Like almost every country on earth, whose history is known, Corea is inhabited by a race that is not aboriginal. The present occupiers of the land drove out or conquered the people whom they found upon it. They are the descendants of a stock whose ancestral seats were beyond those ever white mountains which buttress the northern frontier.

Nevertheless, for the origins of their national history, we must look to one whom the Coreans of this nineteenth century still call the founder of their social order. The scene of his labors is laid partly within the peninsula, and chiefly in Manchuria, on the well watered plains of Shing-king, formerly called Liao Tung.

The third dynasty of the thirty-three or thirty-four lines of rulers who have filled the oft-changed throne of China, is known in history as the Shang (or Yin). It began B.C. 1766, and after a line of twenty-eight sovereigns, ended in Chow Sin, who died B.C. 1122. He was an unscrupulous tyrant, and has been called “the Nero of China.”

One of his nobles was Ki Tsze, viscount of Ki (or Latinized, Kicius). He was a profound scholar and author of important portions of the classic book, entitled the Shu King. He was a counsellor of the tyrant king, and being a man of upright character, was greatly scandalized at the conduct of his licentious and cruel master.

The sage remonstrated with his sovereign hoping to turn him from his evil ways. In this noble purpose he was assisted by two other men of rank named Pi Kan and Wei Tsze. All their efforts were of no avail, and finding the reformation of the tyrant hopeless, Wei Tsze, though a kinsman of the king, voluntarily exiled himself from the realm, while Pi Kan, also a relative of Chow Sin, was cruelly murdered in the following manner:

The king, mocking the wise counsellor, cried out, “They say [12]that a sage has seven orifices to his heart; let us see if this is the case with Pi Kan.” This Chinese monarch, himself so much like Herod in other respects, had a wife who in her character resembled Herodias. It was she who expressed the bloody wish to see the heart of Pi Kan. By the imperial order the sage was put to death and his body ripped open. His heart, torn out, was brought before the cruel pair. Ki Tsze, the third counsellor, was cast into prison.

Meanwhile the people and nobles of the empire were rising in arms against the tyrant whose misrule had become intolerable. They were led on by one Wu Wang, who crossed the Yellow River, and met the tyrant on the plains of Muh. In the great battle that ensued, the army of Chow Sin was defeated. Escaping to his palace, and ordering it to be set on fire, he perished in the flames.

Among the conqueror’s first acts was the erection of a memorial mound over the grave of Pi Kan, and an order that Ki Tsze should be released from prison, and appointed Prime Minister of the realm.

But the sage’s loyalty exceeded his gratitude. In spite of the magnanimity of the offer, Ki Tsze frankly told the conqueror that duty to his deposed sovereign forbade him serving one whom he could not but regard as a usurper. He then departed into the regions lying to the northeast. With him went several thousand Chinese emigrants, mostly the remnant of the defeated army, now exiles, who made him their king. It is not probable that in his distant realm he received investment from or paid tribute to King Wu. Such an act would be a virtual acknowledgment of the righteousness of rebellion and revolution. It would prove that the sage forgave the usurper. Some Chinese historians state that Ki Tsze accepted a title from Wu Wang. Others maintain that the investiture “was a euphemism to shield the character of the ancestor of Confucius.” The migration of Ki Tsze and his followers took place 1122 B.C.

Ki Tsze began vigorously to reduce the aboriginal people of his realm to order. He policed the borders, gave laws to his subjects, and gradually introduced the principles and practice of Chinese etiquette and polity throughout his domain. Previous to his time the people lived in caves and holes in the ground, dressed in leaves, and were destitute of manners, morals, agriculture and cooking, being ignorant savages. The divine being, Dan Kun, had partially civilized them, but Kishi, who brought 5,000 Chinese colonists with [13]him, taught the aborigines letters, reading and writing, medicine, many of the arts, and the political principles of feudal China. The Japanese pronounce the founder’s name Kishi, and the Coreans Kei-tsa or Kysse.

The name conferred by Kishi, the civilizer, upon his new domain is that now in use by the modern Coreans—Chō-sen or Morning Calm.

This ancient kingdom of Chō-sen, according to the Coreans, comprised the modern Chinese province of Shing-king, which is now about the size of Ohio, having an area of 43,000 square miles, and a population of 8,000,000 souls. It is entirely outside and west of the limits of modern Corea.

In addition to the space already named, the fluctuating boundaries of this ancient kingdom embraced at later periods much territory beyond the Liao River toward Peking, and inside the line now marked by the Great Wall. To the east the modern province of Ping-an was included in Chō-sen, the Ta-tong River being its most stable boundary. “Scientific frontiers,” though sought for in those ancient times, were rather ideal than hard and fast. With all due allowance for elastic boundaries, we may say that ancient Chō-sen lay chiefly within the Liao Tung peninsula and the Corean province of Ping-an, that the Liao and the Ta-tong Rivers enclosed it, and that its northern border lay along the 42d parallel of latitude.

The descendants of Ki Tsze are said to have ruled the country until the fourth century before the Christian era. Their names and deeds are alike unknown, but it is stated that there were forty-one generations, making a blood-line of eleven hundred and thirty-one years. The line came to an end in 9 A.D., though they had lost power long before this time.

By common consent of Chinese and native tradition, Ki Tsze is the founder of Corean social order. If this tradition be true, the civilization of the hermit nation nearly equals, in point of time, that of China, and is one of the very oldest in the world, being contemporaneous with that of Egypt and Chaldea. It is certain that the natives plume themselves upon their antiquity, and that the particular vein of Corean arrogance and contempt for western civilization is kindred to that of the Hindoos and Chinese. From the lofty height of thirty centuries of tradition, which to them is unchallenged history, they look with pitying contempt upon the upstart nations of yesterday, who live beyond the sea under some other heaven. When the American Admiral, John Rodgers, in [14]1871, entered the Han River with his fleet, hoping to make a treaty, he was warned off with the repeated answer that “Corea was satisfied with her civilization of four thousand years, and wanted no other.” The perpetual text of all letters from Seoul to Peking, of all proclamations against Christianity, of all death-warrants of converts, and of the oft-repeated refusals to open trade with foreigners is the praise of Ki Tsze as the founder of the virtue and order of “the little kingdom,” and the loyalty of Corea to his doctrines.

In the letter of the king to the Chinese emperor, dated November 25, 1801, the language following the opening sentence is as given below:

“His Imperial Majesty knows that since the time when the remnants of the army of the Yin dynasty migrated to the East [1122 B.C.], the little kingdom has always been distinguished by its exactness in fulfilling all that the rites prescribe, justice and loyalty, and in general by fidelity to her duties,” etc., etc.

In a royal proclamation against the Christian religion, dated January 25, 1802, occurs the following sentence:

“The kingdom granted to Ki Tsze has enjoyed great peace during four hundred years [since the establishment of the ruling dynasty], in all the extent of its territory of two thousand ri and more,” etc.

These are but specimens from official documents which illustrate their pride in antiquity, and the reverence in which their first law giver is held by the Coreans.

Nevertheless, though Kishi may possibly be called the founder of ancient Chō-sen, and her greatest legislator, yet he can scarcely be deemed the ancestor of the people now inhabiting the Corean peninsula. For the modern Coreans are descended from a stock of later origin, and quite different from the ancient Chō-senese. From Ki Tsze, however, sprang a line of kings, and it is possible that his blood courses in some of the noble families of the kingdom.

As the most ancient traditions of Japan and Corea are based on Chinese writings, there is no discrepancy in their accounts of the beginning of Chō-sen history.

Ki Tsze and his colonists were simply the first immigrants to the country northeast of China, of whom history speaks. He found other people on the soil before him, concerning whose origin nothing is known in writing. The land was not densely populated, but of their numbers, or time of coming of the aborigines, or [15]whether of the same race as the tribes in the outlying islands of Japan, no means yet in our power can give answer.

Even the story of Ki Tsze, when critically examined, does not satisfy the rigid demands of modern research. Mayers, in his “Chinese Reader’s Manual” (p. 369), does not concede the first part of the Chow dynasty (1122 B.C.–255 A.D.) to be more than semi-historical, and places the beginning of authentic Chinese history between 781 and 719 B.C., over four centuries after Ki Tsze’s time. Ross (p. 11) says that “the story of Kitsu is not impossible, but it is to be received with suspicion.” It is not at all improbable that the Chō-sen of Ki Tsze’s founding lay in the Sungari valley, and was extended southward at a later period.

It is not for us to dissect too critically the tradition concerning the founder of Corea, nor to locate exactly the scene of his labors. Suffice it to say that the general history, prior to the Christian era, of the country whose story we are to tell, divides itself into that of the north, or Chō-sen, and that of the south, below the Ta-tong River, in which region three kingdoms arose and flourished, with varying fortunes, during a millennium.

We return now to the well-established history of Chō-sen. The Great Wall of China was built by Cheng, the founder of the Tsin dynasty (B.C. 255–209), who began the work in 239 A.D. Before his time, China had been a feudal conglomerate of petty, warring kingdoms. He, by the power of the sword, consolidated them into one homogeneous empire and took the title of the “First Universal Emperor” (Shi Whang Ti). Not content with sweeping away feudal institutions, and building the Great Wall, he ordered all the literary records and the ancient scriptures of Confucius to be destroyed by fire. Yet the empire, whose perpetuity he thought to secure by building a rampart against the barbarians without, and by destroying the material for rebellious thought within, fell to pieces soon after, at his death, when left to the care of a foolish son, and China was plunged into bloody anarchy again.

One of these petty kingdoms that arose on the ruins of the empire was that of Yen, which began to encroach upon its eastern neighbor Chō-sen.

In the later days of the Ki Tsze family, great anarchy prevailed, and the last kings of the line were unable to keep their domain in order, or guard its boundaries.

Taking advantage of its weakness, the king of Yen began boldly and openly to seize upon Chō-sen territory, annexing thousands of [16]square miles to his own domain. By a spasmodic effort, the successors of Ki Tsze again became ascendant, reannexing a large part of the territory of Yen, and receiving great numbers of her people, who had fled from civil war in China, within the borders of Chō-sen for safety and peace.

Thus the spoiler was spoiled, but, later on, the kingdom of Yen was again set up, and the rival states fixed their boundaries and made peace. The Han dynasty in B.C. 206 claimed the imperial power, and sent a summons to the king of Yen to become vassal. On his refusing, the Chinese emperor despatched an army against him, defeated his forces in battle, extinguished his dynasty, and annexed his kingdom.

One of the survivors of this revolt, named Wei-man, with one thousand of his followers, fled to the east. Dressing themselves like wild savages they entered Chō-sen, pretending, with Gibeonitish craft, that they had come from the far west, and begged to be received as subjects.

Kijun, the king, like another Joshua, believing their professions, welcomed them and made their leader a vassal of high rank, with the title of ‘Guardian of the Western Frontier.’ He also set apart a large tract of land for his salary and support.

In his post at the west, Wei-man played the traitor, and collecting a number of his former countrymen from the Yen province, suddenly sent to Kijun a messenger, informing him that a large Chinese army of the conquering Han was about to invade Chō-sen. At the same time, he suggested that he should be called to the royal side and be made Protector of the Capital. His desire being granted, he hastened with his forces and suddenly appearing before the royal castle, attacked it. Kijun was beaten, and fled by sea, escaping in a boat to the southern end of the peninsula.

Wei-man then proclaimed himself King of Chō-sen, 194 B.C. He set out on a career of conquest and seized several of the neighboring provinces, and Chō-sen again expanded her boundaries to cover an immense area. Wei-man built a city somewhere east of the Ta-tong River. It was named Wang-hien.

Two provinces of modern Corea were thus included within Chō-sen at this date. The new kingdom grew in wealth, power, and intelligence. Many thousands of the Chinese gentry, fleeing before the conquering arms of the Han “usurpers,” settled within the limits of Chō-sen, adding greatly to its prosperity.

During the reign of Yukio (Chinese, Yow Jin), the grandson of [17]Wei-man, he received a summons to become vassal to the Chinese emperor, who sublimely declared that henceforward the eastern frontier of China should be the Ta-tong River—thus virtually wiping out Chō-sen with a proclamation. In B.C. 109, a Chinese ambassador sailed over from China, entered the Ta-tong River, and visited Yukio in his castle. He plead in vain with Yukio to render homage to his master.

Nevertheless, to show his respect for the emperor and his envoy, Yukio sent an escort to accompany the latter on his way. The sullen Chinaman, angry at his defeat, accepted the safe conduct of the Chō-sen troops until beyond the Ta-tong River, and then treacherously put their chief to death. Hurrying back to his master, he glossed over his defeat, and boasted of his perfidious murder. He was rewarded with the appointment of the governorship of Liao Tung.

Smarting at the insult and menace of this act, Yukio, raising an army, marched to the west and slew the traitor. Having thus unfurled the standard of defiance against the mighty Han dynasty, he returned to his castle, and awaited with anxious preparation the coming of the invading hosts which he knew would be hurled upon him from China.

The avenging expedition, that was to carry the banners of China farther toward the sunrise than ever before, was despatched both by land and sea, B.C. 108. The horse and foot soldiers took the land route around the head of Liao Tung Gulf, crossed on the ice of the Yalu River, and marched south to the Ta-tong, where the Chō-sen men attacked their van and scattered it.

The fleet sailed over from Shantung, and landed a force of several thousand men on the Corean shore, in February or March, B.C. 107. Without waiting for the entire army to penetrate the country, Yukio attacked the advance guards and drove them to the mountains in disorder.

Diplomacy was now tried, and a representative of the emperor was sent to treat with Yukio. The latter agreed to yield and become vassal, but had no confidence in the general whom he had just defeated. His memory of Chinese perfidy was still so fresh, that he felt unable to trust himself to his recently humbled enemies, and the negotiations ended in failure. As usual, with the unsuccessful, the Chinaman lost his head.

Recourse was again had to the sword. The Chinese crossed the Ta-tong River on the north, and defeating the Chō-sen army, [18]marched to the king’s capital, and laid siege to it in conjunction with the naval forces. In spite of their superior numbers, the invaders were many months vainly beleaguering the fortress. Yet, though the garrison wasted daily, the king would not yield. Knowing that defeat, with perhaps a cruel massacre, awaited them, four Chō-sen men, awaiting their opportunity, during the fighting, discharged their weapons at Yukio, and leaving him dead, opened the gates of the citadel, and the Chinese entered.

With the planting of the Han banners on the city walls, B.C. 107, the existence of the kingdom of Chō-sen came to an end. Henceforth, for several centuries, Liao Tung and the land now comprised within the two northwestern provinces of Corea, were parts of China.

The conquered territory was at once divided into four provinces, two of which comprised that part of Corea north of the Ta-tong River. The other two were in Liao Tung, occupying its eastern and its western half. Within the latter was the district of Kokorai, or Kaokuli, at whose history we shall now glance.

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