A History of Korea (13 page)

Of course, Silla was unwilling to accept Tang’s intentions on the Korean peninsula, but it needed foreign help to destroy its rival kingdoms. Soon yesterday’s allies became today’s foes. Fortunately for Silla, at that time the Tibetans rapidly increased their military strength to the extent that they cut Tang off from its territorial possessions farther west. Tang had to cope with the new situation and therefore could not concentrate its energies on the Korean peninsula. Almost from the moment of Kogury
ŏ
’s destruction, then, Silla launched military campaigns against Tang and lent assistance to Kogury
ŏ
’s restoration movement led by K
ŏ
mmojam. It invested Ans
ŭ
ng as “King of Kogury
ŏ
” in 670, and later, in 674, it made Ans
ŭ
ng “King of Pod
ŏ
k.” Silla forces also began to invade the former territories of Paekche and Kogury
ŏ
on its own. Inevitably Silla and Tang forces clashed in many places, and Silla defeated Tang in numerous battles. In 671 Silla captured Sabi-s
ŏ
ng and created the province of Soburi at the old Paekche capital, thus seizing control over all the old Paekche territory. In embarrassment, Tang declared Kim In-mun, King Munmu’s younger brother and longtime resident of China, as the king of Silla, without his consent, in order to sow dissension between the brothers, and also launched an offensive against its former Korean ally. But the Silla army defeated Tang forces in a series of battles, including at Maeso-s
ŏ
ng (present-day Yangju, Ky
ŏ
nggi province) in 675 and Kib
ŏ
lp’o at the estuary of the K
ŭ
m River in 676, and finally succeeded in driving out the Andong Duhufu from Pyongyang to the Liaodong fortress in Manchuria. Now Tang was forced to accept Silla as an autonomous state and recognize its claim to hegemony on the Korean peninsula. Silla could not occupy the entire Kogury
ŏ
territory, but it could now control the area south of a line extending roughly from the Taedong River in the west to the W
ŏ
nsan Bay in the east. Thus Silla finally unified the two other Korean kingdoms, preserving the independence of the Korean peninsula from foreign domination and averting a second possible period of Chinese colonialism. This date of 676, for
many Korean historians, marks the beginning of a unified Korea. Korea’s political, cultural, and linguistic unity dates back to this unification of the Three Kingdoms, making the country one of the oldest unified nations in the world.

The Three Kingdoms boasted an aristocratic social structure and centralized institutions of government. From the Three Kingdoms period on, the monarch always governed his domains directly, without granting autonomous powers to local administrators. The effectiveness of the central government varied from dynasty to dynasty, and from period to period, but the principle of centralization involving a system of provinces, districts, towns, and villages was never modified. Another feature inherited from this period that endured for centuries was the existence of a stratified social system characterized by a clear distinction between the rulers and the ruled. In particular, Silla society was rigidly organized into the hereditary caste system of kolp’um.

Beginning as tribal walled-town states, the Three Kingdoms first developed into confederated kingdoms and then centralized kingdoms. In the course of consolidating royal authority, tribal chieftains who were scattered throughout the country became part of the central aristocracy, and their aristocratic status depended on their relationship with the king and on their power and wealth. Kogury
ŏ
was the first to be transformed in this way, followed, respectively, by Paekche and Silla. By the sixth century, however, all three states achieved the same aristocratic level in the centralized state.

The emergence of a centralized aristocratic state centered on monarchical power led to the concept that all the nation’s land belonged to the king and all the people were his subjects. This does not mean, however, that private ownership of land disappeared or that all people in the nation came under the king’s direct domination. Aristocratic families could still own land and wield control over others, a privilege they had continued to enjoy ever since the period of walled-town states. Members of the aristocracy privately enslaved hundreds or thousands of prisoners of war, and the state often granted them large tracts of land in the form of
sik
ŭ
p,
or tax villages, in which the recipients held hereditary rights to levy grain and tribute taxes on the farm households and to exact corvee labor from the farming populations under their authority. Therefore
the private land and slave holdings of the aristocracy continued to increase. Based on their economic wealth, aristocrats enjoyed various political privileges, and the ruling aristocracy resided mainly in the kingdom’s capital. Because the power and wealth of each of the Three Kingdoms were concentrated in its capital, the fall of the capital inevitably led to the destruction of the state itself. Aristocratic status was inherited from generation to generation. As the centralized kingdom was established, the aristocracy was gradually transformed into the monarch’s officialdom, without being deprived of its status and privileges. In the period of the Three Kingdoms, then, a limited number of aristocratic lineages enjoyed a dominant status and position.

In Kogury
ŏ
the most honorable title of esteem in the nation,
koch’uga,
was bestowed on members of the royal Ko house of the Kyeru-bu lineage, the former royal house of the Sono-bu lineage, and the My
ŏ
ngnim house of the Ch
ŏ
llo-bu (Y
ŏ
nna-bu) lineage that furnished the royal consorts. Only a small minority of the uppermost layer of the aristocracy could be promoted to
taedaero,
the highest office rank of the kingdom’s 14 ranks. Beneath this distinct stratum of the aristocracy were several other social strata termed
taega
and
soga,
whose members could not advance to the highest office rank.

In Paekche eight renowned clans (Sa, Y
ŏ
n, Hy
ŏ
p, Hae, Chin, Kuk, Mok, and Paek) constituted the powerful aristocracy. The royal Puy
ŏ
house and the Chin and Hae families, both the queen houses, not only monopolized the principal government offices but occupied the predominant position in Paekche society. Only a minority of aristocratic households could attend the
ch
ŏ
ngsaam
council, which, it is believed, elected a chief minister to head the officialdom.

Silla’s kolp’um system illustrates most clearly the rigid stratification of aristocratic society in the period of the Three Kingdoms. Governance, social status, and official advancement were all dictated by a person’s bone rank, or hereditary bloodline. This strict lineage-based institution also dictated clothing, house size, and the choice of a marriage partner. There were two levels of bone rank:
s
ŏ
nggol,
or sacred-bone; and
chingol,
or true-bone. There were also six grades of
tup’um,
or head rank: head rank 6 through 1. The sacred-bone status was held by those in the royal house of Kim who had the qualifications to attain the king-ship, though this higher bone rank ceased to exist just prior to Silla’s unification. Queen S
ŏ
nd
ŏ
k (632–647) and Queen Chind
ŏ
k (647–654) were able to become queens, because at the time there were no men of sacred-bone status available to take the throne. When each ascended her throne, however, the two queens faced stiff opposition from some male true-bone aristocrats, also members of the Kim
royal house. Although they originally lacked eligibility for the kingship, when the sacred-bone rank ceased to exist with the death of Queen Chind
ŏ
k, those of true-bone rank became eligible to take the throne. The first king of true-bone status was King Muy
ŏ
l (654–661). The true-bone rank also included the Pak lineage, which had earlier been the royal house from which royal consorts later came, as well as the “new Kim lineage” descended from the royal house of the K
ŭ
mgwan Kaya kingdom. The change in the royal house from s
ŏ
nggol to chin’gol suggests that a wider range of aristocratic strata attained the qualifications to become king. The reason for the distinction between those of s
ŏ
nggol and chin’gol within the royal house of Kim is not entirely clear, but apparently distinctions were made based on maternal lineage. In other words, scions whose parents were all from the royal house had the status of s
ŏ
nggol, whereas the chin’gol status was held by those whose mothers were not from the royal house.

Head ranks 6, 5, and 4 comprised the general aristocracy. Head rank 6, called
t
ŭ
ngnan,
or obtained with difficulty, was right below the true-bone status. Head ranks 3, 2, and 1 were originally the lower-ranking aristocracy but later ceased to exist and were called
p’y
ŏ
ngin,
or common people, or simply
paeks
ŏ
ng,
or people. Because members of these lower head ranks also had their own family names, they were still distinguishable from the general populace.

The bone-rank institution was closely associated with the allocation of office rank and government position. Holders of true-bone rank could advance to the highest-ranking office of
ib
ŏ
lch’an
(or
kakkan
) in Silla’s 17 office ranks, but holders of head rank 6 were restricted to no higher than the 6th office rank of
ach’an
; holders of head rank 5, to the 10th office rank of
taenama
; and holders of head rank 4, to the 12th office rank of
taesa.
These strict limitations were also reflected in appointments to official positions. The post of
y
ŏ
ng,
or minister, could be filled by those of the true-bone rank alone. The post of
ky
ŏ
ng,
or vice minister, could be occupied by holders of either head rank 6 or 5. Lower posts in the ministries,
taesa, saji,
and
sa,
could be held by men of head rank 4 as well as by those of the higher head ranks and bone ranks. On the military side, holders of office ranks ranging from 1 (ib
ŏ
lch’an) through 9 (
k
ŭ
pp
ŏ
lch’an
) could be appointed as general officers who exercised the highest command in the army, but only those of the true-bone rank customarily received such vital appointments. In Silla’s hierarchic society, therefore, only those of the highest hereditary social status could wield dominant power and enjoy special privileges. The honorific title of
kalmun wang,
equivalent to Kogury
ŏ
’s koch’uga, was given only to members of the royal and consort families.
⁷

In the Three Kingdoms the central government controlled the villages in the countryside through village chiefs or headmen who were usually natives of their local areas. Although they, too, possessed a considerable amount of land and a large number of slaves, these village chiefs received office ranks only at local government grades and were denied access to any central government office.

Below these village chiefs were self-supporting peasants with the social status of freemen who cultivated their own plots of land. These independent farmers comprised the numerically predominant class in each society of the Three Kingdoms and were the main providers of food for the society. Their lives and livelihood were subject to the direct control of the state, and they were required to pay grain and tribute taxes, the latter in the form of local products. The state also commandeered their labor services, mobilizing peasant farmers as conscripts or as corvee laborers for a prescribed time. One example is that of a youth named Kasil, who, during the reign of the Silla king Chinp’y
ŏ
ng (579–632), saw much military service as a guard in a remote region in place of a girl’s old father and returned home in six years looking worn down and defeated. Forced mobilization, specifically military service, was a hard obligation for the general populace.

Even lower than this general population on the social strata were outcast groups who led a caste-like existence in separate and ostracized villages. In Silla prisoners of war and criminals were forcibly resettled in villages known as
pugok,
communities of low-caste people. These low-caste laborers groaned under much heavier burdens than were suffered by the general peasants.

In each society of the Three Kingdoms, slaves, who were mainly prisoners of war, murderers, and debtors, constituted the lowest class. Owned by aristocratic families, these individuals led slavish lives, cultivating their masters’ land or attending to household duties. It is apparent that aristocratic families owned a large number of slaves. In Silla, for example, a young hwarang warrior named Sadaham, who rendered meritorious services in the conquest of Tae Kaya in 562, was granted 300 slaves by the state. Further, the Silla general Kim Yu-sin, a hero of Silla’s unification, is said to have held some 6,000 slaves. In brief, the Three Kingdoms comprised a rigidly stratified society based on an aristocratic social structure.

As territories expanded and populations increased, each of the Three Kingdoms established a bureaucratic structure centered on the kingship. As royal
authority was increasingly strengthened, a hereditary-based monarchy became firmly established. In Kogury
ŏ
the officialdom was classified into 14 grades, the topmost of which was the taedaero, or chief minister. Noteworthy in Kogury
ŏ
’s administrative structure was the existence of several
hy
ŏ
ng,
or elders, ranks, such as
t’aedaehy
ŏ
ng
(2nd rank),
cho
ŭ
idudaehy
ŏ
ng
(5th rank),
taehy
ŏ
ng
(7th rank),
sohy
ŏ
ng
(10th rank), and
chehy
ŏ
ng
(11th rank), as well as
sa,
or stewards, ranks, including
t’aedaesaja
(4th rank),
taesaja
(6th rank),
suwisaja
(8th rank), and
sangwisaja
or
sosaja
(9th rank). As the nation grew into a centralized kingdom, former tribal or clan chieftains were given the hy
ŏ
ng rank appropriate to their earlier positions, whereas previous retainers of the royal or powerful aristocratic houses received the saja rank suitable to their earlier standings. In these ways former tribal or clan leaders and their retainers were integrated into the new aristocratic-bureaucratic structure, and Kogury
ŏ
became a centralized aristocratic state with a monolithic ranking system for officials.