The History of Korea (Vol.1&2). Homer B. Hulbert
So Son-ryŭng sent a curt message saying “Ko-gu-ryŭ once belonged to Kitan. We have come to claim only our own. It remains therefore only for you to surrender and become our vassals.” In answer the king sent Yi Mong-jun to negotiate a peace on the best possible terms. Arriving at the camp of Gen. So he boldly demanded why the northern tribe had presumed to break across the boundary. Gen. So replied that the land was the property of his master and the sooner the king acknowledged it and accepted Kitan as his suzerain the better for all parties. The envoy returned to the capital and a great council of war was held. Some advised to surrender, but some said “Offer them all the territory north of the Tă-dong River as a compromise measure.” The king chose the latter alternative and began by having the people there throw into the river all grain that they could not carry away, so that it might not fall into the hands of the enemy. The Kitan general was highly pleased with this concession but his pride had a fall when, a few days later, he was defeated by the Koryŭ forces under Gen. Yu Bang. Thereupon he modified his demands to the mere recognition of the suzerainty of Kitan; but this the king was unwilling, under the circumstances, to agree to. Gen. So was not satisfied with the grade of the general sent to negotiate the treaty and demanded that the prime minister of Koryŭ be sent to do it. A high official was therefore sent but he refused to bow before the Kitan general. The latter said, “You are from Sil-la and we are from Ko-gu-ryŭ. You are trespassing on our territory. We are your neighbors. Why do you persist in sending envoys to the court of China? That is the reason we are now at war with you. Restore our land, become our vassals and all will go well.” The envoy refused to agree to this. He said “We are Ko-gu-ryŭ people. How else could our land be Koryŭ? The capital of Ko-gu-ryŭ was at P‘yŭng-yang and you formed a small part of that kingdom; so why do you claim that we have usurped the power? Our territory extended far beyond the Yalu River, but the Yŭ-jin people stole it from us. You had better first go and recover that part of Ko-gu-ryŭ which the Yŭ-jin stole and then we will gladly bow to you as suzerain.” What there was in this argument that convinced the hardy warrior of the north we cannot say, but it served its purpose, for he first spread a great feast and afterwards broke camp and marched back to his own country without obtaining the coveted surrender. The king, in order to maintain the semblance of good faith, adopted the Kitan calendar. The next step, however, showed the true bent of his mind, for he sent a swift messenger to the court of China with an urgent request for aid against the arrogant people of the north. But the Sung emperor apparently thought he had his own hands full in watching his own borders and declined to send the aid requested. This put an end to the friendship between Koryŭ and the Chinese court, and all communication was broken off. The king of Kitan sent a commissioner to Koryŭ to look after his interests there and when he returned to the north he took a large number of women as a gift from the Koryŭ king to his master.
It was now, near the end of the tenth century, that Koryŭ was first regularly divided into provinces. There were ten of them. Their names and positions were as follows. Kwan-nă, the present Kyŭng-geui; Chung-wŭn, now Chung-ju; Ha-nam, now Kong-ju; Yong-nam, now Sang-ju; Kang-nam, now Chŭn-ju; San-nam, now Chin-ju; Hă-yang, now Na-ju; Sak-pang, now Ch‘un-ch‘ŭn, Kang-neung and An-byŭn; P‘ă-su, now P‘yŭng-yang; and Kă-sŭng, another name for Song-do. These were rather the provincial centers than the provinces themselves.
In pursuance of the policy adopted in reference to the kingdom of Kitan, ten boys were sent northward to that country to learn its language and marry among its people. The final act of suzerainty was played when in 996 the “emperor” of Kitan invested the king of Koryŭ with the royal insignia. The end of the reign was approaching, but before it was reached one of the most important events of that century transpired. It occupies little space on the page of history. Many a court intrigue or senseless pageant bulks larger in the annals, but it was one of the most far-reaching in its effects. It was the first coining of money. It was in this same year, 996. These coins were of iron but without the hole which so generally characterizes the “cash” of to-day.
In 998 the king died and his nephew, Song, posthumous title Mok-jong, ascended the throne. His first act was to revise the system of taxation, probably by causing a remeasurement of arable land. Officials received their salaries not in money nor in rice, but to each one was assigned a certain tract of land and his salary was the produce from that particular tract. In the third year of his reign, 1000 A.D., he received investiture from the Kitan emperor. His fifth year was signalized by a five days’ eruption of a volcano on the island of Quelpart. This reign was destined to end in disaster. The widow of the late king formed a criminal intimacy with one Kim Ji-yang, whom she raised to a high official position. The whole kingdom was scandalized. She had the walls of her palace decorated with sentiments expressive of the epicurean dictum “Eat, drink and be merry”; and curiously enough expressed the belief that after enjoying all this world had to give they would all become Buddhas in the next. This is probably a fair sample of the Buddhistic teaching of the times, at least this was its legitimate fruit. She and her lover soon began to plot against the young king. The latter was ill at the time but knew well what was going on. He sent for Sun, the illegitimate son of Uk, of whom we spoke in the last chapter, with the intention of nominating him as his successor. At the same time he sent post-haste to the country and summoned Gen. Kang Cho, a faithful and upright man. On his way up to the capital the general was falsely told that it was not the king who had summoned him but the queen dowager’s lover. Enraged at being thus played upon, the stern old general marched into the capital and seized the lecherous traitor and gave him his quietus. He then turned upon the king and put him to death as well. He had not looked carefully into the case, but he deemed that the whole court needed a thorough cleaning out. He completed the work by driving out the queen dowager who deserved the block more than any other; and then he seated the above-mentioned Sun on the throne. His posthumous title is Hyön-jong. This was in 1010 A.D.
Chapter III.
Reforms … eclipses. … Kitan declares war. … Koryŭ on guard. … Kitan troops cross the Yalu … diplomacy. … Gen. Kang Cho taken … before the emperor. … P‘yŭng-yang besieged … the king submits … siege of P‘yŭng-yang raised … king moves south. … Kitan deceived. … Song-do taken … a rebel governor. … Koryŭ’s victories. … Kitan forces retreat across the Yalu … king returns to Song-do. … Gen. Ha Kong-jin executed … reconstruction … military and civil factions … king overthrows the military faction. … Kitan invasion … overwhelming defeat … envoys. … Buddhism versus Confucianism. … Koryŭ on the increase … the “Great Wall” of Koryŭ. … Buddhism flourishes … primogeniture … the disputed bridge. … Japanese envoys. … Buddhism rampant … new laws … progress of Buddhism.
The first act of king Hyön-jong after announcing to Kitan his accession to the throne was to raze to the ground the palace of the queen dowager who had dragged the fair fame of Koryŭ in the mire. His next move was to build a double wall about his capital. Evidently coming events were casting ominous shadows before, and he saw the storm brewing.
We should say at this point that during all these reigns the annals make careful note of every eclipse. This is brought prominently to our notice by the statement in the annals that in the sixteenth year of this reign there should have been an eclipse but that it did not take place. This throws some light upon the science of astronomy as practiced in those dark days. The common people looked upon an eclipse as an omen of evil, but this would indicate that among the educated people, then as to-day, they were understood to be mere natural phenomena. In 1010 the storm, which had already given sharp premonitions of its coming, broke in all its fury. It must have come sooner or later in any event, but the immediate pretext for it was as follows: Two Koryŭ generals, Ha Kong-jin and Yu Chŭng, who had been placed in charge of the forces in the north, when Gen. Kang-cho was recalled to the capital, took matters into their own hands and looked for no orders from headquarters. The desperate state of things at the capital partly warranted them in this, but they carried it too far. Of their own accord they attacked the eastern Yŭ-jin tribe and though they did not succeed in the attempt they impressed those people so strongly that an embassy came bringing the submission of that tribe. The two generals who seem