A History of Korea (10 page)

MAP 2.1.
Kogury
ŏ
in Flourishing Times (fifth century)

According to an old Korean historical record,
Samguk sagi,
or History of the Three Kingdoms, Paekche was established in 18
BC
by Onjo, who was said to be a son of Chumong, the founder of Kogury
ŏ
.
¹
When his eldest half-brother, Yuri, became heir apparent to the throne of Kogury
ŏ
, Onjo and his elder brother, Piryu, migrated south to the Mahan territory with their followers and set up tribal domains. Piryu settled in Mich’uhol, present-day Inch’
ŏ
n and the Asan Bay region on the west coast, and Onjo founded the state of Paekche at Wiryes
ŏ
ng, today’s Seoul. Because it was located just south of the Han River, it was called Hanam (“south of the river”) Wirye-s
ŏ
ng. Whereas the Onjo people at Wirye-s
ŏ
ng made a comfortable living, Piryu, who settled in the soppy, salty seashore region, failed to develop his domain. Ashamed of his failure, Piryu committed suicide, and his people submitted to Onjo. This story suggests that a branch of the Puy
ŏ
people moved south to the Han River basin, and two groups competed for dominance over the people. It is surmised that the Onjo group finally became predominant and founded Paekche.

Immediately after its founding, Paekche transferred its capital of Wirye-s
ŏ
ng to north of the Han River, and it was renamed Habuk (“north of the river”) Wirye-s
ŏ
ng. As the occasion required, Paekche moved its court between Habuk and Hanam Wirye-s
ŏ
ng. A royal palace and a shrine to memorialize the mother of the state (Onjo’s mother) were constructed there, and a mud rampart and fence was built around it to strengthen the defense of Wirye-s
ŏ
ng (later renamed Hans
ŏ
ng).

Paekche developed out of one of the 54 walled-town states that comprised the Mahan federation. At first it was weak, frequently invaded by forces from Nangnang and by the Malgal people, and forced to pay tribute to the “Chin King” of the Mahan federation. Taking advantage of its location in the fertile Han River basin, however, it finally grew into a confederated kingdom by integrating the territory settled by the Piryu people into its domain and conquering other walled-town states of Mahan.

In the mid-third century King Koi (234–286) expanded Paekche territory by pushing the Chinese commanderies of Nangnang and Taebang and the Malgal people to the north. In 246 he drove back a large force of Nangnang and Taebang commanderies, and also proceeded to shape national institutions. In 260 he appointed six ministers, called
chwap’y
ŏ
ng,
to conduct affairs
of state along appropriate functional lines. He created 16 grades of office rank and prescribed colors for the attire of each rank. By transforming locally scattered tribal chieftains into king’s subjects in the central government, Paekche became a well-established, centralized kingdom. Later the Paekche people were to honor King Koi as its founder-king with commemorating ceremonies that were performed four times annually.

Based on King Koi’s efforts to transform his state into a centralized, aristocratic kingdom, during the reign of King K
ŭ
nch’ogo (346–375) Paekche embarked on a large-scale campaign of conquest. In 369 K
ŭ
nch’ogo destroyed the Mahan federation, acquiring all its territory. In 371 Paekche struck northward into the Kogury
ŏ
territory as far as Pyongyang-s
ŏ
ng, killing the Kogury
ŏ
king Kogukw
ŏ
n in battle. Paekche thus dominated the entire southwestern part of the Korean peninsula, including all the modern provinces of Ky
ŏ
nggi, Ch’ungch’
ŏ
ng, and Ch
ŏ
lla, as well as some portions of Ky
ŏ
ngsang, Hwanghae, and Kangw
ŏ
n provinces.

At this time Paekche grew into a prosperous, cultured kingdom, as it occupied the most densely populated and agriculturally richest part of Korea. Cut off from northern China by Kogury
ŏ
, it maintained close maritime contact with the Southern dynasties of China. In the fourth century Paekche forged friendly ties with Chinese East Jin in the Yangtze River basin and the Wa (Wae) people in Japan. It acquired China’s advanced culture and technology, and then transmitted its own cultural developments to Japan. Having the command of the Yellow Sea and the South Sea, Paekche established a trade base in the region west of the Liao River and sent its merchants to the Shandong peninsula across the Yellow Sea. Exerting great influence on the Japanese, Paekche made them its ally against its northern neighbor, Kogury
ŏ
. In a word, Paekche developed into a powerful, internationally well-known trading nation, and its advanced shipping technology was inherited by the later Kory
ŏ
kingdom.

King K
ŭ
nch’ogo virtually completed Paekche’s state system as a centralized kingdom, and, with the establishment of the father-to-son succession to the kingship, monarchical authority was firmly established. Also during his reign there began the “age of Chin family queens,”as the king’s immediate successors continued to choose their consorts from this single aristocratic clan. Paekche had eight different aristocratic clans with the family names of Chin, Hae, Sa, Y
ŏ
n, Kuk, Hy
ŏ
p, Mok, and Paek. They seem to have been inherited from those who migrated south from Puy
ŏ
and Kogury
ŏ
as well as from native Mahan chieftains. King K
ŭ
nch’ogo ordered the scholar Koh
ŭ
ng to compile
S
ŏ
gi,
a history of Paekche, to show off his consolidated kingly authority and the firmly established national institutions of Paekche.
Nihon shogi,
or History of Japan, believed to have been compiled in 720, was modeled on this
S
ŏ
gi.
King K
ŭ
nch’ogo was succeeded by King K
ŭ
n’gusu (375–384), who in turn was followed by King Ch’imnyu (384–385). In the first year of King Ch’imnyu’s reign, in 384, Paekche accepted Buddhism from Chinese East Jin as a new religious faith. In the second half of the fourth century Paekche attained its highest level of prosperity.

In the fifth century the once prosperous Paekche increasingly declined following the invasion of its territory by the mighty Kogury
ŏ
king Changsu, who, in 475, captured Paekche’s capital of Hans
ŏ
ng and killed its king, Kaero. The next Paekche king, Munju (475–477), was forced to move his capital southward to Ungjin on the K
ŭ
m River to preserve its very existence. He chose Ungjin as the new capital because it provided easy access to southern China and Japan. But Paekche’s loss of the Han River basin struck a fatal blow to the kingdom.

Paekche was restored later on, however, following the efforts of kings Tongs
ŏ
ng (479–501) and Mury
ŏ
ng (501–523) to rehabilitate the kingdom. To gain an ally against Kogury
ŏ
, King Tongs
ŏ
ng forged a “marriage alliance” with Silla in which he married the daughter of a high-ranking Silla official in 493. King Mury
ŏ
ng formed a friendship with the Chinese Liang dynasty, then the most developed nation among China’s Northern and Southern dynasties. Because of Kogury
ŏ
’s continued southward expansion into Paekche’s territory, Paekche also forged close relations with Japan, and its royal house maintained marital ties with the Japanese royal house. At crucial moments, Paekche always asked Japan for military aid. In return for Japanese military assistance, Paekche dispatched many scholars and artists to Japan, introducing its highly advanced culture to the island country. After transferring its capital to Ungjin, Paekche, in order to further centralize its government, reorganized its administration into 22 districts, or
tamno,
in the regions outside the capital; a prince or other member of the royal family was invested with a fiefdom in each tamno.

Ungjin’s isolation in mountainous terrain, while securing it against northern aggression, also cut it off from the outside world. In need of a more favorably located capital, King S
ŏ
ng (523–554), in 538, despite stiff opposition on the part of the Ungjin aristocracy, moved his capital to Sabi on the broad plain on the K
ŭ
m River. The location of Sabi on the navigable K
ŭ
m allowed for easier contact with China and Japan. At the same time the king renamed his kingdom “South Puy
ŏ
.” After the capital was transferred to Puy
ŏ
, the system of 22 central government offices, 5 capital districts (
pu
), and 5 provinces (
pang
), was established.
²
Also, King S
ŏ
ng further strengthened Paekche’s ties with the Liang dynasty in southern China.

MAP 2.2.
Paekche in Flourishing Times (fourth century)

Having restructured his kingdom and built up its strength, King S
ŏ
ng devoted himself to recovering Paekche’s former territory in the Han River basin. To this end, he made a military pact with the Silla king, Chinh
ŭ
ng (540–576), and struck northward against Kogury
ŏ
. In 551 he succeeded in recovering the lower reaches of the Han River, and Silla took the upper reaches of the river.
³
In 553, however, Silla unexpectedly seized the strategically important lower region from Paekche. The enraged King S
ŏ
ng, with an army of 30,000-strong comprising Paekche,
Wa
Japanese, and Kaya forces, struck back at Silla, but, in 554, the king himself was killed in battle at Kwansan-s
ŏ
ng (present-day Okch’
ŏ
n, North Ch’ungch’
ŏ
ng province). Thereafter Paekche, though making peace with its former foe Kogury
ŏ
, looked upon Silla as its sworn enemy and delivered one attack after another against that kingdom. In the “Sabi period” (538–660), six kings succeeded one another for some 120 years: King S
ŏ
ng (523–554), King Wid
ŏ
k (554–598), King Hye (598–599), King P
ŏ
p (599–600), King Mu (600–641), and King
Ŭ
ija (641–660).In this era Paekche continued to decline, whereas Silla was emerging more strongly.

The Silla kingdom, which evolved from the walled-town state of Saro, is said to have been founded by Pak Hy
ŏ
kk
ŏ
se. Situated in the Ky
ŏ
ngju plain, Saro was one of the 12 “states” constituting the Chinhan federation in southeastern Korea. Although
Samguk sagi
records that Silla was the first of the Three Kingdoms to be established, other written and archeological records indicate that it was the last of the three to do so. The author of
Samguk sagi,
Kim Pu-sik, a man of Silla lineage, probably attempted to legitimate Silla rule by giving it historical seniority over its rival kingdoms, Paekche and Kogury
ŏ
.

According to legend, in 57
BC
Pak Hy
ŏ
kk
ŏ
se, at the age of 12, was enthroned as the first ruler of Saro by the headmen of six villages who named his state “S
ŏ
rab
ŏ
l” or “Saro.” Thus Saro was initially made up of six clan groupings. Legend has it that in 69
BC
six village headmen approached a white horse and
found a bright red egg; the egg immediately hatched, and out sprang a shining boy. The boy was named Pak (“bright”) Hy
ŏ
kk
ŏ
se. Soon he married a girl named Ary
ŏ
ng, who was said to have been born from the rib bone of a chicken. This myth suggests that immigrants from the north joined forces with native tribes to establish the walled-town state of Saro. Pak Hy
ŏ
kk
ŏ
se apparently was a member of horsemen that came down from the north, took leadership of Saro, and represented themselves by the horse totem. A powerful native clan that had come to the Saro region earlier than the Pak clan, and was represented by the chicken totem, appears to have been chosen as the “queen clan.” The six villages seem to have been native tribes that were inferior in strength to these two groupings.

Subsequently leadership of Saro (S
ŏ
rab
ŏ
l) was seized by the clan of S
ŏ
k (“old”) T’arhae, who was said to come from the coastal region east of Saro. T’arhae possessed the attributes of both a skilled metalworker and a shaman. It is surmised that the T’aehae clan immigrated from the north, bringing a highly advanced iron culture. By this time Saro had broken out of the confines of the narrow Ky
ŏ
ngju plain and forged a federation with other walled-town states in the region east of the Naktong River. The terms used to designate Saro’s rulers during this period were, first,
k
ŏ
s
ŏ
gan,
or chief, and then
ch’ach’aung,
or shaman; later the term
isag
ŭ
m,
or successor prince, was adopted. These titles were not considered to represent kings of a centralized state such as later Silla.