Читать книгу The History of Korea (Vol.1&2) - Homer B. Hulbert - Страница 9

Table of Contents

Wi-man … establishes his kingdomkingdom … extent … power soon waned … ambitious designs. … China aroused … invasion of Korea. … U-gu tries to make peace … siege of P‘yŭng-yang … it falls … the land redistributed … the four provinces … the two provinces.

Having secured possession of Ki-jun’s kingdom, Wi-man set to work to establish himself firmly on the throne. He had had some experience in dealing with the wild tribes and now he exerted himself to the utmost in the task of securing the allegiance of as many of them as possible. He was literally surrounded by them, and this policy of friendliness was an absolute necessity. He succeeded so well that ere long he had won over almost all the adjacent tribes whose chieftains frequented his court and were there treated with such liberality that more than once they found themselves accompanying embassies to the court of China.

It is said that when his kingdom was at its height it extended far into Liao-tung over all northern and eastern Korea and even across the Yellow Sea where it included Ch’ŭng-ju, China. Its southern boundary was the Han River.

So long as Wi-man lived he held the kingdom together with a strong hand, for he was possessed of that peculiar kind of power which enabled him to retain the respect and esteem of the surrounding tribes. He knew when to check them and when to loosen the reins. But he did not bequeath this power to his descendants. His grandson, U-gŭ, inherited all his ambition without any of his tact. He did not realise that it was the strong hand and quick wit of his grandfather that had held the kingdom together and he soon began to plan a still further independence from China. He collected about him all the refugees and all the malcontents, most of whom had much to gain and little to lose in any event. He then cut off all friendly intercourse with the Han court and also prevented the surrounding tribes from sending their little embassies across the border. The Emperor could not brook this insult, and sent an envoy, Sŭp-ha, to expostulate with the headstrong U-gŭ; but as the latter would not listen, the envoy went back across the Yalu and tried what he could do by sending one of the older chiefs to ask what the king meant by his conduct. U-gŭ was still stubborn and when the chief returned to Sŭp-ha empty-handed he was put to death. Sŭp-ha paid the penalty for this rash act, for not many days after he had been installed governor of Liao-tung the tribe he had injured fell upon him and killed him.

This was not done at the instigation of U-gŭ, but unfortunately it was all one to the Emperor. It was the “Eastern Barbarians” who, all alike, merited punishment. It was in 107 B.C. that the imperial edict went forth commanding all Chinese refugees in Korea to return at once, as U-gŭ was to be put down by the stern hand of war.

In the autumn of that year the two generals, Yang-bok and Sun-ch’i, invaded Korea at the head of a strong force; but U-gŭ was ready for them and in the first engagement scattered the invading army, the remnants of which took refuge among the mountains. It was ten days before they rallied enough to make even a good retreat. U-gŭ was frightened by his own good luck for he knew that this would still further anger the Emperor; so when an envoy came from China the king humbled himself, confessed his sins and sent his son to China as hostage together with a gift of 5,000 horses. Ten thousand troops accompanied him. As these troops were armed, the Chinese envoy feared there might be trouble after the Yalu had been crossed. He therefore asked the Prince to have them disarmed. The latter thought he detected treachery and so fled at night and did not stop until he reached his father’s palace in P‘yŭng-yang. The envoy paid for this piece of gaucherie with his head.

Meanwhile Generals Yang-bok and Sun-ch’i had been scouring Liao-tung and had collected a larger army than before. With this they crossed the Ya-lu and marched on P‘yŭng-yang. They met with no resistance, for U-gŭ had collected all his forces at the capital, hoping perhaps that the severity of the weather would tire out any force that might be sent against him. The siege continued two months during which time the two generals quarreled incessantly. When the Emperor sent Gen. Kong Son-su to see what was the matter, Gen. Sun-ch’i accused his colleague of treason and had him sent back to China, where he lost his head. The siege, continued by Gen. Sun-ch’i, dragged on till the following summer and it would have continued longer had not a traitor within the town assassinated the king and fled to the Chinese camp. Still the people refused to make terms until another traitor opened the gates to the enemy. Gen. Sun-ch’i’s first act was to compel Prince Chang, the heir apparent, to do obeisance. But the people had their revenge upon the traitor who opened the gate for they fell upon him and tore him to pieces before he could make good his escape to the Chinese camp.

Such was the miserable end of Wi-man’s treachery. He had cheated Ki-jun out of his kingdom which had lasted almost a thousand years, while the one founded by himself lasted only eighty-eight. It fell in the thirty-fourth year of the Han Emperor Wu-ti, in the year 106 B.C.

Upon the downfall of Wi-man’s kingdom, the country was divided by the Chinese into four provinces called respectively Nang-nang, Im-dun, Hyŭn-do and Chin-bŭn. The first of these, Nang-nang, is supposed to have covered that portion of Korea now included in the three provinces of P‘yung-an, Whang-hă and Kyŭng-geui. Im-dun, so far as we can learn, was located about as the present province of Kang-wŭn, but it may have exceeded these limits. Hyŭn-do was about coterminous with the present province of Ham-gyŭng in the northeast. Chin-bŭn lay beyond the Yalu River but its limits can hardly be guessed at. It may have stretched to the Liao River or beyond. It is exceedingly doubtful whether the conquerors themselves had any definite idea of the shape or extent of these four provinces. Twenty-five years later, in the fifth year of Emperor Chao-ti 81 B.C. a change in administration was made. Chin-bŭn and Hyŭn-do were united to form a new province called P’yung-ju, while Im-dun and Nang-nang were thrown together to form Tong-bu. In this form the country remained until the founding of Ko-gu-ryŭ in the twelfth year of Emperor Yuan-ti, 36 B.C.

It is here a fitting place to pause and ask what was the nature of these wild tribes that hung upon the flanks of civilization and, like the North American Indians, were friendly one day and on the war-path the next. Very little can be gleaned from purely Korean sources, but a Chinese work entitled the Mun-hön T’ong-go deals with them in some detail, and while there is much that is quite fantastic and absurd the main points tally so well with the little that Korean records say, that in their essential features they are probably as nearly correct as anything we are likely to find in regard to these aborigines (shall we say) of north-eastern Asia.