A History of Korea (30 page)

After the Qidan army withdrew, Kory
ŏ
continued to communicate with Song and strengthened its position by building fortresses in the area southeast of the Yalu against any future Liao raids. The newly constructed fortresses were known as
Kangdong yuk chu,
or Six Garrison Settlements East of the River, which referred to garrison forts at H
ŭ
nghwajin (present-day
Ŭ
iju), Yongju (present-day Yongch’
ŏ
n), T’ongju (present-day S
ŏ
nch’
ŏ
n), Ch’
ŏ
lchu (present-day Ch’
ŏ
lsan), Kwiju (present-day Kwis
ŏ
ng), and Kwakchu (present-day Kwaksan). All these places are now located in North Korea’s North P’yongan province. Meanwhile, Liao enlarged its territory and became a mighty empire in control of northern
China north of the Yellow River, most of Mongolia, and almost all of Manchuria. Liao was dissatisfied, however, that Kory
ŏ
controlled the region between the Ch’
ŏ
ngch’
ŏ
n and Yalu rivers and demanded that Kory
ŏ
turn over the Six Garrison Settlements. Kory
ŏ
flatly rejected Liao’s demand.

At this perilous moment, political turbulence in the Kory
ŏ
court gave Liao the pretext for its second invasion. In 1009, under King Mokchong (997–1009), one of the king’s in-laws, Kim Ch’i-ryang, staged a coup to enthrone his own son. But Kang Cho, the commander of the northwestern frontier region, deposed and killed Mokchong, purged the Kim Ch’i-ryang faction from the court, and enthroned Hy
ŏ
njong (1009–1031). Under the pretext of accusing the subject Kang Cho of killing King Mokchong, the Liao emperor Shengzong personally led 400,000 troops across the Yalu and invaded the Kory
ŏ
territory in 1010. Hy
ŏ
njong gave a 300,000-strong army to Kang Cho to defend the country, but Kang Cho underestimated the enemy’s strength and was defeated in battle and captured. To the end he refused to vow allegiance to the Liao emperor and died a heroic death. Liao troops occupied Kaes
ŏ
ng and burned it to the ground in 1011. Hy
ŏ
njong was forced to flee south all the way to Naju. Kory
ŏ
suffered initial losses but won other battles. Unable to establish a foothold and fearing a counterattack, Liao forces withdrew without gaining any particular advantage but did stipulate that the Kory
ŏ
king should pay homage in person at the Liao court. This was not a commitment that Kory
ŏ
would honor, and thus Hy
ŏ
njong did not personally appear at the Liao court.

In 1018 Liao invaded Kory
ŏ
for the third time. This was a major invasion that followed several small-scale attacks to press demands for Hy
ŏ
njong’s presence at its court and the surrender of the Six Garrison Settlements region. Led by Xiao Paiya, this time the Liao army of 100,000, while marching into the Kory
ŏ
capital, was defeated by Kory
ŏ
forces at H
ŭ
nghwajin and Chaju. The retreating Liao forces, having failed to take the capital, were routed at Y
ŏ
nju and Wiju in the Ch’
ŏ
ngch’
ŏ
n river basin by massive Kory
ŏ
attacks led by Kang Kamch’an. Finally, the Kory
ŏ
forces almost annihilated the Liao army at Kwiju. Only a few thousand escaped alive. After this crushing defeat, Liao never again violated Kory
ŏ
territory. It also withdrew its demand that the Kory
ŏ
king personally appear at the Liao court and that Kory
ŏ
surrender the Six Garrison Settlements.

In addition to Kory
ŏ
resolutely resisting Liao’s three massive invasions and driving back the invaders, Kory
ŏ
also succeeded in recovering part of old Kogury
ŏ
territory. After its defeat in the war against Kory
ŏ
, Liao also failed
to conquer the Song. Thus, in East Asia, the balance of power remained with Kory
ŏ
, Liao, and Song. In the course of the Liao invasions, tens of thousands of Qidans were taken prisoner or surrendered to Kory
ŏ
. Constituting the majority of Kory
ŏ
’s chein and kisaeng, they formed their own villages and made a livelihood by various means.

Kory
ŏ
’s resounding victory over the powerfully militant Liao was a great boost to its national prestige among neighboring countries. For about 100 years or so, between the early eleventh and early twelfth centuries, Kory
ŏ
enjoyed a golden age marked by thriving commercial, intellectual, and artistic activities. At the time Song China, which had lost its territory north of the Yellow River to Liao, wanted to forge close ties with Kory
ŏ
. The Song dynasty looked upon Kory
ŏ
as a potential ally against neighboring tribal invaders. On the other hand, Kory
ŏ
sought to gratify its material and cultural desires by maintaining friendly relations with Song. Thus the two countries promoted cultural and economic exchanges. Song did not regard Kory
ŏ
as its tributary state, but it treated the Korean kingdom as an equal partner and extended extraordinarily cordial treatment to Kory
ŏ
’s envoys in Song.

Kory
ŏ
’s trade relationship with Song was carried on through traveling merchants as well as visiting envoys. Buddhist monks played an important role in cultural exchanges between the two countries, and many Kory
ŏ
monks went to Song to study or preach Buddhism. Overall, Kory
ŏ
’s economic and cultural exchanges with Song benefited its own culture. For instance, Song woodblock editions contributed to the development of Kory
ŏ
’s woodblock printing, and Song porcelain enhanced the development of Kory
ŏ
’s celadon ware.

The main traffic route to Song was the sea lane between Kory
ŏ
’s Py
ŏ
ngnando at the estuary of the Yes
ŏ
ng River and China’s Hangzhou at the estuary of the Yangtze River. The Shandong peninsula had been occupied by Liao and was no longer an important traffic center.

Kory
ŏ
also carried on small-scale economic exchanges with Qidans, Nuzhens, and the Japanese. Qidans and Nuzhens brought silver, furs, and horses to Kory
ŏ
and in return received grain, stationery, and iron agricultural implements and weapons. The Japanese, a majority of whom came from Tsushima, sent tangerines, pearl, mercury, swords, and horses in return for grain, books, and stationery. Kory
ŏ
had never imported grain, whereas Nuzhens and the Japanese had always suffered food shortages.

Kory
ŏ
’s military victory over Liao gave the Nuzhen, formerly Malgal, people a chance to regroup and strengthen their power. Thus, for defense against both Qidans and Nuzhens, Kory
ŏ
, from 1033 to 1044, built a wall stretching from the mouth of the Yalu a thousand
li
(about 300 miles) eastward to the East Sea at Tory
ŏ
np’o (present-day Y
ŏ
np’o, South Hamgy
ŏ
ng province).The Malgal people had been under Kogury
ŏ
and Parhae rule. After Parhae fell to Qidans they called themselves Jins, but the Chinese called them Nuzhens. Kory
ŏ
adopted the Chinese name Nuzhen and called them
Y
ŏ
jin.
Nuzhens were scattered into many tribes throughout eastern Manchuria and the northern Korean peninsula. The tribes that inhabited the reaches of the Tumen River looked upon Kory
ŏ
as their “parent country” and as the source of a highly advanced civilization. Kory
ŏ
was the main supplier of their necessities of life, especially grain. The Nuzhen chieftains visited Kory
ŏ
regularly and made annual tributes. Many Nuzhens migrated into the Kory
ŏ
territory. By the early twelfth century more than 4,700 households of Nuzhens had been naturalized in Kory
ŏ
. Kory
ŏ
gave land and dwellings to these naturalized Nuzhens so that they could maintain a livelihood.

In the first half of the twelfth century, however, this harmonious situation rapidly changed when Kory
ŏ
grew troubled by Nuzhens. At the time the Nuzhen people were well organized under the leadership of Wuyashu, the chieftain of the Wanyan tribe in northern Manchuria, and they began to invade Liao territory to the west. As the power of the Wanyan tribe extended to the south, the relationship between Kory
ŏ
and Nuzhens became increasingly strained. Several military clashes resulted in Kory
ŏ
’s defeats. Kory
ŏ
’s Six Divisions were mostly infantry, who fought against heavy odds in battling the mounted Nuzhens. Under these circumstances, on Yun Kwan’s advice, King Sukchong (1095–1105) created a new military force, the Py
ŏ
lmuban, or Extraordinary Military Corps, in 1104. This new force was established in addition to the existing Six Divisions to contend against Nuzhens who were getting stronger by the day. It was organized into a cavalry corps, the Sin’gi-gun, or Divine Cavalry Corps; an infantry, the Sinbo-gun, or Divine Infantry Corps; and the Hangmagun, or Corps to Subdue Demons. Commanding officers in the Sin’gi-gun and the Sinbo-gun were members of aristocratic families, the rank and file were made up of peasants, and the Hangma-gun corps was composed of Buddhist monks.

In 1107, in the reign of King Yejong (1105–1122), Yun Kwan’s Py
ŏ
lmuban army launched a massive attack against Nuzhens. Crossing the thousand-
li
wall at present-day Ch
ŏ
ngp’y
ŏ
ng, Kory
ŏ
forces occupied the Hamh
ŭ
ng plain and further advanced to the Tumen River basin. In the occupied area Yun Kwan built the so-called Nine Forts and garrisoned them for defense against Nuzhens. In 1109, however, Kory
ŏ
returned the region of the Nine Forts to Nuzhens, as a result of Nuzhens’ unceasing attacks, coupled with Nuzhens’ fervent appeals to reclaim their residential areas, and because of jealousy in the Kory
ŏ
court over Yun Kwan’s success.

Later Nuzhens produced a great military leader, Aguda, who changed the entire political structure of the East Asian mainland. Aguda, Wuyashu’s younger brother, integrated all the Nuzhen tribes under his rule and founded a powerful state. By 1115 he had occupied most of Manchuria and declared his nation Jin. In 1125 Jin destroyed the Qidan Liao dynasty. Jin also captured the Song capital of Kaifeng in 1126 and, in 1127, took the Song emperor and his father prisoners. In that same year the Song empire finally fell. Aguda settled in Zhongdu (present-day Beijing) and made it the capital city of the Jin empire, which now included all of northern China, Mongolia, and Manchuria.

In 1126 Aguda sent an emissary to the Kory
ŏ
court, demanding that Kory
ŏ
enter into a suzerain-subject relationship. Angered Kory
ŏ
officials called it an insolent demand, but they could not stand up to the mighty empire in the north. With hurt pride Kory
ŏ
accepted the new relationship and the high state of tension between the two countries was relieved peacefully. Thereafter Jin never invaded Kory
ŏ
by force.

Confucian scholars of Silla’s head rank 6 background, such as Ch’oe
Ŏ
n-wi and Ch’oe Ung, assisted Wang K
ŏ
n in founding his Kory
ŏ
dynasty, and thus Confucianism exercised greater influence in Kory
ŏ
than in Silla. Because Confucian political ideology espoused a centralized kingdom under a powerful monarch, Kory
ŏ
kings greatly encouraged the activities of Confucian scholars and Confucianism gained new adherents among the country’s aristocracy and scholars.

Kory
ŏ
enjoyed peace for some 100 years from the early eleventh to the early twelfth centuries, and Confucianism, which championed civil administration,
greatly flourished. This period witnessed the emergence of private academies as the principal agencies for the education of aristocratic youth. In Munjong’s reign, the great Confucian scholar Ch’oe Ch’ung, known as the
Haedong kongja,
or Confucius East of the Sea (Korea), established a school, Kujae haktang, or Nine-Course Academy, where lectures were given on nine Confucian scriptures and three works of Chinese history. Known as Master Ch’oe’s Assembly, it heralded the beginning of the private academies. Soon, 11 other private academies sprang up, and these, together with Ch’oe Ch’ung’s Assembly, were known as the Sibi to, or Twelve Assemblies. The sons of aristocratic families deemed it a great honor to attend one of these 12 private academies and attached greater importance to them than to the national academy of Kukchagam.

As private academies flourished, the state schools inevitably declined. Thus several kings attempted to revive the state school system. King Sukchong, who was dedicated to furthering education, created the S
ŏ
j
ŏ
kp’o at the Kukchagam to publish a variety of books. In imitation of Ch’oe Ch’ung’s Nine-Course Academy, King Yejong set up, at the national academy, lectures in seven specialized fields—the
Book of History,
the
Book of Poetry,
the
Book of Divination,
the
Book of Rites,
the
Spring and Autumn Annals,
the
Rituals of Zhou,
and a new field of military studies. In each area he appointed an outstanding scholar as the lecturer. He also established a scholarship foundation, called the
Yanghy
ŏ
n’go,
or Fund for Nurturing Worthies, as well as the Ch’
ŏ
ngy
ŏ
n-gak (pavilion), Pomungak, Ch’
ŏ
njang-gak, and Imch’
ŏ
n-gak, not only as academic institutes but as libraries at the palace through which he recruited scholars and collected tens of thousands of books. King Injong completed the reconstruction of the government school system by instituting the “six colleges” at the national academy and establishing more local schools.
⁵
A number of eminent scholars emerged from these revived national institutions including Kim Pu-sik, Kim In-jon, Yun
Ŏ
n-i, Yi In-sil, Yi Chi-j
ŏ
, Pak S
ŭ
ng-jung, Ch
ŏ
ng K
ŭ
k-y
ŏ
ng, Ch
ŏ
ng Hang, and Ch
ŏ
ng Chi-sang. Injong frequently held the
ky
ŏ
ngy
ŏ
n,
or royal teaching, where he discussed Confucian ethics, politics, and history with these Confucian scholars. As Kory
ŏ
improved its school system, both state and private, Confucianism greatly developed in the kingdom.