History

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19. The Roots of Learning: King Sosurim

When King Gogukwon took that fatal arrow from Baekje’s crown prince in 371, it was the final blow in a series of unfortunate events for the monarch.

The Murong Xianbei tribe, once content to be loyal to the Jin Dynasty of a fractured China, were growing in both land and ambition. Their state of Former Yan had already clashed with Goguryeo before. Although these ended up amounting to nothing more than a few border skirmishes, the Murong staged an all out assault in 342. They invaded and pillaged the capital of Hwando. They looted the city, and took the royal family hostage. Although Gogukwon escaped, the Murong clan went to the royal tombs and dug up the remains of the king’s father,the former King Micheon, holding it for ransom. Humiliated, King Gogukwon sent his brother to the Murong Xianbei and begged them to return their mother and their father’s corpse. The insult, not to mention the damage from the actual attack, caused a major blow to the infrastructure and pride of Goguryeo.

By the 350s the leader of the Xianbei Murong Jun declared himself Emperor. Former Yan now had control over much of the northern regions of China. But the empire itself would only last about 20 years, and in 370 Yan was absorbed into another up and coming dynasty. Yet even that Empire succumbed within a few decades. Suffice the say the northern territories were undergoing profound changes. Not only on the geo-political levels, but culturally as well. Perhaps the most significant and long lasting cultural event was the introduction of a religion that had only been a minor presence in the Han Dynasty.

According to legends, Han Emperor Ming of the 1st Century AD dreamed of a mysterious foreign god. His advisers told him about a sage from the Western world. The Emperor sent his vassals to inquire about the teachings of this long deceased sage: Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. Emperor Ming ordered the construction of the White Horse Temple, the first Buddhist monastery in China.

Although the religion remained in China, it did not play a particularly significant role in the Han dynasty. The dominant ideology was Confucianism. The Confucians regarded the seemingly otherworldly ideas of Buddhism with disdain, even repulsion. The idea of leaving one’s family and renounce the world was anathema to Confucian teachings. But after the collapse of the Han, other religions, philosophies and schools of thought were allowed breathing space to develop and expand. The teachings and aesthetics of Buddhism were particularly appealing to the northern would be Chinese dynasties, as the rich art and sculpture from that era attests. Emperors and monarchs even had a particular zeal for the religion fo the Buddha. The Emperor of a dynasty called former Qin was, Fu Jian, was a particularly devout Buddhist who sent missionaries to  neighboring countries. That is, when he wasn’t busy conquering them. As he did with the state of Former Yan, the Murong Xianbei state, in 370.

A year after the Murong Xianbei fell to former Qin, Goguryeo’s attempts at southward expansion were met with resistance by Baekje. In a retaliatory strike, the King Geunchogo and his son attacked the new Goguryeo capital of Pyeongyang, and King Gogukwon was killed in the battle. Such was the situation that King Sosurim found himself in when he ascended the throne in 371.

Sosurim’s plan was to transform Goguryeo. And he had perhaps as profound an impact on the country as King Taejo did when he organized the districts of the kingdom. In fact, he continued the former king’s project and further centralized power and authority. In order to achieve this, he enacted 3 major, history-changing reforms.

One of Fu Jian’s many missionaries reached the court of Goguryeo a little after the King Sosurim assumed power, In 372, a monk named Ando was sent as a sign of good will between the two countries. King Sosurim seemed particularly intrigued by the religion, as he even sent requests for more monks and teachers. He ordered the building of the first Buddhist temple. And thus Buddhism had reached the Korean peninsula for the first time. From a loose connection of myths and shamanistic practices, Goguryeo now had a universal system and metaphysics that enjoyed great popularity and inspired devotion.

Tbridge10Wikipedia

The same year, another philosophy made its way to the peninsula, one that would become increasingly important in further centuries. King Sosurim ordered the building of the ‘Tae Hak’ (“Great Learning”), a Confucian academy to train the elites in both martial and literary arts. This college taught the nobles literacy in Chinese characters, the ancient Confucian classics, as well as the skills of archery and horseback. More importantly, it provided a means of giving the nobles a common education to unite them together. Since one of the chief virtues of Confucianism is loyalty, no doubt this was attractive to the court as well.

How much of a role did Confucianism play? Not much. Although the ideals and principles of the philosophy made their way into society, Buddhism was the dominant ideology in much of the Three Kingdoms. It won’t be until the 14th century Joseon that Neo-Confucianism, a 10th century variant of Confucius’ teaching, would dominate.

Finally, Sosurim introduced the first official code of law in 373. Previously, Goguryeo’s laws were a series of prescriptions and regulations, with each village loosely following their own code. The Yul-Lyeong, as the code of law was called, provided an official series of rewards and punishments that every district of Goguryeo had to follow. Not much is known of the laws themselves, but they can be considered as the prototype for other laws in the later Korean dynasties.

King Sosurim died in 384, for the rest of his rule he had to deal with attacks from Baekje and the northern tribes of the Khitan, but his ten years or so of reign were relatively stable. He managed to unite the various political and cultural ideas of the time and synthesize it into something unique, something that become a permanent part of Goguryeo’s identity. It is little wonder that most states at that time chose to centralize following a vague prototype of the Chinese Imperial system, for such centralizing was a way of boosting the strength of a kingdom. Goguryeo is a great example of this. From the walled cities of almost 400 years before, Goguryeo, thanks to King Sosurim’s project, was about to enter its Golden Age.

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Interlude 5: Red Devils and Chiwoo

Go to a football game when Korea’s team is playing, and expect to see part of the stadium light up with a blaze of red jerseys. These red-clad supporters will bang their drums and other percussion instruments, rhythmically chant the country’s name “Daehan Minguk,” all while rolling down a giant flag of Korea down the aisles. The supporters club will all be wearing similar shirts with messages and songs of victory. You’ve just witnessed the Korean football supporter team, the Red Devils.

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The name red devils originated in 1983.  It was the FIFA World Youth Championship in Mexico. The Korean team exceeded everyone’s expectations and were dubbed the red furies by the international media, based on their fiery red jerseys. This term reached Korea under the translation of 붉은악마, the red devils. People liked the name.

The actual birth of the Red Devils support team and their mascot took a large part of the 90s. In 1995 the official club itself opened, but it wasn’t until 1997 that they decided to adopt the older word ‘Red Devil.’  But any good club needs a logo and mascot, and after a long campaign to decide a character, the official image was chosen and, in 1999, during a Brazil-Korea match, fans unfurled the flag and introduced the world to the Heavnly King Chiwoo.

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The origins of Chiwoo go way back, before history and flies straight above prehistory into mythical times, the period of the 3 Sovereigns and Five Emperors. The name designates something of an Edenic Golden Age in Chinese mythology, when divine rulers and emperors ruled the world and introduced humans to various civilization building arts and tools. Most famous of these was the Yellow Emperor, a name that might be familiar with anyone who has read anything about ancient Chinese history, philosophy or even medicine.  This Emperor is considered the founder of Chinese civilization at around the year 2600 BCE.

But you don’t get to become founder of a long lasting civilization without making a few enemies along the way. As the Yellow Emperor was building his future Empire another group of tribes had similar dreams of grandeur. Conflict was inevitable, and these two groups fought a battle that is known in mythology as the Battle of Zhuolu. The contenders: The Yellow Emperor and his people, and the troops of the of  Chiwoo, the bull-headed horned tyrant who led the tribes outside of the Yellow Emperor’s sovereignty.

The records talk of an epic battle, where Chiwoo summoned fogs and winds to stop his enemies in their tricks. The Yellow Emperor also had his repertoire of magic, including his daughter the goddess of drought, who managed to go through his tricks. Eventually, the meteorologically charged battle ended with the Yellow Emperor’s victory.

Gone but not forgotten, Chiwoo managed to join the pantheon of divine beings. Sima Qian, one of the earliest historians in Chinese history, records that the first (non-mythical) Emperor of China, the Qin Emperor Qin Shi Huang, worshipped Chiwoo as the god of war. Liu Bang, founder of Qin’s successor dynasty, also performed sacrifices to Chiwoo before his decisive battle that led to the creation of his Han Empire. Chiwoo has held a significant position in the history of a lot of Eastern Asia for most of history.

But why would the supports of the Korea team use this god of war as their logo? It all hinges on the identity of Chiwoo’s tribe.  Many different groups regard Chiwoo as their own mythical king, the Hmong being an examples. Because the myths state that Chiwoo ruled over many different tribes,  there is a lot of speculation on who could claim mythical ancestry to the king. One of these tribes might have been the Dongyi, the mysterious people who would have been living close to the Korean peninsula at around the 26th century BCE.

The Red Devils obviously took this interpretation and ran with it. The official website informs us that Chiwoo became king in 2707 BCE, and ruled for 109 years as the 14th Heavenly King of Baedal, the successor state of the sacred city of Hwanguk, founded by the great Hwanung…

Wait. Hwanguk? Baedal? Hwanung? That’s right, this interpretation of Chiwoo comes from none other than our dear old friend, then Hwandan Gogi. The book has at least created some history now, even if it’s not that good at actually reporting it.

The iconography of the Heavenly King resembles the most prominent of Korea’s supernatural creatures, the Dokkaebi. These creatures, not unlike the fairy folk that dwell on the British isles, are the spirits of objects and plants come to life, and come in various shapes and sizes. They are usually mischievous, and only sometimes malicious, and you can be sure to see a dokkaebi in most folktales of Korea.  Gwangju  boasts ancient artifacts which show faces of dokkaebi, which presumably means they have been inhabiting Korea since at least the Silla period.

 

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Roof tiles from ancient Silla. Source

Ironically, dokkaebi are supposed to despise the color red.

So with the World Cup 2014 well under way, we shall have to wait and see how much of the heavenly king’s bellicose spirit the team will manage to summon.

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16. The Wrath Of Han: King Chaekgye and Bunseo

One of the challenges of writing about ancient history is finding the balance between giving too much and not enough information. Too many names and dates and the main points get bogged down, but leave out too many details and the history ends up having too many gaps to form a coherent picture. So for the sake of building up a more coherent picture of the situation at the end of the 3rd century, we’ll take a detour to have a brief, if  somewhat name heavy, look at a group I’ve mentioned many times as secondary players thus far. Namely, the Han Commanderies.

i294       Source: Naver Encyclopedia

 

Emperor Wu in 108 BC built four Commanderies in the area of Gojoseon, which he had just conquered. His purpose was to both expand his territory and keep an eye out on the activities of people outside the Empire, intervening when problems arise. The four Commanderies were called Lelang, Lintun, Xuantu and Zhenfan. You might see them written differently in Korean based on the Korean language’s pronunciation of the Chinese names. Lelang and Xuantu, for example, are 낙랑 and 현도, Nangnang and Heondo. There is still some dispute about the exact location of the Commanderies, but they seemed to have settled somewhere around the Han river, where modern day Seoul lies. In 82 BC Lintun and Zhenfan were abolished, and their land was absorbed into Lelang. Xuantu was moved west  in 75 BC.

Each Commandery was ruled by a governor and composed mostly of merchants. Lelang continued as a political entity in relative stability until it was taken over by the Gongsun family, who separated Lelang and created another Commandery, Daifeng. The Han Empire fell in 220, and one of the kingdoms that emerged from the ruins, the very short-lived Cao Wei, enlisted the help of Goguryeo to attack and overthrow the Gongsun family. Lelang and Daifeng then came under the control of Wei, and Jin straight after that. Although the Empire was long gone, the Commanderies were a specter of Han, fulfilling the mission that they were given hundreds of years earlier.

The Commanderies were mostly content with keeping to their administration. Most of their incursions into neighboring states was either to raid resources or as retaliation for other attacks. The biggest social issue recorded was the merchants’ nighttime activities. Chinese sources expressed surprise by how people in the Peninsula did not lock their doors at night, and had a weak sense of personal property in general. A custom that the Han merchants took full advantage of by walking into homes at night and helping themselves to whatever they wanted. The merchants also no doubt also tried to exploit the iron-rich southern regions.

And, since no political relationship is ever 100% antagonistic, there was a lot of exchange between the Commanderies and the neighboring states. Technology and cultural practices were introduced including, some historians speculate, Goguryeo adopting the Chinese writing system. Since there are no extant records that go back that far, we are still unsure of when writing was completely adopted.

 

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Source: Naver Encyclopedia

Lelang kept their eyes on Baekje ever since Onjo first set up his little walled city state. Many kings after Onjo  had to deal with Lelang’s constant raids. The fight between Lelang and Baekje in 246, then, must’ve seemed pretty routine. But Lelang did not expect that the country they had fought many times before to have turned into a powerful state. Thanks to the work of King Go-I, Baekje was strong enough to defeat the Commandery.

Go-I died in 286, leaving his country more centralized and efficient than before. His son took over as King, who was given the posthumous name of Chaekgye. The new king enjoyed a more positive relationship with the Commanderies. Defang sought an alliance with Baekje in order to fight Goguryeo. Chaekgye agreed, making it perhaps the first conflict between the two kingdoms. Chaekgye then married the Defang governor’s daughter, Bogwa, to seal their alliance. Things were fine with Defang, but in the 13th year of Chaekgye’s reign, in 298, the relationship with Lelang soured.

The Samguk Sagi ends its entry on Chaekgye with the words, “9th month, Han and the Maek joined forces and attacked Baekje.” The Maek were probably from a country located north. But Han?

Its mostly assumed that this refers to the Lelang commandery, but there is a theory that this might also be the work of a northern nomadic tribe by the name of Xiongnu. In 304, admist extreme turmoil on the Asian continent, the Xiangnu founded their own dynasty called Zhao Han. Some think that in 298, this might have been the beginning of their new dynasty.

Chaekgye led his army into battle. The army stopped the advancing enemy from invading Baekje. The King did not survive the battle. And in 298, King Bunseo inherited his father’s kingdom and his enmity towards Lelang.

Bunseo was described as being wise from a very early age, and that he was his father’s favorite. Baekje had had a good run of long lived kings, and maybe under different circumstances, Bunseo might have had a long reign as well. But one of the problems of being a state growing in power is that this power attracts the attention of others. And, more dangerously, once in a position of power, you have to make a show of it. So Bunseo decided that he had to take revenge on Lelang for the attack that killed his father. The year was 304,  and the Baekje army secretly made its way into the western regions of Lelang. Bunseo successfully took over the region of Seohyeon. The king wasn’t able to celebrate too long, because the governor of Lelang quickly dispatched an assassin. Two kings of Baekje were thus undone by Lelang.

So the conflict between Lelang and Baekje went on up until the 4th century. The conflict between Baekje and Lelang ended somewhat anticlimactically when Goguryeo annexed the Commandery in 313. This means Bunseo and Chaekgye were the last Baekje kings to have to deal with the old remains of the Han Empire. And despite their defeat, Go-I’s project still lived on. Baekje seemed to have suffered only a minor set back, and the nation kept growing after King Bunseo’s death. Goguryeo and Baekje were left standing face to face.

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15. Out From The Shadows Of Obscurity: King Go-I

fd5_16_i1A model of a Baekje village. Source: Naver Encyclopedia

 

In the (Chinese) Records of the Three Kingdoms, there are sources from older texts which describe the kingdoms and tribes outside of China. There are many interesting accounts which give an outsider’s perspective on the different tribes and countries in the Korean peninsula and in Manchuria. Buyeo was depicted as a nation of friendly people, polite and “always singing.” The historian did note, however, the draconian nature of their laws; the punishment for murder was death and having the entire family of the murderer enslaved. Even more bizarre was the punishment for “jealousy.” The woman (it was always a woman) would be put to death and her corpse exposed to the elements. Her family would have to pay a fine to recover the corpse. Whatever Buyeo meant by jealousy, you didn’t want to be caught doing it.

The writer of the accounts noted that the people of Goguryeo had many different spirits they appeased to. They are boisterous, loving to sing and dance and get into fights. The writer did not like Goguryeo’s marriage customs, which involved the wife’s family building a hut behind their house, where the husband and wife spend the night; the husband and wife go to the husband’s home only after the kids have grown up. Oh, and they brewed great beer, apparently.

The accounts go on to depict the Okjae tribes, the Ye and even the people of Samhan. Although the records sometimes have the air of an outsider who doesn’t quite understand what is going on in a foreign country, they are a great source of history for the area. But one is struck at what the records conspicuously left out: any major account of Silla and Baekje.

Silla and Baekje occupied the areas of the Samhan confederacies. We now know how important those two kingdoms are going to be thanks to the power of historical hindsight. In the first few centuries, there was nothing to distinguish them from the other tribes, including the Gaya confederacies. They were certainly not anyone near the strength of Goguryeo, the regional power. So in the old records,  Silla and Baekje were lumped together with the other countries and chieftains. Things were about to change in the year 234 with the ascension of King Go-I of Baekje.

When Soseono and her two children, Biryu and Onjo, went deeper south to found a new state, Onjo’s Baekje was the result. For the first two centuries of its existence, Baekje fended off multiple attacks from the Han Commanderies and the Malgal, a semi-nomadic tribe around the area. Onjo himself had pulled a successful attack against the king of Mahan, and the state of Baekje was slowly absorbing the confederacies of the area. Thus Baekje was a mix of Goguryeo descendants and the local Mahan people, and two languages appear to have been spoken in the state. Despite the records of natural disasters or attacks from Lelang and Malgal, the first years of Baekje were fairly stable. As the excellent Topics in Korean History podcast points out, the first kings of Baekje had incredibly long reigns, far longer than the average, so they must have been doing something different. The average length of a rule was about 40 years.

Then came King Saban, who ruled for a grand total of less than a year. In 234 he assumed power after his father’s death, but then was removed almost immediately afterwards. The reason was he was too young to be leader, and was replaced by King Go-I. He claimed to be the younger son of an earlier king, Gaeru. However, this was most likely a fabrication to justify his usurpation. Being Gaeru’s son would’ve meant that Go-I lived to be older than 120 years. Long lived or not, this is a little too much even by Baekje standards.

The King took power in the same year Saban stepped down, in 234. Saban left  Korean history to enter the history of Japan. Meanwhile, Go-I began his project of making something out of the little Baekje he just took over. He didn’t waste any time working on his country, so that when the chaos erupted up north in 246, with the Goguryeo-Wei war, Baekje was ready.

When the commanderies of Lelang and Daifang joined the Wei to fight Goguryeo, Baekje saw this as an opportunity to strike at their northern neighbors. They attacked Lelang and took many hostages. However, for reasons unknown, King Go-I decided to send those prisoners of war back.  Daifang struck back, but they were surprised to discover that this little state had enough strength to defeat the joint power of the commanderies, even killing the Daifang governer in battle. Baekje was no longer a little walled state to be pushed around.

Having won the battle, Baekje developed a more complicated relationship with the two commanderies. Despite these conflicts, the relationship between Baekje and Daifang went smoothly afterwards, as Go-I’s son married a princess from Daifang, and Baekje would help the Commanderies in their other expeditions. This was an example of the diplomacy which Baekje was famous for. During it’s rise to power as a kingdom, Baekje was more outward looking than the other two kingdoms, eagerly entering into alliances and trade relationships with Japan and the various Chinese kingdoms. This outward looking diplomacy was the source of Baekje’s strength.

King Go-I also set up a system to centralize his state. This was the beginning of Baekje’s court system, which would eventually divide the court into sixteen posts, with three tiers each. Each tier was supposed to show up to court dressed up in full regalia, and the colors were divided by rank. The upper ranks wore purple, the middle ranks scarlet, and the lower ranks blue. Go-I enacted strict laws against corruption, and anyone caught taking bribes was severely punished. All this gave the appearance of a fresh official court ready to become its own kingdom.

The expansionist tendencies of Go-I and his successors is the subject of a controversy. Namely, did Baekje ever colonize parts of China? Some people believe Baekje had a “Greater Baekje” period, where the country had an Eastern and Western side. The Western half was across from the Korean peninsula and into parts of China. Official histories nowadays reject the idea. One of the first objections goes as far back as the 18th century, when a scholar from Joseon tried to disprove the theory that Baekje had any posts in Chinese territory. If a 18th century scholar had to reject the theory, it means that the idea has been around for a long time. Where did it come from?

Korean records like the Samguk Sagi make absolutely no mention of Greater Baekje. What little evidence we have comes from references to Baekje occupying the Laioxi region, references found in Chinese sources. This occupation would have taken place during the Jin Dynasty, so any time between 266 and 420. This would coincide with Go-I and his successors’ plans of expansionism. On the other hand, there are also other Chinese records that have no such claim, including, most tellingly of all, the records from Jin. With the absence of any conclusive evidence, the “Greater Baekje” hypothesis is one left to speculation and Internet flame wars.

For Go-I’s efforts to solidify his country, he was considered the founder of Baekje, and ancestral festivals were dedicated to him. The King set Baekje on the path to become a power of the region, a path that moved northwards, and that his descendants would quickly take up.

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14. Rendez-Vous At The Banquet of Death: Mil-U and Yuyu

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Map of Korea in 204 Source: Wikipedia

In the year 220, the Han Empire- the Empire that ruled China and which had subjugated most of its neighbors, engaged in the war that ultimately destroyed Gojoseon, and set up the Commanderies which were still in place in the Korean peninsula- fell. Warlords from different parts of the Empire drew their bows and  arrows at one another, trying to become heirs of the next Empire. When the Roman Empire fell, it more or less dissolved into a series of states that became their own countries. In China’s case, the philosophy that the Emperor is the ruler of all under heaven, and that Heaven’s mandate can only go to one ruler, was so strong that every time a dynasty fell another took its place. In this situation, though, it would take time for the next Empire to show up. The tumultuous series of events surrounding the fall of Han is immortalized in the novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” which has spawned countless stories, plays, movies, comics, TV shows, and several long running video game series.

For Korea, the fall of a Chinese Empire was a major event. The succession of dynasties will have a big influence on the politics of Korea, which had to decide what relation it would have with the new dynasty of China, and where to pledge their loyalty. Goguryeo was close enough to all the action to be forced to make a choice.

It is hard to imagine that Goguryeo was particularly sad to see Han go. This was the state that fought them on multiple occasions, and the Han Commanderies were still a thorn on Goguryeo’s side. The biggest Commandery, the Lelang (Nangnang in Korean) had recently undergone a radical change as well. It was  occupied by the warlord Gongsun family, who created a new Daifang Commmandery to supplement the Lelang power. and Goguryeo was still enraged that the Gongsun state had tried to interfere with the succession issue between King Sangsang and his brother Balgi. Now it was King Sasang’s son, King Dongcheon, who was ruler during the post-Han period in 227. Since he was the son of another woman, King Sasang’s wife the Lady U was ill disposed towards the young
Dongcheon. She would engage in wildly childish acts like spilling soup on his clothes and cutting off the mane of his horse. The prince learned how to stand his own against such treatment, and so Goguryeo had a strong willed and patient king when it came time to face the new world.

Two Kingdoms in particular were eager to gain Goguryeo on their side, the Wu and the Cao Wei. Wei was closest to Goguryeo, but Wu was close enough to know that Goguryeo could pose a threat if the country allied itself with Wei. In 234 Wei sent their envoys to King Dongcheon. Wu did the same two years later. Dongcheon had to make a choice, and he showed his decision by executing the Wu envoys and sending them to Wei. The Goguryeo-Wei alliance was sealed.

One of the first things the new allies did was bring down the Gongsun family. The current leader, Gongsun Yuan, had angered the Wei king, who send his general- the famous Sima Yi- to subdue the Gongsun’s state. Goguryeo was more than happy to take revenge on the the Gongsun family for their meddling. Goguryeo troops joined Sima Yi in this successful campaign. But the ambitious countries of Cao Wei and Goguryeo could not keep an alliance for long.

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Sima Yi, one of the more famous figures of the (Chinese) Three Kingdoms saga.
Source: Wikipedia

 

King Dongcheon’s father had started a campaign of Western expansion. Before 245, the Liaodong Peninsula felt Goguryeo’s forces, which was even threatening the northern borders of Silla. Wei was not impressed. The King of Wei sent out his troops. Ten thousand men from the Commanderies marched towards Goguryeo. Dongcheon matched their forces with 20 thousand of his own troops. The year 246 saw the beginning of the Goguryeo-Wei wars.

Dongcheon and his troops attacked the Wei army. They subdued the Wei down by the Biryu River. They fought all through the Yangmaek valley. The battles went to King Dongcheon’s head. They made him overconfident. He brought his generals together and told them, “Wei’s larger forces were not as good as our smaller forces, and, although Guangqiu Jian [the commander of the Wei forces] was a well-known Wei general, isn’t his life in my hands today?” King Dongcheon led his troops to finish off the Wei army. But the course of the battle was about to change.

The Wei army surrounded King Dongcheon’s army, and Goguryeo began to feel the real threat of the war. The Wei had no intention of just subduing the Goguryeo army. Wei followed the retreating army, like a lion following its wounded prey. Wei followed King Dongcheon through the mountainous terrain of the Goguryeo to the capital, Hwando.

On the 10th month, the winter was heated with blood and fire when the Wei armed managed to penetrate the Hwando. The people were forced to escape. Those that were left behind fell under the knife of the invading Wei army. The generals dismantled the city and inscribed their victory on the wall. Wei, however, was still not satisfied. They kept their chase of King Dongcheon.

King Dongcheon and his troops headed towards South Okjeo, one of Goguryeo’s tributary states. And then Mil-U, one of those who had participated in the fighting, and kept following his king while the Wei followed them, told Dongcheon that he would go back and stop the Wei army. He gathered a few troops and went to his suicide mission.

The King escaped and managed to gather his troops. He was not ready to forget Mil-U’s sacrifice, and offered a reward to anyone who could find and rescue him. They went back to the battleground and found Mil-U, badly injured but still alive. They brought him back to the King, who personally nursed Mil-U back to health.

Once the battered Goguryeo army reached Southern Okjeo, they were pressed up against a wall. The land and gave way to the sea. If the Wei were to reach Okjeo, the King would surely be lost.

Knowing this, the Goguryeo general Yuyu went to Wei’s camp. He met with the general of the Wei army and offered his surrender. He surrendered on behalf of  the king, with presents and peace offerings. They had food and tabelware to set up a banquet, and the Wei general approached. But Yuyu reached for the offerings first. He took out a knife from within the tableware, and used it to kill the Wei general. Yuyu stabbed the general, and then stabbed himself.
“Hide a knife behind a smile,” an ancient stratagem states, and Yuyu followed this strategy literally. Although feigning surrender like that might clash with modern sensibilities, warfare was viewed differently back then. War was based on deception, and desperate situations called for desperate strategies. When Yuyu had told the king of his plan, the King was reportedly in tears, saddened that the situation had become so dire.

The chaotic scene sent the Wei army flying in confusion and panic. King Dongcheon divided his army and the Wei army eventually retreated. This wasn’t a victory that gave Goguryeo any strength or land, but its very survival survival. When the court returned to Hwando, it was too much in ruins to function as a capital anymore. So in 247, the King moved the capital and named it Pyeongyang.

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The army demolished, the capital in ruins, and the geography of the country completely reconfigured, Goguryeo’s standing had greatly diminished. Although Wei was unsuccessful in destroying the country, Goguryeo had experienced its first major threat, a crisis of unprecedented proportions. When Gojoseon faced a not too dissimilar war, the country collapsed from internal strife, with ministers defecting to Han and ultimately assassinating the king. Dongcheon’s loyalty to his army, and the general strength that Goguryeo had accumulated, saved the country from total destruction. The King rewarded Mil-U and Yuyu’s family, and the two warriors would become a model for the later generals as Goguryeo attempted to reclaim its power once more.

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Interlude 4: Shamanism in the Ancient Kingdoms

Dressed in colorful, almost androgynous garbs reminiscent of older days, surrounded by the smiling images of ancient guardian deities over the mounds of offerings dedicated to them, moved by the ecstatic clanging of drums and chants, the mudang is ready to enter into a trance. She (the majority of shamans in Korea these days are female)  will change costumes many times during the drama of gut, invoking various gods, ancient generals, and spirits while reciting old legends of resentful spirits.

Mudang_performing_a_ritual_placating_the_angry_spirits_of_the_deadA Mudang Shamaness Source: Wikipedia

  There are variations depending on region and ritual. But they all inhabit a world where humans, spirits and divinities share a common space, influencing one another for good or bad. The most common kind of exorcism the mudangs perform deals with people afflicted by spirits who have died violently or has some lingering resentment towards the world. Through the drama of suffering and singing songs that give voice to these resentments, the mudang offers  therapeutic relief to the spirit who in turn leaves the tormented person alone.

The system of shamanism that exists in Korea today has had many transformations, absorbing beliefs, historical figures and rituals as it goes through a path of suppression and revival, suppression again and revival once more. But the worldview of the shaman offers us a rare glimpse into the world inhabited by the people of the ancient kingdoms of Korea.

Two stories from Goguryeo illustrate this:

In the fourteenth year of Goguryeo’s second king (Yuri), while preparing sacrifices to Heaven, the sacrificial pig escaped into the woods.  Two ministers chased the pig, tied it down, and brought it back to the king. Yuri, furious that the ministers hurt the sacrificial pig, had them executed. Later, the King fell ill, and the shamans declared that his illness was a result of the two ministers haunting him. We’re told that he “apologized to the two men,” but the nature- or ritual- of this apology is unknown.

In 234, Lady U was on her deathbed. She was so afraid of meeting her first husband in the afterlife that she asked the people to bury her next to King Sasang, her second husband. After her death  a shaman went into  trance and said he had a vision of King Gogukcheon. The deceased king said, “Yesterday, when seeing Lady U go to King Sansang, I was not able to contain my anger and so we fought…I cannot bare facing the people. Please report to the court and block me with something.” So the people of the court planted seven rows of pine trees between King Gogukcheon and King Sansang and Lady U’s tombs. Even death couldn’t stop King Sindae’s sons from causing a whole lot of drama.

Various folk tales and songs also talk about spirits full of resentment wrecking havoc on the human world. This is a common belief all over East Asia and quite possibly might be an ancient prototype and basis of   modern horror movies and ghost stories.

Local beliefs in these spirits was not the only form of supernatural beings inhabiting the world. There was a larger belief in gods and ancestors as well. The people of the ancient kingdoms were thought to be under the influence of Heaven. This Heaven was a cosmos, the natural order of things. The kings and their subjects offered sacrifices and prayers up to heaven to keep their country in harmony with the cosmos. More personal gods existed as well, most notably the founders of the old kingdoms- Dangun of Gojoseon Jumong of Goguryeo, Suro of Gaya, and Hyeokgeose of Silla- who were all sons of gods coming to earth in order to reign over people. The states all had festivals to these founders, and kings- as the descendants of these demi-gods- were expected to offer sacrifices to their ancestor’s shrines. Most notably, the second king of Silla, Namhae set up the shrine to his father, had his sister perform rituals at the place, and  gave himself the title of “Chachaung,” which we’re told was an old Sillan word for shaman. Kings, as descendants of these gods, thus had the shaman’s role of intermediary between this world and the divine world.

Like many of the old civilizations- Egypt comes to mind- there seems to have been some continuity between life and death. The idea of a connection between this life and the afterlife is evidenced by very ancient burial practices. Archaeological findings dating back even before the ancient kingdoms show dolmens and burial mounds for the tribal leaders and nobility.  Goguryeo’s wall paints fill the tombs of their leaders, and Baekje and Silla buried their kings and his family with many objects and jewelry. More gruesomely, in the 5th century, the king of Silla banned the practice of burying people alive with the deceased nobility, implying that it was common practice.

Nature also plays a massive role in shamanistic beliefs. Mountains especially are thought to be sacred, and it is no coincidence that most legendary founders are found or related to mountains. Trees are important, and if you hike mountains in Korea you might find altars under- or little papers stuck to- trees. It was under a tree, after all, that Dangun’s mother prayed and entered into holy marriage. The name Dangun means something like ‘Lord of the Cedar.’ Moving up the great chain of being, animals were also a manifestation of the cosmic order of Heaven, and many of them had a totemistic importance to the people, being sacred guardian spirits. The turtle was one  animal that was revered (see King Suro of Gaya), but so were ravens, horses and – somewhat surprising to modern ears- chicken.

Some people have called the ancient kingdoms a Theocracy, since they were ruled by divine or semi-divine kings that brought order to the universe. Theocracy might be a little misleading, in my opinion, since it implies a division between the natural and the supernatural world. There doesn’t seem to have been that kind of distinction in the thought of the people back then.

After the 5th century, the separation of sacred and profane would enter the consciousness of the people as the kingdoms convert to Buddhism. This did not mean that shamanism and shamanistic beliefs disappeared entirely. One of the reasons that Buddhism was so successful was its expansive worldview. Buddhists measure time in millions and billions of years, and experience reality as a massive multiverse with various worlds, each divided into various subrealms people with a myriad of beings. Buddhism had thus no problems integrating local beliefs into its cosmology. But the introduction of the religion caused the ancient shamans to become more differentiated, outside the status quo, and initiated a  search for its own identity.

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12. The Perils of Ruling: Adalla Isageum

Perhaps the most common form of historical writing in the ancient East Asia was the annals. Daily events in a king’s life were recorded in these annals, from ceremonies performed to any diplomatic or internal affairs conducted, both good and bad. What might surprise a reader who just happened to get a hold of one of these texts is the meticulous recording of the weather.  One might despair at the thought of ancient historians being so obsessed with making small talk, but the records of weather patterns  were very significant, and it is no coincidence that they are noted down alongside political activities.

Kings played an intermediary role connecting heaven and earth. This is not a completely foreign idea, since almost every culture in the world has a notion of a leader who is more than human, or at the very least having some supernatural entity backing them up. Europe had the divine rights of kings idea in its early modern period, for example. What thing that makes this connection to heaven slightly different, however, is that heaven can- and will- withdraw its favors from rulers.

So how do you know that heaven disapproves of the current king? The human world and nature were said to work with one another, each according to their own principles. It’s a well oiled machine, if the affairs of the human world are in disharmony, then nature would start acting strangely as well. A king who behaves immorally or doesn’t rule as he should, then, will be visited with a series of phenomena like floods, eclipses, earthquakes, and unseasonable temperatures.

Opportunists were always waiting for such signs from heaven in order to rally enough support for a coup d’etat, or even outright revolution. Though Myeongnim Dapbu’s decision to oust King Chadae had political motives behind it, the end of Chadae’s rule also coincided with reports of earthquakes and other natural disasters.

Contemporaneously to the revolt against Chadae in 165 CE, another revolt was about to happen down in Gyerim (Silla). There was nothing particularly immoral or tyrannical about the 8th monarch of Silla, Adalla Isageum. His reign started with amnesties and  updating the political and military branches of the country. But nature itself seemed to have gone against the king. He was said to be unnaturally tall for the day and age- about 7 feet- and had disproportionate features. This was omen enough for superstitious people. But what made it worse was that during his reign, frost appeared in the summer, floods destroyed many houses, and a plague of locusts ravaged the countryside. Even the fish were planning their own revolt by jumping out of the water and dying on the shore. This no doubt made the people of Gyerim very uncomfortable. Was heaven angry at them and their ruler?

Solar_eclipse_1999_4_NR (1)
Source: Wikipedia 

In 164, the records talk about a dragon appearing in the capital. Although it’s not sure what really happened, the rumors of the dragon appearing in the capital was enough to encourage some to go against the king. So a year later, a minister named Gilseon, much like Myeongnim Dapbu, started a coup in an attempt to overthrow Adalla. Unlike the fellow conspirator in the north, though, Gilseon failed.

The would-be revolutionary had to escape. He found refuge in a neighboring state, Baekje. Relations between Baekje and Silla had calmed significantly after Talhae’s successor and the king of Baekje signed a treaty. But tensions were to mount again as Gaeru of Baekje granted asylum to the Sillan traitor. Adalla sent a message requesting that  Gilseon be returned. Gaeru refused.

Infuriated, Adalla resorted to the old tactic of laying siege to a fortress. This was not very successful, and the Sillan troops just went back home. The people of Baekje were willing to drop the matter too. It seemed like things were going to go back to normal.

But in 166, King Gaeru died, and his successor, Chogo, was less forgiving. A year after he took the throne, Chogo captured two castles that belonged to Silla. The troops then took a thousand hostages back to Baekje. Adalla Isaegeum probably saw that Chogo was much more bellicose than the king before him, and decided that drastic measures were needed.

Adalla raised an army of twenty thousand soldiers, and personally led eight thousand horsemen. They got to the Han river with the intention of crossing and attacking the Baekje troops. It must be remembered that Silla was a small country at the time, and to have an army of that many soldiers means that Adalla decided to go all out. Not to mention that crossing the Han river was no easy feat. Anyone who has been to Seoul knows that the river is quite large, and in that era there were no bridges to help the troops cross.

 Bridges_over_the_river_Han_(South_Korea)
Source: Wikipedia

 

If Adalla and his troops confronted the Baekje armies, it would not have been an ordinary castle siege. I would have meant an all out war. A war that might’ve resulted in one of the budding three kingdoms being destroyed before reaching full bloom. It was quite a reckless move.

A reckless move that paid off. Chogo sued for peace, and a conflict was averted. The ruler whom people feared had lost heaven’s favor managed to safely navigate  two crises. But Baekje and Silla relation would never be the same again. And it wouldn’t take too long before more conflicts would arise. From the other side of the sea, however, Adalla also was engaged in a political relationship with another country. But this time it was more of a diplomatic one. The records show that Silla and the people of “Wa” were regularly sending envoys to each other.

The word Wa was a term that the ancient Chinese sources used to describe the people of the island nation. The original character for Wa 倭 (Wei in Chinese and Wae in Korean) meant something like a person stooping, which could signify humility and the people’s customs of bowing, but it could also mean a dwarf or a petty person. The later scholars in Wa took the latter interpretation, and-in an act of positive appropriation- changed the character of Wa to 和, “harmony, peace.”

The Wa, known to us today as “Japan,” were active in the peninsula for a long time. Usually alternating between  coastal raids,  trade and diplomacy. Jima, sixth ruler of Silla, began a peaceful relationship with Japan and Adalla continued this diplomacy. He forged ties with the legendary Queen Himiko, who sent an envoy to Silla. Himiko, the shamaness queen who is a staple figure in Japanese high and pop culture, was famous enough to be recorded in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean sources. (The problem is that all sources give different dates of her reign, so her identity is still a mystery). Japan would be allied with the different kingdoms and play a role in the conflicts between Baekje and Silla.

When Adalla Isaegeum died, it was the end of an era for Silla. The founder of Silla, Hyeokgeose, was from the Pak (Park) family. The fourth king, Talhae, was from the Seok clan. Kingship went back to the Pak after Talhae passed away. But Adalla would be the last of the Pak rulers. He died with no heirs, and so the Seok family became the sole ruling family from then on.

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11. A Revolt in Goguryeo: Myeongnim Dap-Bu

During the reign of King Taejo of Goguryeo, there were five powerful clans. These were the Sono-bu (the former ruling family), Gyeru-bu(current ruling family starting from Taejo),Gyanna-bu, Hwanna-bu and Yeonno-bu. Taejo attempted to centralize his authority by bringing the head of those family under his rule in court. This was largely successful, but also had the side effect of factionalism, a problem that would plague the courts of many dynasties.

Taejo had an incredibly long reign. So long that Taejo’s brother Suseong, was getting annoyed by his sibling’s insistence on staying alive. With the aid of the Sono, Gyanna and Hwanna families, Suseong gathered his own faction to start plotting a revolt bent on overthrowing Taejo. When the king had heard of this, he decided to abdicate the throne to Suseong. The ministers were against this idea, among them one of the highest ranking ministers, Bokjang, who warned his king that disaster would fall upon the descendants of Taejo if the king were to give up his power.

In the year 146, Taejo passed the crown down to his brother, later known as King Chadae. Chadae enacted a brutal purge. Bokjang was one of his first victims. He went to the execution ground with the lament “I only regret that our former King did not take my advice, so that matters have reached this pass… Rather than live in such an age of unrighteousness, I had better die quickly.” People were appalled at the news of the loyal minister’s death.

Next on Chadae’s list were people of the royal family, including Taejo’s sons. Taejo and Chadae’s brother, sensing the situation was getting too dangerous, secluded himself up in the mountains.

People who were ready to join Chade’s revolt were given high positions in court. And, naturally enough, the families that had not supported the king were treated unfavorably. What happened exactly is not entirely certain, but it’s safe to assume that the other families were excluded from power and generally lost a lot of status. One of these clans, the Yeonno, seemed to have been in a particularly bad situation.

From this Yeonno clan a particularly humble person stepped up to the game. Goguryeo had 10 ranks at the time, and this man was close to the bottom in the 9th rank. He had managed to make a name for himself during the reign of Taejo. But now the situation had changed and his position, perhaps even his life, was threatened. The man, whose name was Myeongnim Dap-bu, decided that something had to be done.

Myeongnim Dap-bu stated that he could not bear to see the people suffering under the unjust king. He found some ministers and clan members, who were also facing hardship under Chadae’s reign, and in 165 CE, almost twenty years after Chadae had taken power, Myeongnim Dap-bu organized a coup d’etat. He then assassinated the king. Nobody seemed to have reacted negatively to this event.

In order to avoid a power vacuum cause too many problems, the ministers had to act fast. They sought out the brother who had hidden himself up in the mountains back to court. He then became the king Sindae.

King Sindae’s power came entirely from a revolt that had overthrown his brother, and so he tried to not repeat the same mistakes as the former king. His reign started in a conciliatory tone. He issued an edict that acknowledged his debt to the ministers who called him to powers. “How could I imagine that the people would happily endorse me? Or that many ministers would urge me to accept the throne?” And so, “together with my people. I shall reform myself to bring about a great amnesty throughout the kingdom.”

This amnesty extended to those who had supported the previous king. Chadae’s son, who had already fled after the revolt fearing for his life, was forgiven, and the families who had supported Chadae’s rise to power were largely forgiven.

But Sindae knew that he owed the largest debt to Myeongnim Dap-bu. In fact, Sindae showed so much gratitude to the leader of the revolt that an entirely new position in court was created for Myeongnim Dap-bu. Earlier there was a junior and senior councilor who acted as the highest positions in court. Now Sindae merged the two into one position. The name of the position was Guk-sang which is usually translated in English as ‘Prime Minister.’

The history book that records all this, the Samguk-sagi, gets a little bizarre with the dates at this time. The ages in the text are for the most part fairly consistent, but it seems like in the 2nd century, every major figure starts living to incredibly old ages. Taejo dies at age 119, and Myeongnim Dap-bu is said to have become prime minister at 99 years old. There was either something very good in the water of Goguryeo, or the records have some inconsistencies in them. Suffice to say, Myeongnim Dap-bu was not a young man when he had taken power.

With the help of the prime minister, and thanks to Sindae’s magnanimous stance towards the factions, Goguryeo navigated a coup d’etat and government reform with very few internal difficulties.

Externally, there was a problem that had been harassing Goguryeo since Taejo’s time: the Han Empire. Conflicts arose periodically between the two countries, especially by proxy of one of the commanderies. And in 172, the armies were once again approaching Goguryeo.

 

  z2_cp02080094000

Mural of a Goguryeo warrior. Source

Sindae’s ministers met in order to decide what to do. Most people there agreed that, despite the large numbers that the Han Empire could muster, they had no choice but to face their enemy in battle. Most people nervously agreed. “If we do not go out and fight, they will consider us to be cowrds and will invade repeatedly.”

The Prime Minister had another idea, though. Myeongnim Dap-bu agreed that they had to do something, but also reasoned that it would be impossible for their army to go against such a big number. He suggested another strategy to win the battle, called the “Clear Field Strategy”.

The “Clear Field Strategy”-청야전술 in Korean- was a way of weakening an advancing army before the battle even starts. Since armies needed a lot of food supplies to support their campaign, advancing troops would use the wells and fields of the land around them to keep their supplies up. Myeongnim Dap-bu and his troops were to “clear the fields”- burning any crops and blocking any wells- between the Han army’s camp and the walled fortresses of Goguryeo. The aim was to stop enemy troops from being able to refill their food supply, thereby weakening the enemy before they could even reach their target. A kind of scorched earth tactic.

The Han army was thus unable to reach their target with enough food, and was forced to retreat. At a field in the Manchurian regions named Jwa-won, the army of Myeongnim Dap-bu attacked the retreating Han army and defeated them.

What happened exactly during and after this conflict is unknown. Because Han records make no mention of any battle at Jwa-won. If the battle actually took place, then it must have been inconsequential for the Empire, since, as we shall see later, the Han had much bigger problems to deal with at the end of the 2nd century.

The victory was felt in Goguryeo. And the Clear Field Strategy would become part of Korea’s defensive repertoire in the many battles that the peninsula would face from outside enemies.

Myeongnim Dap-bu died in 179. King Sindae was so distressed to lose his prime minister and confidant that he ordered a seven day mourning period. The new position of Prime Minister, in one form or another, would also play a pivotal role in court politics. And so Myeongnim Dap-bu rose from the lowest ranks in court to completely change the face of his country.

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10. Birth of a Kingdom: Taejo of Goguryeo

What was the secret to Goguryeo’s early success? Some people would say that the mountainous land created a robust people that managed to withstand much and strike back with much force. This, combined with strong and intelligent early rulers like Jumong and Daemusin, guaranteed Goguryeo’s dominance of the northern region of the Korean peninsula. Others cite the geography made it easy for the Goguryeo people to grow in power. After all, the other stronger powers of the region- Silla, Gaya and Baekje- competed for space in the much more crowded  south, Goguryeo managed to occupy a vast region with few challenges to its existence. This allowed the budding kingdom to grow without being trampled on.

The stories that come from the early Goguryeo rulers makes the country sound like a Sparta, full of men who were trained from a young age to love warfare and despise culture. That’s not exactly accurate. Even at the early stages, Goguryeo did have a rich culture based on traditional spirit worship and shamanism. Early records of Goguryeo paint a picture of jovial people, who had many festivals involving singing, dancing, and the brewing of alcohol. One of the biggest artistic legacies of the kingdom is the tomb murals. Tombs of important people were filled with paintings of various religious and shamanistic symbols which show a not unskillful degree of artistic ability.

 Ddol-mangM
Source: Wikipedia

But food shortage was still an issue. The land was such that it required a lot of energy to plant crops with little yeild. Conquering lands was all well and good, there still needed to be a more sustainable way of governing. A more centralized reign would help distribute food and organize the people more efficiently, and that was the work of the 6th king of Goguryeo. The posthumous name given to the king is telling. His title “Taejo” means “Great Ancestor” and is generally given to the first or second kings of a dynasty. This seems to indicate that he is credited with making Goguryeo a well functioning state.

With the unexpected death of Daemusin, power passed on to his brother. That king only lasted 4 years before passing away, and the next king in line was Mobon. Mobon is a very contradictory figure, for although we hear of him distributing food to people in need, we also hear of him being a tyranical leader. He did not last long either, and was assassinated 5 years into his reign. Mobon’s crown prince was also denied the throne. So who next? The ministers looked at Mobon’s brother, Jaesa. The man declined, stating his old age as the reason why he could not rule. However, Jaesa did suggest his son. And so, with his mother as regent, King Taejo took the throne at 7 years old, where he would stay for an impressive (and disputed) 94 years.

Why was succession so complicated? There is a lot of controversy regarding Mobon’s reign, a controversy that started with King Yuri. Jumong’s family name and the name of his dynasty was ‘Go,’ and yet when Yuri took power, he changed the king’s name to ‘Hae.’ This is one of the reasons why some historians consider Yuri a usurper, since ‘Hae’ was the royal family name of the Buyeo kings. After Mobon’s death, though, Jaesa’s family switched back to ‘Go.’ Why the change of names? Was it really an issue of usurpation? It’s still a mystery.

Taejo’s rule saw even more expansion of Goguryeo’s territory. Taking the throne in 53 CE, he started absorbing neighboring states under his authority, starting with Eastern Okje in the year 56. In the next twenty years, a handful of states were now under Goguryeo control. The expansion went all the way down to the Salsu river, which shall have great significance to Korea at a later date. All this expansion is a great accomplishment for any kingdom, but Taejo went a step further to consolidate all the land and powers. He installed a bureaucratic system which would be followed by successive Korean kingdoms.

Local clans had always played a role in the politics of the court, and Taejo used them to centralize his rule. He re-organized the kingdom into five districts- North, South, East, West and Center- and had five local clans rule these districts. Taejo put himself in the center of this system, and now the court managed to keep a close eye on the aristocracy and the people. More than that, he also established a tributary relationship with other smaller tribes. Although the smaller states were under the rule of Goguryeo, they were left to their own devices as long as they paid tribute. In a sense, Goguryeo had become a small empire. No wonder Taejo is the ‘Great Ancestor’ of Goguryeo.

And so Taejo enjoyed a long rule. Incredulously long, since if we were to believe the claim that he had reigned for 94 years, that means he would have died at the age of 118. Some revision of the dating has placed Taejo’s reign at 68 years. This is still quite a long time for a monarch to stay in power,  a rule even longer than that of Queen Victoria’s.

It was a little too long for some people’s liking. By the (alleged) 80th year, Taejo’s brother Susong was already plotting. For the following years he and other potential contenders to the throne went on hunting trips, where they argued about what to do with this king that simply refuses to die. Susong bid his time, eliminating those contenders, while finally in the last year of Taejo’s reign, the younger brother had had enough.

Susong went on a hunting trip with his attendants, announcing that “His Majesty is old but he still does not die. But since I too am growing older; I cannot wait. All I wish is that you, my followers, would plan something for me.”

The king heard of this plan of rebellion. This could’ve been the beginning of a conflict between the two brothers, but Taejo made a decision which surprised his court. He decided to abdicate the throne and let his brother become king. The court tries to dissuade him. How could a rebel be given the throne so easily? Taejo tried to reassure them, but a councilor named Bokjang tried to reason with the king.

“Susong has a hard, ungracious disposition;” Bokjang said “If today he accepts Your Majesty’s abdication, then tomorrow he may harm Your Majesty’s descendants. Your Majesty perceives only that You are being kind to an ungracious younger brother and do not realize that You are bequeathing trouble to Your innocent descendants. I wish Your Majesty would think earnestly about this.” A perfectly logical plea, but Taejo would not change his mind.

Although well accomplished, Taejo might have been a little too rash in his decision to give kingship to Susong. As the minister had feared, trouble certainly was about to be bequeathed to the people.

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9. Dawn Across The Rooster Forest: Talhae Isageum

Goguryeo saw an increase in strength under the reign of King Daemusin and by the middle to late period of the first century CE, was already established in the peninsula as a power. Their influence resided in the north, where they were largely unchallenged by the other two, southern, kingdoms of Baekje and Silla. The latter two were also starting their expansion, and, since they bordered one another, it was inevitable that the two powers would clash.

The second king of Baekje after the death of Onjo was Daru. This king is presented as a ruler who cared for his subjects. When the country was facing famine, he banned the fermenting of grains and distributed the would’ve-been alcohol to the people instead. Back then as now, the lack of alcohol was quite a big deal. Aside from internal issues, Daru also had to contend with the other tribes and nomads surrounding the area. This was settled with a combination of wars and diplomacy. There were also troubles brewing from the struggling Mahan. The king needed help, and so he sent an envoy to the king of Silla, Talhae.

At that time Saro (for the sake of convenience the country will be referred to as Silla, though it did not adopt the title until centuries later) was undergoing some internal changes. Hyeokgeose’s eldest son became the second king of Silla in 4CE, the same time that Daemusin would’ve been born.

Around the time of his reign, there was a man making his way up in the court. He was born in a land said to be close to the Japanese islands, and was abandoned as a baby. This was sadly something very common in the ancient world, where there were no institutions like orphanages to take care of abandoned children. The Spartans, for example, took the offspring they considered weak and unhealthy and left them to die. Not all of these children died, though, as some babies were sometimes picked up by people of other city-states and raised as their own.

This is what happened to Talhae. Left to drift upon the sea, his box landed on the coast not far from Gyeonggju, where he was found by a fisherman and raised in the Korean peninsula. He was named Talhae and given the family name of Seok.

By the way, the baby was abandoned because he was born from an egg. I promise this shall be the last monarch to enter this world in such an omlettic manner.

Details are sketchy after that, but it seems like his adopted family raised ranks in court. And Seok Talhae ended up marrying King Namhae’s sister. Talhae was so well liked that when it came time to pick a successor, Namhae favored Talhae over the king’s own son.

At first Talhae refused, saying that the son of Namhae, Yuri (not to be confused with Yuri the second king of Goguryeo. Before you complain about all the similar names, think about how many Frederics and Charleses populate the history books of Europe) was the rightful heir. Talhae’s solution to the issue of succession was unique, if not downright bizarre. He said that the wisest should rule the land. Reasonable enough. But, he continued, it is said that wise people are those with the most teeth. So he brought a tteok, a Korean rice cake, and both he and Yuri bit into it. Yuri’s side of the rice cake showed more teeth marks and he was established as king. From then on the title of king in Silla was ‘Isageum’ which meant ‘many teeth,’ somehow signifying wisdom.

Korean.food-teok-01 A kind of Tteok. Source: Wikipedia

The issue wouldn’t go away so easily. After Yuri passed away, Talhae, now presumably an old man, was asked to take the throne again. He accepted this time.

When Daru sent his envoy to Talhae, the latter king for unknown reasons ignored the mission. Baekje was not too happy with this and in the year 64, the first battle between the three kingdoms began.

Since the kingdoms at that time were basically a series of walled cities. Raids and attacks followed a logic that is familiar to anyone who has played strategy games. Each country had a series of fortified castles and fortresses, and the attacking country would want to take over these fortresses in order to establish its dominance over the land. It was never so simple though, since the country could take back their lost castles if they win another battle. As a result, borders were constantly expanding and contracting.

And that is was happened in this case. The first war between the two kingdoms involved Baekje conquering a Sillan fortress. The two powers seemed to have been equally matched at the time, since Silla managed to defeat the Baekje troops at another battle, and reclaimed some of their fortresses back. The two countries went on in this way for at least 2 years during the reign of Talhae and Daru.

But Silla had another problem to contend with: Gaya. The new confederacy flexed its military might, thanks to its land rich in iron, by attacking Silla. With both Baekje and Gaya on its heels, Silla’s beginning was a not very auspicious. Unlike Goguryeo’s early triumphs, Silla’s very existence was on shaky grounds. It had many enemies around it and had to stand in constant vigilance. And although Baekje and Silla signed a peace treaty a little after Talhae and Daru’s death, the two countries were in each others’ sights.

As mentioned earlier, Silla was undergoing some transformation during this time. First of all, the line of succession was now divided. Instead of the Pak clan being the sole rulers of the kingdom, kingship could go either from the Pak or Seok family. Silla had a third family that would become the sole rulers. The founder of that family was born during Talhae’s time.

Deep in a forest west of Gyeongju, the king heard a rooster crowing. It kept going on for a long while, and it was suspicious enough for the king to send someone to investigate. They found that the source of the sound was a white rooster standing over a golden box. Inside the box was a boy. Perhaps the boy’s circumstances reminded Talhae of his own birth, and so the king showed sympathy for this abandoned child. Talhae took the boy to court and named him Alji. Because of the box he was discovered in, Alji was given the family name meaning gold, the Chinese character 金, pronounced ‘Kim.’ Kim Alji was thus the ancestral founder of the ever ubiquitous Kim family. And from Talhae’s reign until the time when Silla was finally given the name ‘Silla,’ Saro was known as Gyerim, the rooster forest.

kyerim