A History of Korea (30 page)

Little wonder, then, that in the early nineteenth century, another uprising, the Hong Ky
ngnae Rebellion of 1811–12, erupted with
remarkable resemblances to the Myoch’
ng episode: a charismatic malcontent from Pyongyang, preaching the north’s geomantic superiority, fought to break away from the capital-based power structure. This, too, was eventually suppressed, and not until the circumstances of the mid-twentieth century brought to center-stage yet another magnetic military leader from Pyongyang, Kim Il Sung, did finally the northern part of the country succeed in recovering its long-lost glory, but at the cost of a nation divided permanently.

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The Mongol Overlord Period

CHRONOLOGY

1231	First Mongol invasion of Korea
1261	Assassination of the Last Ch’oe dictator, end of military rule in Kory
1270	Final capitulation of Kory court to Mongol siege, beginning of Mongol overlord period
1274	First of two joint Mongol-Korean invasion attempts of Japan
1320s	Lady Ki’s travel to Yuan Dynasty China as a “tribute woman”
1333	Lady Ki named an imperial concubine
1339	Birth of Lady Ki’s son, the future crown prince and emperor of the Yuan dynasty
1340	Marriage of Lady Ki to the Mongol emperor as secondary imperial consort
1356	Purge of Empress Ki’s family members in the Kory court by King Kongmin
1365	Empress Ki’s ascent as primary consort
1368	Ming dynasty’s conquest of China

THE MARRIAGE OF LADY KI TO THE YUAN EMPEROR, 1340

Kaegy
ng, the capital of the Kory
dynasty, was abuzz with news from China in the summer of 1340. Seven decades had passed since the Korean kingdom had succumbed to a long siege by invading Mongol forces, and in the intervening period Korea had become suffused with all things Mongol—its culture, politics, and even its monarch bore the stamp of Mongol dominance. Now Koreans received word of an event that showed that Korea, in turn, could wield influence over the stupendously powerful Mongol empire based in China, the Yuan dynasty. Lady Ki, a Korean and favored concubine of the Yuan emperor, had in the previous year given birth to the likely crown prince, and was now being
crowned formally as an imperial consort through her marriage to the Yuan emperor. This turn of events could hardly have been anticipated two decades earlier, when she was sent as a captive prize of submission to the Mongol rulers. Indeed she and hundreds of other “tribute women” sent to Mongol-controlled China had embodied the Mongols’ comprehensive control over the kingdom of Kory
, a period in Korean history normally viewed with utter shame.

The period of Mongol dominion over Korea, however, resists easy judgment. Empress Ki’s story, in fact, represents a microcosm of Kory
’s complex relationship to the Mongol empire—an experience of tragedy and horror, to be sure, but also of reform, opportunity, and valuable exposure to the outside world. This period also highlighted important features of Kory
as a civilization and its place in Korean history, especially for practices and customs regarding women. In these and other ways, the Mongol era constituted a seminal turning point in Korean history: on the one hand, it directly led to the fall of the Kory
dynasty, but in the larger scope of national history it represented a time when Korea was integrated into the world order to a degree not seen again until the twentieth century.