Ch 4 - Koryo and the Khitan

The Later Three Kingdoms

The serious decline in royal authority and the neglect and indifference of the aristocracy left Silla vulnerable to a serious challenge. Born out of peasant rebellions, two new states appeared in Korea to battle for dominance and to the victor would go the spoils of war.

The Kingdom of Silla faced an internal crisis in the last two decades of the ninth century that threatened its future existence every bit as much as had its earlier rivals in Koguryo and Paekche. Kumsong's ruling nobility, preoccupied with infighting among the royal clans, completely ignored the welfare of the people and the nation as a whole. To escape the turmoil, many of Silla's more powerful aristocratic families left the capital and moved to the countryside, where they established themselves as local "castle lords," songju, or generals, changgun. Living and behaving much like China's great warlord families, they exercised de facto control over their own little "kingdoms" for several generations, free to do pretty much whatever they pleased. Silla's wealthy aristocracy operated virtually unfettered by the central government. No royal edict could check the power of these men, who freely levied taxes on the peasants in their economic jurisdiction and extracted forced labor from them without mercy.

The years of neglect and indifference by Silla's central government seriously weakened its ruling power. Faced with a shift in financial control of the kingdom from Kumsong to the castle lords, a steadily shrinking tax base, the growing erosion of its economy, and the aristocracy's ever-increasing demands on the treasury to support its opulent lifestyle, the government took the unbelievable step of forcibly collecting taxes from county and provincial areas. This became the final straw laid upon the backs of an already heavily-burdened peasantry. The high taxes and forced labor demands of both the government and the castle lords forced large numbers of peasants to abandon their land and roam the countryside. It also triggered a response that paralleled what happened in China under similar circumstances;  it drove the peasantry into seething rebellion.

In the early years of the Silla uprisings, local commanders led the majority of the rebel forces operating across the peninsula. Limited by weapons and manpower however, these peasant bands actually controlled little territory beyond their own local neighborhoods. Before long however, two commanders managed to pull together enough strength to openly challenge Silla's central government for the mantle of legitimacy. The two men fomented a three-way contest for supremacy on the peninsula, initiated a reign of fear and terror that lasted for fifty years, and triggered a wrenching change in the direction of the peninsula's future.

Born of poor peasant stock in Sangju, Korea, Kyon-hwon was an adventurous young man who joined the military at an early age. Assigned to defend the southwestern coastal region of Silla's frontier, he earned meritorious promotions for his skill, dedication to duty, and valor in combat. Despite his achievements however, Kyon-hwon's heart remained with his peasant heritage. He joined local rebels as the first major peasant revolt erupted around his native village in 889. Taking full advantage of his military background, he came to command an army unit encamped on Korea's southwest coast. Just three years after his first revolt, Kyon-hwon took the leadership of an insurgent group of farmers that occupied Mujinju (modern Kwangju) in South Cholla Province. Kyon-hwon led his peasant "grass brigands" throughout southwest Silla, encouraged by his victories over government troops. As rebellions flared up throughout the country, they seized the city of Kwangju, then marched north, where Kyon-hwon established a base of operations at Wansanju (modern Chonju). For the next ten years Kyon-hwon's rebels unhesitatingly engaged any government troops sent into the area to suppress them.

Driven by a burning desire to exact revenge from Silla for the death of Paekche's King Uija, Kyon-hwon proclaimed himself king of a new state in 900. He openly displayed this hatred by naming his kingdom Later Paekche after Silla's one-time arch enemy. Seated on a throne of his own making, Kyon-hwon became an intractable and despotic ruler who nurtured a deep-seated enmity toward Silla for grievances both real and imagined. Neither his peasant roots nor the years he spent as a foot soldier tempered his growing strength and ambition. Though he was a willful, iron-fisted and uncompromising ruler, Kyon-hwon had no talent for politics and possessed none of the skills necessary for creating and managing a viable state. He not only set himself against Silla's royalty and aristocracy, but once he became a ruling figure in Later Paekche he began practicing many of the same abuses. Furthermore, he failed to develop allegiances among provincial landlords, the very men whose power was deemed an essential element of any Korean government of the time.

One of the more notable victims of the intra-clan battles that kept Kumsong's aristocracy in turmoil was the king's own son, Prince Kung'ye. Leaving the capital - some believe he was actually driven from Kumsong - the disheartened prince turned to the secular life of a Buddhist monk. Not long thereafter, he found himself swept up in the explosive emotions of Silla's peasant revolt and, like Kyon-hwon, cast his lot with the rebel leader Ki-hwon in 891. He later joined a rebel group in the north central region of Silla commanded by Yang-gil, who gave him command of a small contingent of men out of respect for his former social rank. The former Buddhist monk admirably acquitted Yang-gil's judgment by capturing vast areas in Kangwon, Kyonggi, and Hwanghae provinces.

As Kung'ye gained experience, he enlarged his personal army and consolidated his control over them. Shortly after getting his first taste of the perquisites of power, Kung'ye turned on his one time benefactor and overthrew Yang-gil. In 901, a year after Kyon-hwon proclaimed the state of Later Paekche, Kung'ye created his own new state and established his first capital at Songak (modern Kaesong). He called his kingdom Later Koguryo, claiming it to be the legitimate successor to the former kingdom of Koguryo. Not long after Kung'ye's troops arrived in Songak, twenty-year-old Wang Kon joined the rebels.

Wang Kon was neither a peasant nor a commoner, but the grandson of Chakchegon, patriarch of a gentry family of wealthy merchants who had earned their wealth in the lucrative China trade. Over the years, his family managed to extend its economic dominance in the area around Songak, parts of Hwanghae province, Kanghwa Island, and the plains along the lower River between Seoul and the Yellow Sea. Initially serving as a low level troop commander under Kung'ye, Wang Kon initially fought in small-scale military operations. Drawing on the seafaring skills he developed as a maritime trader in his family business, he soon began operating on his own initiative and went on the offensive, subduing most of Korea's west coast. He successfully occupied Kumsong, Chindo and a number of other coastal points. His troops conducted numerous raids into the rugged mountain territory of south-central Korea where they successfully blocked Later Paekche's communication links with both China and Japan and inhibited Kyon-hwon's ability to attack northward from Later Paekche. In recognition of Wang Kon's military ability Kung'ye gave him command of a much larger army.

Kung'ye renamed his state T'aebong and ordered the construction of a new capital city in the foothills east-northeast of Seoul at Ch'orwon. After moving into his new capitol, he set about creating an entirely new government structure with all the trappings. He appointed Wang Kon as his chief minister, established a chancellery to oversee government affairs, instituted a number of ministries, and created all the requisite administrative support offices, each patterned after many of Silla's organizational structures. Superficially at least, Kung'ye sat in Ch'orwon at the head of a rather impressive state administrative apparatus. Once he settled in as head of this new state, Kung'ye gave full rein to the one passion that had driven him since he left Kumsong years earlier, a burning enmity of his former Silla homeland. This was not merely strong opposition, but deep-seated hatred. Kung'ye required all his subjects to refer to Silla as the "nation of the damned," and reportedly ordered that any person from Silla who entered his kingdom should be killed.

Like Kyon-hwon in Later Paekche, what Kung'ye lacked in political talent he more than made up for by ruling with unmitigated tyranny. Ruling power granted by those being ruled can be held only so long as the people continue to accede that power. Rule by brute force however, can only be held by the continued application of force, and Kung'ye was noted for the acts of terror he used to maintain himself in power. He rationalized his dictatorial rule by turning to the strong influence and mystique of Buddhism, which he had once studied. His inordinately suspicious nature caused him to mistrust the motives of virtually everyone around him. Many men who had the misfortune to serve this despot fell victim to his repeated claim to possess the supernatural power to read other people's minds.

In 918, driven by the desperate desire for self-preservation, Kung'ye's own generals turned against him in a military coup led by Wang Kon. Accusing Kung'ye of misdemeanors and administrative malpractice, they drove him from the royal court in Ch'orwon and captured him while he attempted to flee the capital city. Kung'ye died at the hands of the very people he sought to rule. Kung'ye's generals immediately brought Wang Kon forward as his successor. After assuming the crown, Wang Kon renamed his kingdom Koryo, adopted the era name of "Heaven's Mandate," and moved the capital from Ch'orwon back to his hometown of Songak (modern Kaesong) . Unlike Kung'ye and Kyon-hwon, Wang Kon belonged to a local elite class and actively sought and received the support of wealthy estate owners and merchants, the very men whose economic and political power had overwhelmed the Silla government. He thus consolidated his rule and organized his government with the firm backing of a local power base that would not only willingly support him, but would not be shaken by any single political crisis. At the time Wang Kon founded Koryo, three rival kingdoms dominated the peninsula:  Silla, Later Paekche, and Koryo, known collectively as the Later Three Kingdoms.