A History of Korea (32 page)

As Kory
ŏ
’s structures and sculptures became larger, their workmanship became clumsy. The pagodas of the early Kory
ŏ
period, for example, followed the unified Silla style, but they generally deteriorated in terms of their beauty and balance. Later, influenced by Song China, Kory
ŏ
’s pagodas became distinctive by taking on a soft look, with round, hexagonal, or octagonal shapes rather than the sharp, straight lines of the unified Silla pagodas. Some of the Buddhist statuary were masterpieces, but Kory
ŏ
sculptures had generally inferior beauty and balance compared to those of unified Silla.

As Buddhist structures and sculptures degenerated rapidly, more secular arts took their place. Landscape painting flourished under Chinese Song and Yuan influences, but few authentic works remain from this period. Yi Ny
ŏ
ng
was a renowned master painter who drew
Yes
ŏ
ng-gang to,
or the Yes
ŏ
ng River Scene, and
Ch’
ŏ
nsu-sa nammun to,
or Painting of the Southern Gate of the Ch’
ŏ
nsu-sa Temple. He was invited by the Song emperor Huitzong to visit China. Yi Kwang-p’il, Yi Ny
ŏ
ng’s son, was also a famous painter. But no works of these two artists have survived. As Chinese literature developed in Kory
ŏ
, the quality of calligraphy was greatly improved. Yu Sin, the monk T’any
ŏ
n, and Ch’oe U were the best known calligraphers, and, along with Silla’s Kim Saeng, they have been called
Sinp’um sa hy
ŏ
n,
or the Four Worthies of Divine Calligraphy. In sum, at this time Kory
ŏ
’s highly advanced culture was represented by masterly ceramic art, which even the Chinese admired.

In its early period Kory
ŏ
compiled
Samguk sa,
or History of the Three Kingdoms, which is said to have seen Korean history as originating in Old Chos
ŏ
n, succeeded by Kogury
ŏ
and then by Kory
ŏ
. In the reign of King Hy
ŏ
njong (1009–1031), the kingdom compiled the
sillok,
or official annals, for the first seven kings of the dynasty. Today, however, none of these survives.

Samguk sagi,
the oldest extant history, was compiled by the politician-historian Kim Pu-sik at the command of King Injong in 1145. Modeled on Sima Qian’s
Shiji
, it consists of annals containing records of events in the reigns of the main lines of the Three Kingdoms’ rulers; tables outlining the chronology of the period; treatises on subjects of interest to the government such as rituals, geography, government offices, astronomy, music, law, and economic matters; and biographies of prominent individuals such as generals, government officials, patriotic martyrs, scholars, artists, rebels, and national traitors. An official history of the Three Kingdoms,
Samguk sagi
was compiled on the basis of native sources as well as Chinese histories. It described Silla as the first state of the Three Kingdoms to be founded and saw its people as the most patriotic and moralistic. Thus it stressed that Kory
ŏ
should become the successor to Silla which had had a long history and time-honored traditions.
Samguk sagi
criticized Kogury
ŏ
for having been warlike and Paekche for having been devious, and deleted the history of Old Chos
ŏ
n and the three Han (Mahan, Chinhan, and Py
ŏ
nhan) federations as they were considered to be closely related to Kogury
ŏ
and Paekche. Upholding governance based on Confucian moral virtues,
Samguk sagi
negatively depicted the Buddhist culture and primitive religions of the Three Kingdoms period and thus laid the foundation for the Confucian view of history.
Samguk sagi
reflected the political intentions
of the contemporary ruling elite who sought to preserve a government led by civil officials that had peaked in the mid-Kory
ŏ
period by fostering Confucian morality and to maintain the status quo in international relations by promoting the idea that Kory
ŏ
succeeded Silla and thus sternly opposed the policy of northward expansion.

From start to finish, Kory
ŏ
was an aristocratic state. Domestically, by inheriting and integrating the advanced cultures of the preceding dynasties of unified Silla and Parhae, Kory
ŏ
developed a brilliant aristocratic culture. Externally, the Kory
ŏ
kingdom won the war with Qidan Liao and thereby preserved its national identity as one of the most highly developed and powerful nations in all of Korea’s history.

In the twelfth century, some 200 years after Kory
ŏ
’s founding, conditions in the kingdom began rapidly to deteriorate, an apparent outcome of the dynastic cycle. The cycle was an inevitable result of the periodic weakening of royal authority, the corruption of officials, rivalry between court factions, the growth of tax-exempt aristocratic landholdings, and indifference to the problems of the masses. Beginning in the mid-twelfth century several rebellions erupted, and Kory
ŏ
society entered a period of rebellions that spanned more than 150 years.

As a small minority of renowned aristocratic lineages in the capital monopolized wealth and power, Kory
ŏ
’s officialdom began to split and develop internal power struggles, starting with the reign of King Injong (1122–1146). The long period of domestic tranquility was first broken by the treason of Yi Chagy
ŏ
m. In the period of Injong, the Inju Yi clan emerged as the most powerful aristocratic family. Meanwhile, the Kory
ŏ
kings frequently married their own close relatives to consolidate the ruling family. At the time they increased the number of intermarriages with the Inju Yi clan, increasing the number of inlaw connections to gain power. Yi Cha-y
ŏ
n had already married off his three
daughters to King Munjong (1046–1083). Then Yi Cha-gy
ŏ
m, a grandson of Yi Cha-y
ŏ
n, elevated his Inju Yi family to the pinnacle of its power. He had given a daughter as queen to King Yejong (1105–1122), and the son of that union ascended the throne as King Injong in 1122. He gave two daughters to Injong as his consorts and, through this duplicated in-law connection, monopolized power completely. At 14 years of age Injong acceded to the throne, and thus, as both the king’s father-in-law and grandfather-in-law, Yi Cha-gy
ŏ
m held real political power. Supported by the military officer Ch’
ŏ
k Chun-gy
ŏ
ng, Yi also assumed military power and wielded more authority than the king himself. It is said that he trafficked in government positions, and that meat, amounting to tens of thousands of pounds, which was offered as bribes, grew rotten at his house. Yi and his faction enlarged their personal landholdings and property by seizing real estate from others, thereby also achieving a dominant economic position.

As the kingdom was by now exhausted, a popular prophecy among the populace was that a man of the
sipp’al cha,
or eighteen child, an anagram on the character for the surname Yi, would become king and the transfer of the capital to Namgy
ŏ
ng (Seoul) would lead to the nation’s prosperity. Because his family name was Yi and the place of his family origin was Inch’
ŏ
n, close to Seoul, Yi Cha-gy
ŏ
m believed that the prophecy was accurate, and he hoped to usurp the throne. Scenting Yi’s plot, Injong laid plans with officials close to him, such as Kim Ch’an and An Po-rin, to oust Yi from power. The king’s scheme was foiled, however, by the prompt military response of Yi’s henchman, Ch’
ŏ
k Chun-gy
ŏ
ng. In 1126 Yi Cha-gy
ŏ
m burned down the palace, scorching tens of thousands of books in the royal library and the national academy, and confined Injong at his house while those close to the king were all put to death. Yi then attempted to poison the monarch, but at this point he himself was driven out by the opportunistic Ch’
ŏ
k Chun-gy
ŏ
ng, who now sided with the king, and was banished to what is present-day Y
ŏ
nggwang, South Ch
ŏ
lla province. To remove Yi Cha-gy
ŏ
m from power, Injong won support from officials of Pyongyang origin, such as Ch
ŏ
ng Chi-sang. The power of the Inju Yi clan that had spanned more than 80 years fell apart. Later Yi Cha-gy
ŏ
m was put to death, and Ch’
ŏ
k Chun-gy
ŏ
ng, who was accused of a misdemeanor by Ch
ŏ
ng Chi-sang, was purged. Landholdings and property that Yi Cha-gy
ŏ
m and his faction had seized from others were restored to their former owners.

Yi Cha-gy
ŏ
m’s treason revealed the weakness of royal authority and the power potential of the high aristocracy. Thus, in 1127, after the grave crisis had been overcome, Injong initiated political reform that would restore kingly authority
by issuing a 15-point decree. This was also a time of tribulation in foreign relations. In 1126 the Nuzhen Jin empire sent an envoy, demanding that Kory
ŏ
acknowledge Jin’s suzerainty. At this point, some officials of Pyongyang origin, including Paek Su-han, Ch
ŏ
ng Chi-sang, and the monk Myoch’
ŏ
ng, tried to take advantage of the troubled situation to seize the reins of power.

Not satisfied with Injong’s political reform, the “Pyongyang faction,” Myoch’
ŏ
ng in particular, urged the king to move the capital to Pyongyang. At the time Myoch’
ŏ
ng had become extremely popular among the masses as an expert on geomancy. To achieve his goal, Myoch’
ŏ
ng used geomantic theories, claiming that Kaes
ŏ
ng’s topography was depleted of virtue whereas Pyongyang’s was filled with vigor, and that moving the capital to Pyongyang would reinvigorate Kory
ŏ
; the result would be that 36 states, including Jin, would pay homage to Kory
ŏ
. Myoch’
ŏ
ng and his supporters further proposed that Injong declare himself emperor, secure an equal standing with the Song and Jin empires by instituting his own era name, and launch an attack on the arrogant Jin. Injong aligned himself with Myoch’
ŏ
ng for a time and constructed a palace, called
Taehwagung,
or Great Flowering Palace, in Pyongyang, which was completed in 1129.

Because moving the capital to Pyongyang meant that the Pyongyang faction would seize power, the “Kaes
ŏ
ng faction,” represented by Kim Pu-sik, now holding the reins of government, stubbornly opposed the transfer, denouncing it as an unrealistic, superstitious act. When Myoch’
ŏ
ng was unable to sway the king to his side in the face of mounting opposition from the “Kaes
ŏ
ng faction,” he and his supporters, including Cho Kwang, rose up in rebellion in 1135. Myoch’
ŏ
ng went so far as to name his short-lived state
Taewi,
meaning Great Accomplishment. At first the rebels, led by Myoch’
ŏ
ng and his “Pyongyang faction”, were in high spirits, having gained enthusiastic support from people in the northwest region. Soon, however, Myoch’
ŏ
ng was assassinated by his own army, and in early 1136 Pyongyang fell to government forces commanded by Kim Pu-sik. Myoch’
ŏ
ng’s revolt had finally come to an end. Kim Pu-sik’s
Samguk sagi,
compiled in 1145, reflected the political intentions of the ruling aristocracy in the capital to establish a stable aristocratic-bureaucratic government and prevent another Myoch’
ŏ
ng from mounting a new nationalist push.

Thirty-five years after Myoch’
ŏ
ng’s rebellion, in 1170, Kory
ŏ
was thrust into the vortex of another rebellion. This time military officers staged a coup d’état to
seize power. Kory
ŏ
ended the period of the Later Three Kingdoms by military force. In the course of consolidating royal authority, however, the dynasty proceeded to establish the principle of civil supremacy, which resulted in lowering the positions of military officials in government and society. The military had been less favored than the civil officials politically as well as economically, and had been systematically subordinated to their civil counterparts. Even the highest military command posts were given to civil officials. S
ŏ
H
ŭ
i and Kang Kam-ch’an, the two war heroes who defended Kory
ŏ
from Qidan invasions, were civil officials, and the same was true of Yun Kwan, who subjugated Nuzhens, and of Kim Pu-sik, who suppressed the rebellion of Myoch’
ŏ
ng. Military officials could only move up to government positions less than the second rank. Allocations of soldier’s land, stipulated by the Ch
ŏ
nsikwa, did not usually benefit professional soldiers, and the land that had been allocated to these soldiers was often taken from them and reassigned to pay official stipends. A long peace further reduced the status of military officers in Kory
ŏ
society. For some 150 years, from the end of war with Liao in 1019 to the revolt of military officers in 1170, Kory
ŏ
had not experienced any major war disturbances.

In the reign of King
Ŭ
ijong (1146–1170), the mistreatment of military officials reached a climax.
Ŭ
ijong, a monarch who enjoyed a carefree life, built a number of royal villas, pavilions, and temples in and around the capital, and indulged in a hedonistic lifestyle, exhausting the nation’s financial resources. Although civil officials who followed the king shared in his pleasures, life was wretched for most military officials, including the highest-ranking officers, the sangjanggun and taejanggun, as they served as mere military escorts to the king and his civil officials. Discontent among the military officials had already reached an explosive point when some of them suffered indignities at the hands of civil officials. In the reign of King Injong, for example, Kim Ton-jung, the son of Kim Pu-sik, incurred the wrath of Ch
ŏ
ng Chung-bu, a high-level military officer, by setting his beard on fire with a candle.