed, and the Japanese named the storm(s) that had saved them from foreign domination the Kami-kaze, or "Divine Wind." Japan has never again endured the indignity of having their home islands amphibiously invaded, and until 1945, Japanese military men remained pretty certain that they could defeat any foreign force sent against them.
Eat This, Gutenberg!
The Mongol invasions were incredibly destructive, but in a way, left Korea even more unified than before – they even inspired the creation of one of Korea's most revered national treasures. One of the earliest Mongol raids, in 1232, obliterated the wooden blocks used to print copies of the Tripitaka Koreana, the most complete work of Buddhist theology in all of East Asia. Those blocks had taken 77 years to create; now King Gojong ordered that they be carved anew, in the hopes that a pleased Buddha might inspire the Mongols to depart. It took 16 years to fashion the blocks to print the new Tripitaka, and the king intended for them to last a long, long time. Tradition holds that
Each block is made of birch wood from the southern islands of Korea and was treated to prevent the decay of the wood. They were soaked in sea water for three years, then cut, then boiled in salt water. Then, the blocks were placed in the shade and exposed to the wind for three years at which point they were finally be ready to be carved. After each block was carved, it was covered in a poisonous lacquer to keep insects away and was framed with metal to prevent warping.
Wikipedia
The replacement blocks – all 81,340 of them – are today housed at the Haeinsa temple in South Korea. Like the Tripitaka itself, Haeinsa enjoys UNESCO World Heritage designation, largely because of its age (it may have been founded as early as 802) and because of the ingenious nature of its construction: the temple's specially-built foundation is comprised of charcoal, lime, and clay so as to defeat humidity and provide climate control, and it's worked for nearly 800 years.
It certainly outlasted the Mongols, despite their having taken the precaution of forcing Koryo kings and possible heirs to take Mongol brides and to reside as hostages long-term guests at the Khan's court in Daedu, a/k/a Cambaluc (Beijing). By the mid-1300s, when a young King Gongmin and his Mongol wife Noguk returned to Koryo (after 10 years in the Khan's palace) to take the throne, Yuan power was in a rapid decline. As rebellion wracked China, outlying provinces like Koryo started getting more assertive regarding their own independence, and when the Ming Dynasty grabbed the Mandate of Heaven in 1368, Gongmin figured his status as a vassal was over.
Loosening the Saddle
Gongmin attempted to reform his government through a policy of de-Mongolization. Pro-Mongol aristocrats and military officers were replaced with men the king deemed more loyal, which quickly resulted in the rise of a dissident faction whose coup attempt required violence to suppress. In the north, Gongmin took advantage of the power vacuum (and the fortunate defection of a few key lords) to expand Koryo's territory into Liaoyang. Among the generals Gongmin dispatched on these errands of conquest was Yi Seonggye and his rival, Choe Yeong.
There were plenty of other places in which the generals could display their military prowess, too: Japanese pirates, called Wokou were raiding deep within Korean territory, and the Red Turban Rebellion tried to spill over from Yuan/Ming transition going on over in China. The Red Turbans (who had interesting links to the White Lotus society) were expelled – after briefly occupying Kaesong itself in 1361 – by the combined talents of Yi Seonggye and Choe Yeong; the pirates turned out to be a more lasting concern.
Japan at the time was rather loosely governed, and coastal lords in provinces far removed from the capital had taken to gathering the fishermen of their villages and going a-viking. From the 12th to the 14th centuries, they mostly confined their raids to the Korean Peninsula, but as the wokou became more and more militarily proficient, they started raiding into Ming China, too. Some of the raids on Korea – there were 174 between 1376 and 1385 alone – consisted of bands of 3000 well-armed looters, pillagers, and slavers, and their frequency, brutality, and the fact that the king could do very little about them hastened the fall of the already-teetering Koryeo Dynasty. It should also be noted that the lords who opposed King Gongmin recognized the opportunities that dressing up like a wokou might offer say, a Korean peasant being given the chance to raid somebody else's village, and many of them apparently sicced these "fake wokou" upon one another.
Yi Seonggye made his name fighting these pirate bands, while King Gongmin...took a different path. His beloved Mongol wife had finally become pregnant after 16 years without issue, but in 1365 died giving birth to a stillborn child. Gongmin entered a deep depression, sitting by her graveside weeping over a portrait he'd painted of the beautiful Noguk, while the government was run by a monk named Shin Don. As the link indicates:
He could be a mere vicious Buddhist priest or he could be a hero. Since there are many different stories about him and the truth remains unknown, his life seems almost mythical. The drama portrays him as a schemer obsessed with power, willing to resort to trickery. On the other hand, it also shows him as a revolutionist who tries to create a democratic power structure. Religion was his ideal; however, it was also his tool of seizing political power and winning popular support.
This site purports to have the entire series, complete with English subtitles)
...there was drama fodder aplenty during his six-year sorta-reign, but in the end, his enemies successfully painted him as a traitor, and he was dismissed. Gongmin, meanwhile, was exploring his wild side. He apparently enjoyed relations with several of the Jajewi ("Noble Youth Guards," and organization founded by Gongmin in 1372), and compelled his four consorts to have relations with them. Upon learning that one of them had become pregnant by a Jajewi, Gongmin muttered to his eunuch that he's have to have the whole lot of them killed – but they acted first. That same night, a group of men entered the king's chambers and butchered him as he slept. What followed...well, let's say that the aristocracy meant to send a message to other would-be king-killers:
Immediately after the murder, a court eunuch named Yi Gangdal and the high ministers Gyung Bouheung, Yi Inim, and An Sagi, conducted an inquiry, discovered Choi Man-Seng (최만생) still wearing clothes stained with Gongmin's blood, and extracted a confession from him. He named five members of the elite Jajewi, including Hong Ryun, as his accomplices. All six were executed, their fathers put in prison, their children hanged, their families’ properties confiscated, and their brothers and uncles flogged and sent into exile. Mercy was shown only to the wives, who were allowed to live on as palace slaves.
Wikipedia
The Koryeo court next made the miraculous discovery that an 11-year son of a palace slave (who went by the unlikely name of U) was, in fact, the product of a union between the U's mother and King Gongmin, and so was the rightful heir to the throne.
The newly-minted Ming Empire, looking to regain what it had lost in the rebellions surrounding the fall of the Yuan Dynasty, saw Koryeo with a pre-teen leader and a palace plagued by factionalism and infighting, and accordingly, made provocative advances into northern Korean territory (or sought to re-occupy their own territory, depending on the map you were looking at), which resulted, eventually, in U (or Yi's old rival, General Choe, depending on how you look at it) sending Yi Seonggye to confront the Ming on the Liaodong Peninsula.
The Choson One
General Yi had his Rubicon moment at Huihwa island in the Amrok River in modern North Korea. If he followed orders and invaded China, he'd see his mighty army ground to dust by the overwhelming numbers of the Ming. If, on the other hand, he turned his army around, marched on Kaesong, and played up his heroic status as a wokou-repeller...
Which is exactly what he did. In 1388, General Yi turned his troops on his own capital, defeated and killed General Choi, and forced King U to abdicate in favor of U's 7 year-old son, Chang. That didn't work, and neither did attempting to return U to the throne, so both were exiled to the southern part of the peninsula, where both were assassinated shortly after the ascension of General Yi's next puppet (and, as things turned out, last of the Koryeo monarchs), Gongyang. Yi claimed Gongyang was of legitimate royal blood, then set about making the various court alliances he'd need four years later. In 1392, Yi Seonggye pushed Gongyang from the throne, then gave him the same exile-and-murder treatment that his predecessors had gotten.
Initially, Yi planned to simply continue the Koryeo Empire under a different lineage, but over the next year or so, it became clear that a solid break with the past would be necessary – too many local lords were still declaring allegiance to members of the now-down-a-couple-of-notches Wang clan, and that sort of thing – so in 1393, Yi founded the Choson Dynasty, with himself as its first monarch. Though that particular reign wouldn't last long – he abdicated in favor of one of his sons in 1398 – the dynasty he founded would last for more that 500 years.
Historiorant:
It's also a dynasty whose story is going to have to wait for further moonbatification, I'm sorry to say, as I'm going to be away for a month or so. When I return, it'll be with a whole bunch of new ideas (as well as the completion of the current Korea series) and – most likely, and hopefully only temporarily – an inability to troll-rate the bad guys, but in the interim, there's not going to be any fresh History for Kossacks. Until then, might I direct you to a series I did a while back that suddenly seems more relevant than it did at the beginning of the week...?
History for Kossacks: Ancient Persia
History for Kossacks: Classical Persia
History for Kossacks: Islam Comes to Persia
History for Kossacks: Medieval Persia
History for Kossacks: Persia and the Great Game
History for Kossacks: The Shahs of Iran
History for Kossacks: Iran and the Ayatollahs