The History of Korea (Vol.1&2). Homer B. Hulbert
endings, as ro, pin and kan, find their almost exact counterpart in the Dravidian languages of southern India, where they mean village, settlement and kingdom.
The argument in favor of the southern origin of the people of the three Hans is a cumulative one. The main points are; the structure and vocabulary of the language, the nonintercourse with the people of northern Korea, the custom of tattooing, the diminutive size of the horses found nowhere else, except in the Malay peninsula, the tradition of the southern origin of the people of the island of Quelpart, the physiological similarity between the people, especially the females, of Quelpart and Formosa, the seafaring propensities of the people of the three Hans, their ignorance of the value of gold and silver, the continuous line of islands stretching along the whole coast of China together with the powerful ocean current which sweeps northward along the Asiatic coast, the tradition of the Telugu origin of the ancient sultans of Anam and the love of bead ornaments.
Such was the status of southern Korea when Ki-jun arrived at Keum-ma-gol. By what means he obtained control of the government is not related but the fact remains that he did so and founded a new kingdom which was destined to survive nearly two centuries. Ki-jun died the same year. No details are given of the events that transpired during the next hundred years or more excepting that one Chinese work states that during the reign of Emperor Wu-ti 140–88 B.C. frequent envoys went from Ma-han to the Chinese court. We are also told that off the coast of Ma-han among the islands lived a tribe called the Chu-ho, a people of smaller stature than the people of Ma-han, and speaking a different language. They cut the hair and wore skins for clothing but clothed only the upper part of the body. They came frequently to Ma-han to barter cattle and pigs.
Ki-jun’s seventh descendant was Hun, with the title of Wŭn-wang. His reign began in 57 B.C. during the reign of the Han Emperor Hsuan-ti and in the second year the great kingdom of Sil-la was founded in Chin-han. In his twenty-second year the great northern kingdom of Ko-gu-ryŭKo-gu-ryŭ was founded, 35 B.C., and nineteen years later the kingdom of Ma-han fell before the forces of Păk-je.
Chapter VI.
The founding of Sil-la, Ko-gu-ryuSil-la, Ko-gu-ryu, and Pak-je. … Sil-la … legend … growth. … Tsushima a vassal … credibility of accounts. … Japanese relations … early vicissitudes. … Ko-gu-ryuKo-gu-ryu … four Pu-yus … legend … location of Pu-yu. … Chu-mong founds Ko-gu-ryuKo-gu-ryu … growth and extent … products … customs … religious rites … official grades … punishments … growth eastward. … Pak-je … relations between Sil-la and Pak-je … tradition of founding of Pak-je … opposition of wide tribes … the capital moved. … situationsituation of the peninsula at the time of Christ.
In the year 57 B.C. the chiefs of the six great Chin-han states, Yŭn-jun-yang-san, Tol-san-go-hö, Cha-sa-jin-ji, Mu-san-dă-su, Keum san-ga-ri and Myŭng-whal-san-go-ya held a great council at Yun-chŭn-yangYun-chŭn-yang and agreed to merge their separate fiefs into a kingdom. They named the capital of the new kingdom Sŭ-ya-bŭl, from which the present word Seoul is probably derived, and it was situated where Kyöng-ju now stands in Kyüng-sang Province. At first the name applied both to the capital and to the kingdom.
They placed upon the throne a boy of thirteen years, named Hyŭk-kŭ-se, with the royal title Kŭ-sŭ-gan. It is said that his family name was Pak, but this was probably an afterthought derived from a Chinese source. At any rate he is generally known as Pak Hyŭk-kŭ-se. The story of his advent is typically Korean. A company of revellers beheld upon a mountain side a ball of light on which a horse was seated. They approached it and as they did so the horse rose straight in air and disappeared, leaving a great, luminous egg. This soon opened of itself and disclosed a handsome boy. This wonder was accompanied by vivid light and the noise of thunder. Not long after this another wonder was seen. Beside the Yŭn-yüng Spring a hen raised her wing and from her side came forth a female child with a mouth like a bird’s bill, but when they washed her in the spring the bill fell off and left her like other children. For this reason the well was named the Pal-ch’ŭn which refers to the falling of the bill. Another tradition says that she was formed from the rib of a dragon which inhabited the spring. In the fifth year of his reign the youthful king espoused this girl and they typify to all Koreans the perfect marriage.
As this kingdom included only six of the Chin-han states, it would be difficult to give its exact boundaries. From the very first it began to absorb the surrounding states, until at last it was bounded on the east and south by the sea alone, while it extended north to the vicinity of the Han River and westward to the borders of Na-han, or to Chi-ri San. It took her over four hundred years to complete these conquests, many of which were bloodless while others were effected at the point of the sword. It was not until the twenty-second generation that the name Sil-la was adopted as the name of this kingdom.
It is important to notice that the island of Tsushima, whether actually conquered by Sil-la or not, became a dependency of that Kingdom and on account of the sterility of the soil the people of that island were annually aided by the government. It was not until the year 500 A.D. or thereabouts that the Japanese took charge of the island and placed their magistrate there. From that time on, the island was not a dependency of any Korean state but the relations between them were very intimate, and there was a constant interchange of goods, in a half commercial and half political manner. There is nothing to show that the daimyos of Tsushima ever had any control over any portion of the adjacent coast of Korea.
It gives one a strong sense of the trustworthiness of the Korean records of these early days to note with what care the date of every eclipse was recorded. At the beginning of each reign the list of the dates of solar eclipses is given. For instance, in the reign of Hyŭk-kŭ-se they occurred, so the recordsthe records say, in the fourth, twenty-fourth, thirtieth, thirty-second, forty-third, forty-fifth, fifty-sixth and fifty-ninth years of his reign. According to the Gregorian calendar this would mean the years 53, 31, 27, 25, 14, 12 B.C. and 2. A.D. If these annals were later productions, intended to deceive posterity, they would scarcely contain lists of solar eclipses. The marvelous or incredible stories given in these records are given only as such and often the reader is warned not to put faith in them.
The year 48 B.C. gives us the first definite statement of a historical fact regarding Japanese relations with Korea. In that year the Japanese pirates stopped their incursions into Korea for the time being. From this it would seem that even at that early date the Japanese had become the vikings of the East and were carrying fire and sword wherever there was enough water to float their boats. It would also indicate thatthat the extreme south of Korea was not settled by Japanese, for it was here that the Japanese incursions took place.
In 37 B.C. the power of the little kingdomkingdom of Sil-la began to be felt in surrounding districts and the towns of Pyön-han joined her standards. It was probably a bloodless conquest, the people of Pyön-han coming voluntarily into Sil-la. In 37 B.C. the capital of Sil-la, which had received the secondary name Keum-sŭng, was surrounded by a wall thirty-five li, twelve miles, long. The city was 5,075 paces long and 3,018 paces wide. The progress made by Sil-la and the evident tendency toward centralisation of all power in a monarchy aroused the suspicion of the king of Ma-han who, we must remember, had considered Chin-han as in some sense a vassal of Ma-han. For this reason the king of Sil-la, in 19 B.C., sent an envoy to the court of Ma-han with rich presents in order to allay the fears of that monarch. The constant and heavy influx into Sil-la of the fugitive Chinese element also disturbed the mind of that same king, for he foresaw that if this went unchecked it might mean the supremacy of Sil-la instead of that of Ma-han. This envoy from Sil-la was Ho-gong, said to have been a native of Japan. He found the king of Ma-han in an unenviable frame of mind and it required all his tact to pacify him, and even then he succeeded so ill that had not the Ma-han officials interfered the king would have had his life. The following year the king of Ma-han died and a Sil-la embassy went to attend the obsequies. They were anxious to find opportunity to seize the helm of state in Ma-han and bring her into the port of Sil-la, but this they were strictly forbidden to do by their royal master who generously forebore to take revenge