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n the mid-ninth century a Japanese monk named Ennin (9–86) traveled to China and kept a detailed diary that not only tells much about Japan and China but also provides surprising insights into Korean history. He departed Japan for China by sea in 88, where he stayed for nine years and amassed a collection of more than 500 scrolls and artifacts.Ennin’s diary reveals the extent of Korean shipping and trade in his reference to the coastal villages along the route of his journey: There were many Korean villages along the coast of China and along the shores of the Chang Jiang. Ennin tended to rely on the Silla Korean sailors and traders on his travels. Evidently, Koreans were active in the China trade in the late Silla period and were considered the best sailors with the best ships of the day. Finally, Ennin reported that not only were there Korean villages along the coasts but that there were Korean Buddhist temples built for their own worship services. This implies more than a temporary residence and speaks of the openness of the Tang system.
Source: Edwin O. Reischauer. Ennin’s Diary: The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law. New York: Ronald Press, 955.
then in the early Koryo, Korean society became less stratified under Confucian influence. The Confucian ideal was a society with four classes—the official (or scholar-official), the farmer, the artisan, and the merchant. Elsewhere the adoption of the Confucian social order led to greater social stratification; in Silla, on the other hand, pre-Confucian social classes had been so rigid that the new philosophy pushed society toward less stratification. The official class, once the bone and the head ranks, simplified into a two-rank class of civilian scholar/officials on one hand and the military on the other. The arti-san-farmer-merchant ideal of Confucianism came to be interpreted as the commoner class. And at the bottom—off the chart of the Confucian ideal—were the slaves. Slavery never played an important role in Chinese society. However, from the Silla period until the 20th century, slaveholding was one of the hallmarks of Korean society.
Despite the Mongol invasion in the 13th century and the Japanese in the 16th century, there was never sufficient social upheaval to unseat the slaveholding system. Rather, hereditary slaveholding through sev-eral dynasties became part of the longest unbroken chain of slavery of any country on Earth. The children of slaves became slaves, and over the centuries little happened to change the pattern of slaveholding (Patterson 1982, 143). Manumission was possible, but rare, even in times of war; in times of famine, some commoners would sell them-selves into slavery and the care and keeping of a wealthy owner. Slaves were primarily held by aristocrats, some of whom owned hundreds of slaves. When an aristocrat married he would double his slave hold-ings in that sons and daughters, and therefore husbands and wives, each inherited a portion of their respective family’s slaves, and at the time of marriage, each side brought slaves into the new household.
There were two categories of slaves, privately owned and publicly owned, or in other words, government slaves. Government slaves were held by various offices in the central government as well as at each provincial office. Public schools and later private schools all had a staff of slaves to serve the young students. Privately held slaves were also divided into two categories and registered as such on the regular census documents: domestic slaves and field slaves. Domestic slaves lived in the house of the owner, while field slaves lived on land held by the owner, sometimes located far from the owner’s house.
Sometimes field slaves were rented out to other landowners, in which case the field slave would submit his tribute, a share of his yield, to the absentee owner. There were also slaves held by Buddhist temples and appeared in the census documents as such. Estimates of the
A BRIEF HISTORY OF KOREA
percentage of the populace that were slaves hover around one-third until the 18th century, at which point wage labor became more advan-tageous to farm owners and the newly emerging factory owners.
A page of the Silla period census preserved in Japan. One household in this census registry recorded 3,000 slaves. (Academy of Korean Studies)
9 Government
In terms of political developments, Silla was situated at a pivotal time.
At the beginning of this period, the culture was not far removed from its tribal heritage: Ascribed status was more important than status by merit, and leadership by hereditary lords was more important than central government authority. This gradually changed—to a point. In 651 a central government office, called the Silla Chancellery, replaced the hwabaek, the council of elders, which represented the old order.
Remnants of the older order persisted in the provinces, where Silla could not initially appoint its own officials. Rather, it recognized the local strongman. In time, however, the local leader was given central government rank, and later, central government officials could be appointed.
One method Silla used to keep local leaders in line was the hostage system. To ensure the local leader’s loyalty, he was required to send his eldest son and heir to Kyongju. There the heir would be educated, treated royally, and subsequently develop loyalty to the throne, but if the strongman decided to revolt against the Silla leadership, it could use his son to pressure the provincial leader to either give up or else see his son executed. The hostage system was an effective method of ensuring centralized authority, and it was used elsewhere in East Asia and other parts of the world.
The influence of Silla elitism can be seen in the life of a colorful character named Chang Po-go (d. 846), a local ruler who controlled maritime trade along the Korean and Chinese coasts. In Chang’s time Koreans lived scattered along the Chinese coast, as recorded in the diary of the Japanese monk Ennin (794–864). Chang had gone to China as a young man and become an officer in the Tang army. Later, enraged at the capture and enslavement of fellow Koreans along the coast, he peti-tioned the Silla court to establish a naval garrison on Korea’s southwest coast to protect the sea-lanes and coastlines. He was highly successful and became a powerful leader of the China trade.
Meantime, loyalties were shifting in the capital, and the Silla royal court was rocked by a series of coups in which each claimant succeeded to the throne by assassinating the reigning king. In one contest for the throne, a prince made an alliance with the powerful Chang, and together they successfully secured the throne for the prince. In reward Chang asked that his daughter be married to the new king. For the sta-tus-conscious Silla court this was too much. Chang was assassinated, and that was the end of one of the few who dared to climb beyond his prescribed status.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF KOREA
The palace coups that plagued the Silla dynasty in the late ninth and early 10th centuries were one important reason the dynasty began to decline. Another key reason was the dissatisfaction of the provincial rulers, who were tired of exorbitant tax levies and who still remem-bered stories of bygone days when their territory was not part of the Silla kingdom but was independent or allied to one of the three king-doms. Plus, given the political instability in the capital, it was hard for the court to keep control of the provinces. By the mid-eighth century local rulers began to form regional alliances. Through alliance or con-quest some rulers came to control more territory.
Eventually, two centers of power developed: one loyal to the old Koguryo court, which called itself the Later Koguryo kingdom, and one loyal to the old Paekche court, which called itself the Later Paekche kingdom. Therein were seeds sown for the eventual destruction of Silla.
The Later Three Kingdoms Period
Silla had kept control of the leaders of Paekche and Koguryo by use of the hostage system, and it had levied taxes on all the territory. In the end these mechanisms broke down. The hostage system no longer kept the provinces under control, and tax revenues declined.
In the early Three Kingdoms period, the throne had rotated among various “holy bone” representatives from the Kim, Pak, and Sok clans, a remnant of the tribal confederation days. For the last 100 years of the Three Kingdoms period and the first 150 years of the Unified Silla period, the kings had come from a single lineage within the Kyongju Kim clan, but the unity this once represented began to break down.
During the last century of the Unified Silla period, assassinations and rivalries reemerged between not only various segments of the Kim clan but also the old Pak clan. Trouble at the center was all the excuse some warlords needed to test the strength of the periphery.
The most powerful of these warlords was a Silla royal prince who, disillusioned at not getting his chance on the throne, left for an area to the north. His name was Kungye (d. 918), of the Kim clan. He fled Kyongju for Kangnung, at that time on the northeast border of Silla, and declared himself king of the Later Koguryo kingdom.
Kungye was later toppled by one of his generals. This ultimate act of disloyalty, otherwise intolerable in a Confucian society, was justifiable in the eyes of later historians because of the alleged cruelty of Kungye.
After suffering several acts of vicious behavior at the hand of Kungye,
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the people came to Kungye’s trusted general, Wang Kon (877–943), and asked him to overthrow his lord. Wang Kon rejected their first request, in good Confucian form. When asked a second time, he rejected them again. The third time, moved by their pleas, he rose up and killed the hated Kungye.
The truth probably lies somewhere between the extreme descriptions of the arch-evil Kungye on one hand and Wang Kon the traitor on the other. Since Wang Kon won, he had the privilege of writing history, and in his account he was the hero. In any case, Wang Kon became the king of Later Koguryo in 918.
The notion that the history may have been doctored a little is rein-forced by Wang Kon’s name. It means “setting up the king.” Though it is not likely he was born with that name, he apparently liked his surname because he bestowed it on his loyal supporters. If it was good enough to be manufactured for him, he could manufacture it for oth-ers. Several of those who allied themselves and their territories to Wang Kon were also given the surname “Wang.”
The Founding of Koryo
In 918 Wang Kon took a decisive step that has affected Korea to the present day. He changed the name of the kingdom by shortening it from the four syllables that meant “later Koguryo” (Hu Koguryo) to a two-syllable, Chinese-sounding name, Koryo. The name change put Korea inside the Chinese system: No longer were Koreans barbarians with a multisyllabic name; they were beginning to be an integral part of the tributary system of China, with all of the rights and privileges of a tributary state. Koryo not only moved its capital closer to China geographically, it moved closer to China politically as well.
Wang Kon established the capital for the new dynasty in Kaesong just north of present-day Seoul and eventually recruited Silla aris-tocrats to join him and move to the northern capital. He continued to recognize Kyongju, the capital of Silla, by calling it the “Eastern Capital,” although it was located in the southeast part of the peninsula.
Pyongyang became the “Western Capital,” although it was located north of Kaesong.
In 918 Wang Kon’s new kingdom was only one of three kingdoms on the peninsula. “Later Paekche” had emerged in the southwest, and Silla still had a king on the throne in Kyongju. Wang Kon was not anxious to destroy Silla. Rather, in good Confucian form, he gave Silla time and respectfully allowed the last king to serve out his term. Wang Kon even
Heian
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defended Kyongju when it was attacked by the Later Paekche (Hurst 1981, 1).
The leader of Later Paekche was a former Silla subject who rose to power in Paekche territory, a man named Kyon Hwon (ca. 867–936).
As king of the Later Paekche kingdom, he attacked both Koryo and Silla. In 927 his armies sacked Kyongju, killed King Kyongae, took hostages, and hauled off treasures. However, Kyon Hwon did not cause the fall of the Silla dynasty. Instead, Wang Kon led an army of rescue and drove the Later Paekche forces back. Wang Kon won the respect of the people of Silla, and his respect for the old but dying kingdom was also reinforced.
Kyon Hwon was a capable ruler in some respects: He established the Later Paekche kingdom, ruled for nearly 30 years, and made alliances with one of the Chinese dynasties, the Liao (907–1125), at a time of disunity in China. In other regards he was despotic, ruthless, and capri-cious. After being beaten back from what had appeared to be the sure conquest of Silla, he decided to name his fourth son, Kumgang, his heir. This enraged his elder son, Shingom, who took over the kingdom, murdered his brother Kumgang, and imprisoned his father in a remote Buddhist temple. Kyon Hwon escaped, however, and sought refuge in the court of his erstwhile enemy, Wang Kon. Wang accepted Kyon Hwon and allowed him to lead an army against his own son and former kingdom. Kyon defeated Shingom in battle in 936 but in the process destroyed the kingdom he had set up, bringing Korea closer to unifica-tion under the new house of Koryo.
In the meantime, the last king of Silla, Kyongsun (r. 927–935), had surrendered to Wang Kon in 935. His territory and power shrinking, Kyongsun sought a role in the new Koryo kingdom. Wang took a wife from the Silla royal house, made the last king, Kyongsun, a member of the new Koryo aristocracy, and recruited many of the officials of Silla to come to Kaesong to serve in his court. Thus it was that the dates for Unified Silla, 688 to 935, overlap with the dates for Koryo, 918 to 1392.
In spite of the generation or two of turmoil, the transition from Unified Silla to Koryo hegemony was relatively smooth. Koryo’s ven-geance was reserved for Later Paekche; it had great respect for Silla. As in Silla’s conquest of Kaya, the royalty of the defeated Silla kingdom were welcomed into the aristocracy of the victorious Koryo dynasty, avoiding a bloodbath (Duncan 1988, 39). In present-day Korea the historic integration of conquered dynasties is reflected in the fact that the largest surname groups in the country, Kim, Yi, Pak, Choe,
A BRIEF HISTORY OF KOREA
and Chong—names of Silla aristocracy—compose 55 percent of the population. In addition to the Kims of Silla, there are the Kims who are descendants of the Kaya aristocracy, today called the Kimhae Kims. The Kimhae Kims are the largest lineage group in Korea, numbering about 4 million people.