Читать книгу The History of Korea (Vol.1&2) - Homer B. Hulbert - Страница 21

Table of Contents

Sil-la’s captives. … Ko-gu-ryŭ dismembered … extent of Sil-la … she deceives China … her encroachments … rebellion … the word Il-bon (Nippon) adopted. … Sil-la opposed China … but is humbled … again opposes. … Sil-la a military power … her policy … the Emperor nominates a rival king. … Sil-la pardoned by China … again makes trouble … the Emperor establishes two kingdoms in the north. … Sil-la’s northern capital … cremation … no mention of Arabs. … China’s interest in Korea wanes … redistribution of land … diacritical points … philological interest. … Pal-hă founded. … Chinese customs introduced. … Pal-hă’s rapid growth … omens. … Sil-la’s northern limit … casting of a bell … names of provinces changed. … Sil-la’s weakness … disorder … examinations. … BuddhismBuddhism interdicted … no evidence of Korean origin of Japanese Buddhism. … Japanese history before the 10th century … civil wars. … Ch‘oé Ch‘i-wŭn … tradition. … Queen Man’s profligacy.

Immediately upon the fall of Ko-gu-ryŭ the Sil-la forces retired to their own country carrying 7000 captives with them. The king gave his generals and the soldiers rich presents of silks and money.

China divided all Ko-gu-ryŭ into nine provinces in which there were forty-two large towns and over a hundred lesser ones of prefectural rank. In P‘yŭng-yang Gen. Sŭl In-gwi was stationed with a garrison of 20,000 men. The various provinces were governed partly by Chinese governors and partly by native prefects.

The king of Sil-la was now the only king in the peninsula and the presumption was that in view of his loyalty to the Chinese his kingdom would extendextend to the Yalu River if not beyond, but it probably was not extended at the time further than the middle of Whang-hă Province of to-day. The records say that in 669 the three kingdoms were all consolidated but it did not occur immediately. It is affirmed that the Chinese took 38,000 families from Ko-gu-ryŭ and colonized Kang-whe in China and that some were also sent to San-nam in western China. That Sil-la was expecting a large extension of territory is not explicitly stated but it is implied in the statement that when a Sil-la envoy went to the Chinese court the Emperor accused the king of wanting to possess himself of the whole peninsula, and threw the envoy into prison. At the same time he ordered Sil-la to send bow-makers to China to make bows that would shoot 1,000 paces. In due time these arrived but when the bows were made it was found that they would shoot but thirty paces. They gave as a reason for this that it was necessary to obtain the wood from Sil-la to make good bows. This was done and still the bows would shoot but sixty paces. The bow-makers declared that they did not know the reason unless it was because the wood had been hurt by being brought across the water. This was the beginning of an estrangement between the Emperor and the king of Sil-la which resulted in a state of actual war between the two.

Sil-la was determined to obtain possession of a larger portion of Ko-gu-ryŭ than had as yet fallen to her lot; so she sent small bodies of troops here and there to take possession of any districts that they could lay their hands on. It is probable that this meant only such districts as were under native prefects and not those under direct Chinese rule. It is probable that Sil-la had acquired considerable territory in the north for we are told that the Mal-gal ravaged her northern border and she sent troops to drive them back.

If China hoped to rule any portion of Korea without trouble she must have been speedily disillusionised for no sooner had the new form of government been put in operation than a Sil-la gentleman, Köm Mo-jam, raised an insurrection in one of the larger magistracies, put the Chinese prefect to death and proclaimed An Seung king. He was a member of a collateral branch of the royal family. Sil-la seems to have taken it for granted that the whole territory was under her supervision for now she sent an envoy and gave consent to the founding of this small state in the north which she deemed would act as a barrier to the incursions of the northern barbarians. The Chinese evidently did not look upon it in this light and a strong force was sent against the nascent state; and to such effect that the newly appointed king fled to Sil-la for safety. The wheel of fortune was turning again and Chinese sympathies were now rather with Păk-je than with Sil-la.

It was at this time, 671, that the term Il-bün (Nippon) was first used in Korea in connection with the kingdom of Japan.

The relations between Sil-la and Păk-je were badly strained. In the following year the Chinese threw a powerful army into Păk-je with the evident intention of opposing Sil-la. So the latter furbished up her arms and went into the fray. In the great battle which ensued at the fortress of Sŭk-sŭng 5,000 of the Chinese were killed. Sil-la was rather frightened at her own success and when she was called upon to explain her hostile attitude toward China she averred that it was all a mistake and she did not intend to give up her allegience to China. This smoothed the matter over for the time being, but when, a little later, the Emperor sent seventy boat loads of rice for the garrison at P‘yŭng-yang, Sil-la seized the rice and drowned the crew’s of the boats, thus storing up wrath against herself. The next year she attacked the fortress of Ko-sŭng in Păk-je and 30,000 Chinese advanced to the support of the Păk-je forces. A collision took place between them and the Sil-la army in which the Chinese were very severely handled. This made the Emperor seriously consider the question of subduing Sil-la once for all. He ordered that the Mal-gal people be summoned to a joint invasion of the insolent Sil-la and the result was that seven Sil-la generals were driven back in turn and 2,000 troops made prisoners. In this predicament there was nothing for the king to do but play the humble suppliant again. The letter to the Emperor praying for pardon was written by the celebrated scholar Im Gang-su. But it was not successful, for we find that in the following year the Chinese troops in the north joined with the Mal-gal and Kŭ-ran tribes in making reprisals on Sil-la territory. This time however Sil-la was on the alert and drove the enemy back with great loss. She also sent a hundred war boats up the western coast to look after her interests in the north. At the same time she offered amnesty and official positions to Păk-je nobles who should come over to her side.

We can scarcely escape the conviction that Sil-la had now become a military power of no mean dimensions. Many citizens of Ko-gu-ryŭ had come over to her and some of the Păk-je element that was disaffected toward the Chinese. All, in fact, who wanted to keep Korea for the Koreans and could put aside small prejudices and jealousies, gathered under the Sil-la banners as being the last chance of saving the peninsula from the octopus grasp of China. Sil-la was willing to be good friends with China—on her own terms; namely that China should let her have her own way in the peninsula, and that it should not be overrun by officious generals who considered themselves superior to the king of the land and so brought him into contempt among the people.

At this time there was at the Chinese court a Sil-la envoy of high rank named Kim In-mun. The Emperor offered him the throne of Sil-la, but loyalty to his king made him refuse the honor. In spite of this he was proclaimed King of Sil-la and was sent with three generals to enforce the claim. That Sil-la was not without power at this time is shown by the fact that she proclaimed An-seung King of Păk-je, an act that would have been impossible had she not possessed a strong foothold in that country.

The war began again in earnest. The Chinese general, Yi Gön-hăng, in two fierce encounters, broke the line of Sil-la defenses and brought the time-serving king to his knees again. One can but wonder at the patience of the Emperor in listening to the humble petition of this King Mun-mu who had made these promises time and again but only to break them as before. He was, however, forgiven and confirmed again in his rule. The unfortunateunfortunate Kim In-mun whom the Emperor had proclaimed King of Sil-la was now in a very delicate position and he wisely hastened back to China where he was compensated for his disappointment by being made a high official.

Sil-la’s actions were most inconsistent, for having just saved herself from condign punishment by abject submission she nevertheless kept on absorbing Păk-je territory and reaching after Ko-gu-ryŭ territory as well. In view of this the Emperor ordered the Chinese troops in the north to unite with the Mal-galMal-gal and Kŭ-ran forces and hold themselves in readiness to move at an hour’s notice. They began operations by attacking the Chön-sŭng Fortress but there the Sil-la forces were overwhelmingly successful. It is said that 6,000 heads fell and that Sil-la captured 30,000 (?) horses. This is hard to reconcile with the statement of the records that in the following year a Sil-la envoy was received at the Chinese court and presented the compliments of the king. It seems sure that Sil-la had now so grown in the sinews of war that it was not easy for China to handle her at such long range. It may be too that the cloud of Empress Wu’s usurpation had begun to darken the horizon of Chinese politics and that events at home absorbed all the attention of the court, while the army on the border was working practically on its own authority.

A new kind of attempt to solve the border question was made when in 677 the Emperor sent the son of the captive king of Ko-gu-ryŭ to found a little kingdom on the Yalu River. This might be called the Latter Ko-gu-ryŭ even as the Păk-je of that day was called the Latter Păk-je. At the same time a son of the last Păk-je king was sent to found a little kingdom at Tă-bang in the north. He lived, however, in fear of the surrounding tribes and was glad to retire into the little Ko-gu-ryŭ kingdom that lay lower down the stream. The records call this the “last” end of Păk-je.

In 678 Sil-la made a northern capital at a place called Puk-wŭn-ju the capital of Kang-wŭn Province. There a fine palace was erected. The king enquired of his spiritual adviser whether he had better change his residence to the new capital but not receiving sufficient encouragement he desisted. This monarch died in 681 but before he expired he said “Do not waste the public money in building me a costly mausoleum. Cremate my body after the manner of the West.” This gives us an interesting clue to Sil-la’s knowledge of the outside world. If, as some surmise, Arab traders had commercial intercourse with the people of Sil-la it must have been about this time or a little earlier for this was the period of the greatest expansion of Arabian commerce. It is possible that the idea of cremation may have been received from them although from first to last there is not the slightest intimation that Western traders ever visited the coasts of Sil-la. It is difficult to believe that, had there been any considerable dealings with the Arabs, it should not have been mentioned in the records.

The king’s directions were carried out and his son, Chong-myŭng, burned his body on a great stone by the Eastern Sea and gave the stone the name “Great King Stone.” That the Emperor granted investiture to this new king shows that all the troubles had been smoothed over. But from this time on Chinese interest in the Korean peninsula seems to have died out altogether. The little kingdom of Latter Ko-gu-ryŭ, which the Emperor had established on the border, no sooner got on a sound basis than it revolted and the Emperor had to stamp it out and banish its king to a distant Chinese province. This, according to the records, was the “last” end of Ko-gu-ryŭ. It occurred in 682 A.D.

Sil-la now held all the land south of the Ta-dong River. North of that the country was nominally under Chinese control but more likely was without special government. In 685 Sil-la took in hand the redistribution of the land and the formation of provinces and prefectures for the purpose of consolidating her power throughout the peninsula. She divided the territory into nine provinces, making three of the original Păk-je and three of that portion of the original Ko-gu-ryŭ that had fallen into her hands. The three provinces corresponding to the original Sil-la were (1) Sŭ-bŭl-ju (the first step in the transformation of the word Sŭ ya-bŭl to Seoul), (2) Sam-yang-ju, now Yang-san, (3) Ch‘ŭng-ju now Chin-ju. Those comprising the original Păk-je were (1) Ung-ch‘ŭn-ju in thethe north, (2) Wan-san-ju in the south-west, (3) Mu-jin-ju in the south, now Kwang-ju. Of that portion of Ko-gu-ryŭ which Sil-la had acquired she made the three provinces (1) Han-san-ju, now Seoul, (2) Mok-yak-ju, now Ch‘un-ch‘ŭn, (3) Ha-să-ju, now Kang-neung. These nine names represent rather the provincial capitals than the provinces themselves. Besides these important centers there were 450 prefectures. Changes followed each other in quick succession. Former Ko-gu-ryŭ officials were given places of trust and honor; the former mode of salarying officials, by giving them tracts of land from whose produce they obtained their emoluments, was changed, and each received an allowance of rice according to his grade; the administration of the state was put on a solid basis.

One of the most far-reaching and important events of this reign was the invention of the yi-du, or set of terminations used in the margin of Chinese texts to aid the reader in Koreanizing the syntax of the Chinese sentence. We must bear in mind that in those days reading was as rare an accomplishment in Sil-la as it was in England in the days of Chaucer. All writing was done by the a-jun, who was the exact counterpart of the “clerk” of the Middle Ages. The difficulty of construing the Chinese sentence and using the right suffixes was so great that Sŭl-ch‘ong, the son of the king’s favorite monk, Wŭn-hyo, attempted a solution of the difficulty. Making a list of the endings in common use in the vernacular of Sil-la he found Chinese characters to correspond with the sounds of these endings. The correspondence was of two kinds; either the name of the Chinese character was the same as the Sil-la ending or the Sil-la meaning of the character was the same as the ending. To illustrate this let us take the case of the ending sal-ji, as in ha-sal-ji, which has since been shortened to ha-ji. Now, in a Chinese text nothing but the root idea of the word ha will be given and the reader must supply the sal-ji which is the ending. If then some arbitrary signs could be made to represent these endings and could be put in the margin it would simplify the reading of Chinese in no small degree. It was done in this way:way: There is a Chinese character which the Koreans call păk, Chinese pa, meaning “white.” One of the Sil-la definitions of this character sal-wi-ta. It was the first syllable of this word that was used to represent the first syllable of the ending sal-ji. Notice that it was not the name of the character that was used but the Sil-la equivalent. For the last syllable of the ending sal-ji, however, the Chinese character ji is used without reference to its Sil-la equivalent. We find then in the yi-du as handed down from father to son by the a-jun’s of Korea a means for discovering the connection between the Korean vernacular of to-day with that of the Sil-la people. It was indeed a clumsy method, but the genius of Sŭl-ch‘ong lay in his discovery of the need of such a system and of the possibility of making one. It was a literary event of the greatest significance. It was the first outcry against the absurd primitiveness of the Chinese ideography, a plea for common sense. It was the first of three great protests which Korea has made against the use of the Chinese character. The other two will be examined as they come up. This set of endings which Sŭl-ch‘ong invented became stereotyped and through all the changes which the vernacular has passed the yi-du remains to-day what it was twelve hundred years ago. Its quaint sounds are to the Korean precisely what the stereotyped clerkly terms of England are to us, as illustrated in such legal terms as to wit, escheat and the like. There is an important corollary to this fact. The invention of the yi-du indicates that the study of Chinese was progressing in the peninsula and this system was invented to supply a popular demand. It was in the interests of general education and as such marks an era in the literary life of the Korean people. The name of Sŭl-ch‘ong is one of the most honored in the list of Korean literary men.

The eighth century opened with the beginning of a new and important reign for Sil-la. Sŭng-dŭk came to the throne in 702 and was destined to hold the reins of power for thirty-five years. From the first, his relations with China were pleasant. He received envoys from Japan and returned the compliment, and his representatives were everywhere well received. The twelfth year of his reign beheld the founding of the kingdom of Pal-hă in the north. This was an event of great significance to Sil-la. The Song-mal family of the Mal-gal group of tribes, under the leadership of Kŭl-gŭl Chung-sŭng, moved southward into the peninsula and settled near the original Tă-băk Mountain, now Myo-hyang San. There they gathered together many of the Ko-gu-ryŭ people and founded a kingdom which they called Chin. It is said this kingdom was 5,000 li in circumference and that it contained 200,000 houses. The remnants of the Pu-yŭ and Ok-jŭ tribes joined them and a formidable kingdom arose under the skillful management ofmanagement of Kŭl-gŭl Chung-sŭng. He sent his son to China as a hostage and received imperial recognition and the title of King of Pal-hă. From that time the word Mal-gal disappears from Korean history and Pal-hă takes its place.

During the next few years Sil-la made steady advance in civilization of the Chinese type. She imported from China pictures of Confucius and paid increased attention to that cult. The water clock was introduced, the title Hu was given to the Queen, the custom of approaching the throne by means of the sang-so or “memorial” was introduced.

Meanwhile the kingdom of Pal-hă was rapidly spreading abroad its arms and grasping at everything in sight. China began to grow uneasy on this account and we find that in 734 a Sil-la general, Kim Yun-jung went to China and joined a Chinese expedition against the Pal-hă forces. The latter had not only absorbed much territory in the north but had dared to throw troops across the Yellow Sea and had gained a foothold on the Shantung promontory. This attempt to chastise her failed because the season was so far advanced that the approach of winter interfered with the progress of the campaign.

The story of the next century and a half is the story of Sil-la’s decline and fall. The following is the list of omens which tradition cites as being prophetic of that event. A white rainbow pierced the sun; the sea turned to bloodblood; hail fell of the size of hens’ eggs; a monastery was shaken sixteen times by an earthquake; a cow brought forth five calves at a time; two suns arose together; three stars fell and fought together in the palace; a tract of land subsided fifty feet and the hollow filled with blue black water; a tiger came into the palace; a black fog covered the land; famines and plagues were common; a hurricane blew over two of the palace gates; a huge boulder rose on end and stood by itself; two pagodas at a monastery fought with each other; snow fell in September; at Han-yang (Seoul) a boulder moved a hundred paces all by itself; stones fought with each other; a shower of worms fell; apricot trees bloomed twice in a year; a whirlwind started from the grave of Kim Yu-sin and stopped at the grave of Hyŭk Kŭ-se. These omens were scattered through a series of years but to the Korean they all point toward the coming catastrophe.

It was in 735 that the Emperor formally invested the king of Sil-la with the right to rule as far north as the banks ofof the Ta-dong River which runs by the wall of P‘yŭng-yang. It was a right he had long exercised but which had never before been acquiesced in by China. The custom of cremating the royal remains, which had been begun by King Mun-mu, was continued by his successors and in each case the ashes were thrown into the sea.

The first mention of the casting of a bell in Korea was in the year 754 when a bell one and one third the height of a man was cast. The records say it weighed 497,581 pounds, which illustrates the luxuriance of the oriental imagination.

In 757 the names of the nine provinces were changed. Sŭ-bŭl became Sang-ju, Sam-yang became Yang-ju, Ch’ŭng-ju became Kang-ju, Han-san became Han-ju, Ha-să became Myŭng-ju, Ung-chŭn became Ung-ju, Wan-san became Chŭn-ju, Mu-jin became Mu-ju, and Su-yak (called Mok-yak in the other list) was changed to Sak-ju. Following hard upon this came the change of the name of government offices.

As we saw at the first, Sil-la never had in her the making of a first class power. Circumstances forced her into the field and helped her win, and for a short time the enthusiasm of success made her believe that she was a military power; but it was an illusion. She was one of those states which would flourish under the fostering wing of some great patron but as for standing alone and carving out a career for herself, that was beyond her power. Only a few years had passed since she had taken possession of well-nigh the whole of the peninsula and now we see her torn by internal dissentions and so weak that the first man of power who arose and shook his sword at her doors made her fall to pieces like a house of cards. Let us rapidly bring under review the events of the next century from 780 to 880 and see whether the facts bear out the statement.

First a conspiracy was aimed at the king and was led by a courtier named Kim Chi-jong. Another man, Yang Sang, learned of it and promptly seized him and put him to death. A very meritorious act one would say; but he did it in order to put his foot upon the same ladder, for he immediately turned about and killed the king and queen and seated himself upon the throne. His reign of fifteen years contains only two important events, the repeopling of P‘yŭng-yang with citizens of Han-yangHan-yang (Seoul), and the institution of written examinations after the Chinese plan. In 799 Chun-ong came to the throne and was followed a year later by his adopted son Ch‘ŭng-myŭng. These two reigns meant nothing to Sil-la except the reception of a Japanese envoy bearing gifts and an attempt at the repression of Buddhism. The building of monasteries and the making of gold and silver Buddhas was interdicted. It is well to remember that in all these long centuries no mention is made of a Korean envoy to Japan, though Japanese envoys came not infrequently to Sil-la. There is no mention in the records of any request on the part of the Japanese for Buddhist books or teachers and there seems to be no evidence from the Korean standpoint to believe that Japan received her Buddhism from Korea. Geographically it would seem probable that she might have done so but as a fact there is little to prove it. It would, geographically speaking, be probable also that Japan would get her pronunciation of the Chinese character by way of Korea but as a matter of fact the two methods of the pronunciation of Chinese ideographs are at the very antipodes. The probability is that Japan received her knowledge both of Buddhism and of the Chinese character direct from China and not mainly by way of Korea.

The condition of Sil-la during this period of decline may be judged from the events which occurred between the years 836 and 839 inclusive. King Su-jong was on the throne and had been ruling some eleven years, when, in 835 he died and his cousin Kyun-jăng succeeded him. Before the year was out Kim Myŭng a powerful official put him to death and put Che Yung on the throne. The son of the murdered king, Yu-jeung, fled to Ch‘ŭng-hă Fortress, whither many loyal soldiers flocked around him and enabled him to take the field against the usurper. Kim Myu finding that affairs did not go to suit him killed the puppet whom he had put on the throne and elevated himself to that position. After Yu-jeung, the rightful heir, had received large reinforcements from various sources, he attacked the forces of this parvenu at Mu-ju and gained a victory. The young prince followed up this success by a sharp attack on the self-made king who fled for his life but was pursued and captured. Yu-jeung then ascended the throne. This illustrates the weakness of the kingdom, in that any adventurer, with only daring and nerve, could seize the seat of power and hold it even so long as Kim Myŭng did. The outlying provinces practicallypractically governed themselves. There was no power of direction, no power to bring swift punishment upon disloyal adventurers, and the whole attitude of the kingdom invited insubordination. In this reign there were two other rebellions which had to be put down.

The year 896 shows a bright spot in a dark picture. The celebrated scholar Ch‘oé Ch‘i-wŭn appeared upon the scene. He was born in Sa-ryang. At the age of twelve he went to China to study; at eighteen he obtained a high literary degree at the court of China. He travelled widely and at last returned to his native land where his erudition and statesmanship found instant recognition. He was elevated to a high position and a splendid career lay before him; but he was far ahead of his time; one of those men who seem to have appeared a century or two before the world was ready for them. The low state of affairs at the court of Sil-la is proved by the intense hatred and jealousy which he unwittingly aroused. He soon found it impossible to remain in office; so he quietly withdrew to a mountain retreat and spent his time in literary pursuits. His writings are to be found in the work entitled Ko-un-jip. He is enshrined in the memory of Koreans as the very acme of literaryliterary attainment, the brightest flower of Sil-la civilization and without a superior in the annals of all the kingdoms of the peninsula.

Tradition asserts that signs began to appear and portents of the fall of Sil-la. King Chung-gang made a journey through the southern part of the country and returned by boat. A dense fog arose which hid the land. Sacrifice was offered to the genius of the sea, and the fog lifted and a strange and beautiful apparition of a man appeared who accompanied the expeditionexpedition back to the capital and sang a song whose burden was that many wise men would die and that the capital would be changed. Chung-gang died the next year and was succeeded by his brother Chin-sung who lived but a year and then made way for his sister who became the ruler of the land. Her name was Man. Under her rule the court morals fell to about as low a point as was possible. When her criminal intimacy with a certain courtier, Eui-hong, was terminated by the death of the latter she took three or four other lovers at once, raising them to high offices in the state and caring as little for the real welfare of the country as she did for her own fair fame. Things reached such a pass that the people lost patience with her and insulting placards were hung in the streets of the capital calling attention to the depth of infamy to which the court had sunk.

It was in 892 that the great bandit Yang-gil arose in the north. His right hand man was Kung-ye, and as he plays an important part in the subsequent history of Sil-la we must stop long enough to give his antecedents. The story of his rise is the story of the inception of the Kingdom of Ko-ryŭ. It may be proper to close the ancient history of Korea at this point and begin the medieval section with the events which led up to the founding of Koryŭ.

END OF PART I.

PART II.

MEDIEVAL KOREAN HISTORY.

From 890 to 1392 A.D.