A History of Korea Read online

  Depictions of the daily lives of the people, however, are equally revealing. We are treated to scenes of an ancient form of “ssirm,” or Korean wrestling, women going about their weaving activities, and people in the fields and marketplaces dressed in polka-dotted clothing. We also get a strong sense of the economic advancement of Kogury civilization, for amidst the displays of agricultural and handicraft goods are numerous appearances of wagons. Indeed, there is even a depiction of what appears to be a “wagon goddess” wielding an oversized wheel like a magic wand. Based on the lack of such visual

  depictions and the general condition of Korean roads thereafter, which were designed for walking—both by humans and horses—wagons seem to have diminished considerably subsequently in Korea’s socioeconomic order until the twentieth century. Indeed, these extraordinary wall paintings suggest that economic technologies might have been just one of many aspects of Korean civilization for which Kogury had achieved an early peak.

  KOGURY AND KOREAN HISTORY

  Until the twentieth century, the Silla unification enjoyed the stamp of legitimacy in the prevailing Korean historical perspective, for each succeeding dynastic order traced its lineage ultimately to this seventh-century event. In the modern era, however, nationalist history gradually deemed the Silla unification more a betrayal of the nation than a resolution of centuries of peninsular balkanization. Silla’s misstep was said to be twofold. First, it turned to the Chinese for solving an internal Korean issue and thereby set a precedent of dependence that would inflict the entirety of Korean history thereafter—a pervasive cultural dependence that robbed the Koreans of their sense of identity, and a military and political dependence that would reappear repeatedly, indeed well into the twentieth century. Second, the Silla-Tang alliance destroyed what many modern nationalists consider the true representative of Korea’s ancient civilization, Kogury. It was Kogury that appears to have had the most vibrant and advanced political, military, and cultural order, and, perhaps most importantly, Kogury was the one ancient kingdom that refused to budge in the face of threats to peninsular autonomy. Kogury’s relentless resistance to the Chinese could not have stood in starker contrast to Silla’s behavior of turning to the Chinese to solve a dispute between Korean polities.

  The problem with this revisionist perspective, which is now orthodoxy in North Korea and widely accepted in South Korea, is that—aside from overlooking the many examples of Kogury’s close ties to China and exaggerating the dependence of Silla or Paekche on outside forces—it imposes a modern nation-centered perspective on the history of the fourth to seventh centuries. In this era of the “Three Kingdoms” (Kogury, Paekche, Silla), the people of these kingdoms likely did not perceive a common bond. In fact, the reordering of history to make it appear as such began with the subsequent Unified Silla kingdom itself in order to legitimate its dominion over the peninsula. The official historians of the Kory dynasty (918–1392), whose name purposefully evoked the glories of Kogury, further cemented the notion of a “Three Kingdoms” era and bestowed upon the Unified Silla kingdom the status of national unifier. Ironically, their successors in the twentieth century would turn this imagined unity into an insistence on the centrality not of Silla, but rather of Kogury.

  Indeed, so widely accepted has this historical perspective become on the Korean peninsula today, that to consider Kogury an independent kingdom based partly in the Korean peninsula and partly in Manchuria is to provoke outrage. What contemporary Chinese historians have done, apparently with the blessings of the Chinese government, is to go one step further and imply that Kogury was actually an actor in Chinese history: just as China today is one country with many ethnicities, China in the past was one country with many groups, including the people of Kogury. From the Koreans’ perspective, this amounts to robbing them of their own history, the history of the very kingdom on which the name of “Korea” itself is based! Lying beneath the surface, however, is the latent Korean belief, of which the Chinese are aware, that Kogury can provide a great lesson on how Koreans—eventually reunified, as warranted by the official national imperative—should deal with a resurgent, dominant China: at arm’s length, and with an assertiveness of Korea’s autonomy and interests. Such is the power of history, even the history of ancient times, in Korea today.

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  Queen Sndk and Silla’s Unification of Korea

  CHRONOLOGY

  632 Death of King Chinp’yng and ascent of Queen Sndk

  642 Silla embassy to Kogury to request help against Paekche

  643 Silla embassy to Tang China to request help against Paekche and Kogury

  647 Death of Queen Sndk and ascent of Queen Chindk

  654 Death of Queen Chindk and ascent of King Muyl (Kim Ch’unch’u)

  660 Silla-Tang conquest of Paekche, led by General Kim Yusin

  668 Silla-Tang conquest of Kogury, unification of the Peninsula

  675 End of Silla-Tang War for control over Korean Peninsula

  SILLA’S DISPATCH OF A TRIBUTE EMBASSY TO CHINA, 643

  Feeling besieged, the monarch of the kingdom of Silla sent a tributary embassy to the emperor of Tang dynasty China in 643 with an urgent request for Chinese assistance in fending off the unrelenting incursions from the other two peninsular powers, Kogury and Paekche. The Chinese emperor, sensing another opportunity to strike Kogury, vowed to attack the two adversaries and even offered thousands of Chinese army uniforms so that Silla soldiers could intimidate their opponents on the battlefield. The emperor’s third suggestion, though, was startling: Silla should accept a Chinese prince as its interim ruler, whose presence would put an end to Silla’s misfortune—a misfortune that, according to the emperor, was due to its monarch. It was not the Silla ruler’s actions or policies that were objectionable, but rather the ruler’s gender: Silla’s monarch was Queen Sndk, the first of three female rulers of Silla.

  Significantly for the subsequent history of Korea, this brazen push to reestablish a Chinese foothold on the peninsula was (respectfully) resisted by Silla, despite the Tang emperor’s support for the anti-Sndk elements within the Silla ruling order. Queen Sndk managed to weather this storm, and during her reign from 632 to 647, Silla proceeded not only to survive but to thrive. It further centralized state rule, sponsored the continuing growth of Buddhism, nurtured the flowering of science and culture, and solidified the Silla state and military power through the cultivation of skillful people who eventually were to lead the country to peninsular supremacy. Tang China would be Silla’s indispensable partner in the wars of unification, but as shown by the pressures exerted upon Queen Sndk’s rule, Silla had to remain wary of ultimate Chinese designs. The Sillan leaders’ capacity to walk this diplomatic tightrope between assistance and autonomy would prove instrumental in securing the peninsula’s unification under Silla domination. That this process would begin during the reign of a female monarch also reveals a great deal about distinctive cultural patterns inscribed onto the peninsula by not only Silla but all of the ancient civilizations on the peninsula. Indeed, Queen Sndk herself would embody many of these qualities, including the tantalizing signs that, in regard to the role and status of females, Silla might have been ahead of its time.

  BUDDHISM AND POWER

  Queen Sndk’s most notable accomplishment might have been to achieve an early peak in the relationship between Korean political and social power, on the one hand, and royal sponsorship of the Buddhist establishment on the other. Buddhism, a religion preaching the path of overcoming human suffering through ritual, action, study, and meditation—just as its founder, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha), had done in the sixth century BCE—had by the fourth century CE traversed its way eastward through northern India, Tibet, China, and the Korean peninsula, on its way eventually toward Japan. Through this process this religion gained a tremendous following, usually first among learned elites, who developed different approaches and perspectives in line with their specific cultural heritage. They
then disseminated the modified forms to the laity and usually persuaded the ruling groups to embrace this powerfully spiritual and systematic set of teachings. The political rulers, in turn, found Buddhism, in particular the Buddhist clergy, a useful ally in further consolidating their domination and in heightening the aura of their authority. Eventually, political domination went hand-in-hand with patronage of Buddhism.

  The authoritative twelfth-century Korean historical source, History of the Three Kingdoms (Samguk sagi), relates that an especially large number of Buddhist temples was erected during Sndk’s reign, firmly establishing a defining pattern of Korean history until the fourteenth century. Not coincidentally, some of the oldest surviving artifacts of Korean civilization are stone pagodas that dot the countryside and Buddhist temples, some dating back to the ancient era even if the wooden buildings that surround them do not. Queen Sndk, like other monarchs on the peninsula, appears to have benefited from this association with the religious order, for it provided support for her claims to monarchical authority. In fact, the “Mirk” or Maitreya sect of Buddhism that prevailed on the peninsula considered the monarch the embodiment of the Buddha himself. The ancient Korean rulers, even those of systematic, sophisticated states like Silla, basked in this religious eminence, which accompanied the increasing centralization of state authority visible in all three kingdoms.

  For some leaders, like Sndk, the historical perception of their rule appears to have been firmly wedded to their spiritual mystique. The Tales of the Three Kingdoms (Samguk yusa), a work dating from the thirteenth century that mostly recounts the often legendary history of Buddhism in ancient Korea, provides glimpses of this relationship. Sndk is said to have issued three prophecies during her reign, all coming true: one concerning a cryptic gift from the Chinese emperor, another suspecting an imminent Paekche attack, and finally a prediction of the manner of her own death. The content of these prophecies reflects important issues that surrounded her reign, as we will see below. But the overarching impression left behind by these stories is of a skillful, sagacious monarch whose glories were reflected in her mystical powers. It was if she was indeed a reincarnation of the Buddha,

  or at least the embodiment of the blending of Buddhist teachings and native shamanistic practices.

  Buddhism exerted its influence also through the great standing that China enjoyed as the perceived center of high culture. The Three Kingdoms each sent students and scholars to the Middle Kingdom to gain exposure to advanced Buddhist learning. The most prominent and gifted scholar-monk of Silla was a younger contemporary of Queen Sndk, Wnhyo (617–86). Indeed Wnhyo is still the most celebrated figure in Korean Buddhist history, so influential was his attempt to synthesize Buddhist teachings into a more comprehensible form. He could be characterized as the first great Korean popularizer of this foreign religion, and his influence extended all the way to Japan, which became a depository of continental civilization as filtered largely through the kingdoms of the Korean peninsula. Such activity was not limited to Buddhism, however; other aspects of Chinese culture were eagerly absorbed (and transmitted), including the complicated but impressively ordered set of teachings about government and politics that we know as Confucianism. According to legend, Wnhyo’s own son, Sl Ch’ong (660–730), established himself as one of the early great Confucian scholars and has traditionally been credited with developing the Korean writing system known as idu. Together this father–son tandem symbolized the momentous transitions in Korean civilization during their life spans, in particular the unification of the peninsula under Silla rule.

  LEGENDS OF THE UNIFICATION

  Queen Sndk’s reign is often credited with the commencement of the inexorable unification process, which ended in the 670s when Silla, having conquered the other two peninsular states, established a working peace with its main ally-turned-rival in the unification wars, Tang dynasty China. As noted in Chapter 1, until the twentieth-century Korean historical orthodoxy had considered this a legitimate and inevitable step in the historical trajectory of Korean civilization. Queen Sndk stood as a central character in the unification saga, but the best-known figures were two officials who came of age under her reign, Kim Ch’unch’u and Kim Yusin.

  In the 630s, when Queen Sndk ascended to the throne, Silla did not stand in a strong position to emerge as the eventual victor on the peninsula. It was under constant attack from both of its rivals and losing territory, especially to Paekche. As the History of the Three Kingdoms recounts, when Kim Ch’unch’u, a nephew of Queen Sndk, lost one of his daughters in a Paekche attack in 641, he turned his grief into a raging pursuit of vengeance. He received Sndk’s permission to take a small delegation to Kogury to ask for its assistance in the struggle against Paekche. The Kogury monarch demanded in return promises from Silla to return some of Kogury’s former territory that Silla had seized earlier. When Kim rejected this demand, the Kogury king immediately incarcerated him. Word reached the Silla court, and soon Queen Sndk had a talented military official, Kim Yusin, mobilize 10,000 crack troops to attack Kogury. Before fighting ensued, this daring move appeared sufficient to earn Kim Ch’unch’u’s release, and the legend of the two Kims was born, eventually to climax in their respective roles in the unification wars.

  Kim Ch’unch’u would gain fame as the ambitious enabler of Silla’s unification. He laid the diplomatic groundwork, through his trips to China as Silla’s royal envoy, for the indispensable alliance with the Tang dynasty. For this, he would also be eventually excoriated by some modern historians for setting a precedent of subservience. Later, after being enthroned as King Muyl in 654, Ch’unch’u cemented this relationship with China, which paid off when, in early 660, the Tang emperor sent 130,000 Chinese troops to the western coast in order to join Silla in its attack on Paekche forces. Paekche would fall that summer in the famous Battle of Hwangsanbl. Ch’unch’u died the following year, and it would be his son, the next Silla king, who would oversee the completion of the unification project under the direction of Kim Yusin.

  If Kim Ch’unch’u has faced a mixed reception among modern historians, Kim Yusin has continued to enjoy a positive assessment. The military hero of the unification wars, Kim Yusin’s popular standing has as much to do with the many legendary stories of his exploits as with his historically verifiable accomplishments, which were spectacular to begin with. First, he played a central role, as Kim Ch’unch’u’s brother-in-law, in providing the political and military support for Ch’unch’u to ascend to the throne in the first place. He served thereafter as Ch’unch’u’s right-hand man in efforts to solidify the alliance with Tang China, consolidate and strengthen monarchical control, and carry out the military campaigns against Paekche. As the leader of Silla’s forces, Kim Yusin is credited with defeating and eventually conquering Paekche, and with mapping out the plan to conquer Kogury. The defeat of Kogury, again in partnership with the Tang forces, came finally in 668, but not without the threat of Silla itself becoming absorbed by the Chinese ally. When Tang forces remained in Korea to enforce the Chinese emperor’s claims to dominion over the peninsula as a whole, Kim Yusin led the resistance in what has come to be known as the Silla–Tang War of the 670s. Kim’s eventual success in driving out the Chinese from the peninsula was tempered by the compromise reached for the sake of peace, namely the limitation of Silla’s advance into Kogury’s old territory. While modern historians would lament this outcome, Kim Yusin’s heroic status remains untainted. In fact it has spawned a modern romanticization of Kim and especially of the troupe of young men that had trained him, the Hwarang.

  The Hwarang, literally the “Flower Youth” Corps, appears to have risen to prominence during the reign of Queen Sndk’s father, King Chinp’yng. The History of the Three Kingdoms, which seems to have used as a reference a work called the Chronicles of the Hwarang (Hwarang segi), includes a few passages that portray the Hwarang as a youth group that inculcated the spirit of camaraderie, learning, and service. Kim Yusin was the most famous Hwarang grad
uate, but prominent also were his son, Wnsul, and Kwanch’ang, a brave youth who died in the decisive battle against Paekche in 660. The legendary standing of these three, and the relative absence of Hwarang actions in the records after the seventh century, point again to the appropriation of people, events, and legends for the historical legitimation of the Silla unification. Such an exercise was not limited to the Silla unification, however. Even before, but particularly after, the controversial discovery of a manuscript of The Chronicles of the Hwarang in the late 1980s, political and cultural leaders in South Korea pointed to this troupe as a model for traditional values, patriotism, national service, and even the martial arts.

  Paekche, the Third Kingdom

  The debate about the national legitimacy of Silla’s unification of the Three Kingdoms is itself based on the notion of the Three Kingdoms being somehow “Korean” because what later became Korea occupied the same geographical territory as the Three Kingdoms. Such a structuring of the past according to what happened later—what historians call the fallacy of teleology—overlooks the political as well as nationalistic motivations for devising such narratives of legitimation and primordial national character. Furthermore, this premise tends to downgrade other important elements of ancient history on the peninsula, in particular the “third kingdom” of Paekche. In addition to being a major political and cultural entity, Paekche best reflected the complex, close ties between the peninsular polities and those in the islands to the east that, around the same time as the Silla unification, formed what we now call Japan.