Corea: The Hermit Nation

The fertile and well-watered region drained by the Amur River and its tributaries, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to Lake Baikal, covers the ancestral seats of many nations, and is perhaps the home of nations yet to arise. It may be likened to a great intermittent geyser-spring which, at intervals, overflows with terrific force and volume. The movements of population southward seem, on a review of Chinese and Corean history, almost as regular as a law of nature. As the conquerors from the central Asian plateaus have over and over again descended into India, as the barbarians overran the Roman empire, so out of the region drained by the Amur and its tributaries have burst forth, time and again, floods of conquest to overwhelm the rich plains of China. Or, if we regard the flowery and grassy lands of Manchuria and beyond as a great hive, full of busy life which, from the pressure of increasing numbers, must swarm off to relieve the old home, we shall have a true illustration. Time and again have clouds of human bees, with the sting of their swords and the honey of their new energy, issued from this ancient hive. The swarms receive different names in history: Hun, Turk, Tartar, Mongol, Manchiu, but they all emerge from the same source, giving or receiving dynastic names, but being in reality Tungusic people of the same basic stock.

A tribe inhabiting one of the ravines or rich river flats of the Sungari region increases in wealth and numbers. A powerful chief leads them to war and victory. Tribes and lands are annexed. Martial valor, wealth, and strength increase. Ambition and the pressure of numbers tempt to farther conquest. Over and beyond the Great Wall is the ever-glittering prize—teeming China. The march begins southward. After many a battle, and only, it may be, after a generation of war against the imperial legions beyond the frontiers, the goal is reached. The Middle Kingdom is conquered and a new dynasty sits on the Dragon [64]Throne, until long peace enervates and luxury weakens. Then out of the old northern seats of population rolls a new flood of conquest, and a new swarm of conquerors is hived off.

Thus we see the original land embracing the Amur and Sungari valleys has had its periods of power and decay, of historical and unhistorical life. Unity and movement make history, disintegration and apathy cause the page of history to be blank. But the land is still there with the people and the possibilities of the future.

In spite of the associations of hoary antiquity that cluster around Asiatic countries, the reader of history does not expect to hear of single empires enduring through many centuries. With the exception of Japan, no nation of Asia can show a dynastic line extending through a millennium. The empires founded by Asiatic conquerors are short-lived. The countries and the people remain, but the rulers constantly change, and the building up, flourishing, decay, and dissolution suggest the seasons rather than the centuries. No enduring political fabrics, like those of Rome or Britain, are known in Asia. Though China and India abide like the oak, their rulers change like the leaves. Socially, these countries are the symbols of petrifaction, politically they are as the kaleidoscope. From this law of continuous political mutation, Corea has not been free.

In one of these epochs of historical movement, at the opening of the eighth century, there arose the kingdom of Puhai, the capital of which was the present city of Kirin. Its northern boundaries first touched the Sungari, and later the Amur, shifting to the Sungari again. Its southern border was at first the Tumen River, and later the modern province of Ham-kiung was included in it. Lines drawn southwardly through Lake Hanka on the east, and Mukden on the west, would enclose its longitude. Its life lasted from about 700 to 925 A.D. This kingdom was continually on bad terms with China, and the Tang emperors for nearly a century attempted to crush it into vassalage. Puhai made brave resistance, being aided not only by the large numbers of Koraians, who had fled when beaten by the Chinese across the Tumen River, but also by the Japanese, whose supremacy they acknowledged by payment of tribute. With the latter their relations were always of a peaceful and pleasant nature, and the correspondence and other documents of the visiting embassies to the mikado’s court are still preserved in Japan. [65]

Yet though Puhai was able to resist China and hold part of the old territory of Korai, it fell before the persistent attacks of the Kitan tribes, whose empire, lasting from 907 to 1125 A.D., stretched from west of Lake Baikal to the Pacific Ocean. In the early part of the tenth century this Puhai kingdom, whose age was scarcely two centuries, melted away again into tribes and villages, each with its chief. The country being without political unity returned to unhistorical obscurity, as part of the Kitan empire. Without crossing the Tumen, to enter China by way of Corea, the Kitans marched at once around the Ever-White Mountains and down the Liao Tung valley into China.

The breaking up of Puhai was not without its influence on the Corean peninsula. As early as the ninth century thousands of refugees, driven before the Kitans or dissatisfied with nomad life on the plains, recrossed the Tumen and a great movement of emigration set into Northern Corea, which again became populous, cultivated, and rich. With increasing prosperity better government was desired. The worthlessness of the rulers and the prospect of a successful revolution tempted the ambition of a Buddhist monk named Kung-wo who, in 912 A.D., left his monastery and raised the flag of rebellion. He set forth to establish another political fabric of mushroom duration, which was destined to make way for a more permanent kingdom, and, in the end, united Corea.

With his followers, Kung-wo attacked the city of Kaichow (in the modern Kang-wen province), and was so far successful as to enter it and proclaim himself king. His personal success was of short duration. His lieutenant, Wang-ken, that is Wang the founder, was a descendant of the old kingly house of Korai. During all the time of Chinese occupancy, or Shinra supremacy, his family had kept alive their spirit, traditions, and claims. Thinking he could rule better than a priest, Wang put the ex-monk to death and proclaimed himself the true sovereign of Korai. All this went on without the interference of China, which at this time was torn by internal disorder and the ravages of the same Kitan tribes that had destroyed Puhai. Wang made Ping-an and Kaichow the capitals of his kingdom, and resolved to take full advantage of his opportunity to conquer the entire peninsula and unite all its parts under his sceptre.

Circumstances made this an easy task. With China passive, Shinra weak, through long absorption in luxury and the arts of [66]peace, and with most part of the population of the peninsula of Koraian blood and descent, the work was easy. The whole country, from the Ever-White Mountains to Quelpart Island, was overrun and welded into unity. The name of Shinra was blotted out after a line of fifty-six kings and a life of nine hundred and ninety-three years. For the first time the peninsula became a political unit, and the name Korai, springing to life again like the Arabian phœnix out of its ashes, became the symbol alike of united Corea and of the race which peopled it. Even yet the name Korai (Gauli or Gori in the vernacular) is generally used by the people.

The probabilities are that the people of the old Fuyu race, descendants of the tribes of Kokorai, as the more vigorous stock, had already so far supplanted the old aboriginal people inhabiting Southern Corea as to make conquest by Wang, who was one of their own blood, easy. This is shown in a series of maps representing the three kingdoms of Corea from 201 to 655 A.D., by the Japanese scholar Otsuki Tōyō. At the former date the Kokorai people beyond that part of their domain conquered by China have occupied the land as far south as the Han River, or to the 37th parallel. Later, Shinra, in 593, and again in 655, backed by Chinese armies, had regained her territory a degree or two northward, and in the eighth and ninth centuries, acting as the ally of China, ruled all the country to the Tumen River. Yet, though Shinra held the land, the inhabitants were the same, namely, the stock of Korai, ready to rise against their rulers and to annihilate Shinra in a name and monarchy that had in it nationality and the prestige of their ancient freedom and greatness.

Thoroughly intent on unifying his realm, Wang chose a central location for the national capital. Kion-chiu, the metropolis of Shinra, was too far south, Ping-an, the royal seat of old Korai, was too far north; but one hundred miles nearer “the river” Han, was Sunto. This city, now called Kai-seng, is twenty-five miles from Seoul and equally near the sea. Wang made Sunto what it has been for over nine centuries, a fortified city of the first rank, the chief commercial centre of the country, and a seat of learning. It remained the capital until 1392 A.D. Wang-ken or Wang, the founder of the new dynasty under which the people were to be governed for over four hundred years, was an ardent Buddhist. Spite of his having put the monk to death to further personal ends, he became the defender of the India faith and made it the official religion. Monasteries were founded and temples built in [67]great numbers. To furnish revenues for the support of these, tracts of land were set apart as permanent endowment. The four centuries of the house of Korai are the palmy days of Corean Buddhism.

From China, which at this time was enjoying that era of literary splendor, for which the Sung dynasty was noted, there came an impulse both to scholastic activity and to something approaching popular education.

The Nido, or native syllabary, which had been invented by Chul-chong, the statesman of Shinra, now came into general use. While Chinese literature and the sacred books of Buddhism were studied in the original Sanscrit, popular works were composed in Corean and written out in the Nido, or vernacular syllables. The printing press, invented by the Sung scholars, was introduced and books were printed from cut blocks. The Japanese are known to have adopted printing from Corea as early as the twelfth century, when a work of the Buddhist canon was printed from wooden blocks. “A Corean book is known which dates authentically from the period 1317–1324, over a century before the earliest printed book known in Europe.” The use of metal type, made by moulding and casting, is not distinctly mentioned in Corea until the year 1420, and the invention and use of the Unmun, a true native alphabet, seems to belong to the same period. The eleven vowels and fourteen consonants serve both as an alphabet and a syllabary, the latter being the most ancient system, and the former an improvement on it.

The unifier of Corea died in 945 and was succeeded by his son Wu. Fifteen years later the last of the five weak dynasties that had rapidly succeeded each other in China, fell. The Chinese emperor proposing, and the Corean king being willing, the latter hastened to send tribute, and formed an alliance of friendship with the imperial Sung, who swayed the destinies of China for the next 166 years (960–1101).

Korai soon came into collision with the Kitans in the following manner. The royal line of united Corea traced their descent directly from the ancient kings of Kokorai, and therefore claimed relationship with the princes of Puhai. On the strength of this claim, the Koraian king asserted his right to the whole of Liao Tung, which had been formerly held by Puhai. The Kitans, having matters of greater importance to attend to at the time, allowed its temporary occupation by Korai troops. Nevertheless the king [68]thought it best to send homage to the Kitan emperor, in order to get a clear title to the territory. In 1012 he despatched an embassy acknowledging the Kitan supremacy. This verbal message did not satisfy the strong conqueror, who demanded that the Koraian king should come in person and make obeisance. The latter refused. A feud at once broke out between them, which led to a war, in which Korai was worsted and stripped of all her territory west of the Yalu River.

Palladius has pointed out the interesting fact that a little village about twenty miles north of Tie-ling, and seventy miles north of Mukden, called Gauli-chan (Korai village) still witnesses by its name to its former history, and to the possession by Corea of territory west of the Yalu.

The Kitans, not satisfied with recovering Liao Tung, crossed the river and invaded Korai, in 1015. By this time a new nation, under the name of Nüjun or Ninchi, had formed around Lake Hanka, in part of the territory of extinct Puhai. With their new frontagers the Koraians made an alliance “as solid as iron and stone,” and with their aid drove back the Kitan invaders.

Henceforth the boundaries of Corea remained stationary, and have never extended beyond the limits with which the western world is familiar.

An era of peace and prosperity set in, and a thriving trade sprang up between the Nüjun and Korai. The two nations, cemented in friendship through a common fear of the Kitans, grew apace in numbers and prosperity.

The Kitans were known to Chinese authors as early as the fifth century, seven nomad tribes being at that time confederate under their banners. At the beginning of the tenth century, these wanderers had been transformed into hordes of disciplined cavalry. Their wealth and intelligence having increased by conquest, they formed a great empire in 925, which extended from the Altai Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and from within the Great Wall to the Yablonoi Mountains, having Peking for one of its capitals. It flourished until the twelfth century (A.D. 1125), when it gave way to the Kin empire, which held Mongolia and still more territory than the Kitans possessed within what is now China proper.

This Kin empire was founded by the expansion of the Nüjun, who, from their seats north of the Tumen and east of the Sungari, had gradually widened, and by conquest absorbed the Kitans. Aguta, the founder of the new empire, gave it the name of the [69]Golden Dominion. During its existence Corea was not troubled by her great neighbor, and for two hundred years enjoyed peace within her borders. Her commerce now flourished at all points of the compass, both on land, with her northern and western neighbors, with the Japanese on the east, and the Chinese south and west. Much direct intercourse in ships, guided by the magnetic needle, “the chariot of the south,” took place between Ningpo and Sunto. Mr. Edkins states that the oldest recorded instance of the use of the mariner’s compass is that in the Chinese historian’s account of the voyage of the imperial ambassador to Corea, from Nanking by way of Ningpo, in a fleet of eight vessels, in the year 1122.

The Arabs, who about this time were also trading with the Coreans, and had lived in their country, soon afterward introduced this silent friend of the mariner into their own country in the west, whence it found its way into Europe and to the hands of Columbus. To the eye of the Corean its mysterious finger pointed to the south. To the western man it pointed to the lode-star.

The huge wide-open eyes which the sailors of Chinese Asia paint at the prow of their ship, to discover a path in the sea, became more than ever an empty fancy before this unerring pathfinder. As useless as the ever-open orbs on a mummy lid, these lidless eyes were relegated to the domain of poetry, while the swinging needle opened new paths of science and discovery.

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