Ch 7 - The Death of Koryo

Out of the Darkness

Nearly bankrupt, beset with feuding political factions and Mongol queens, Koryo's rulers had little chance to effectively oppose Mongol domination. In China, a succession of incompetent Yuan monarchs so debilitated the government the Mongols began losing control of their Empire. The Red Turban Rebellion spread into Manchuria and Koryo. The removal of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty set in place a force that would rule China for the next three centuries.

King Chungsuk's Mongol queen died of an illness in 1319, an event that raised hope among the Shenyang political faction they could now place their own king, Crown Prince Wang Ko, on the Koryo throne. News of the queen's death prompted members of the Shenyang faction to spread a false report that she had actually been murdered. The report enraged the Yuan court and put King Chungsuk in a troublesome position with Khanbalik. Chungsuk attempted to use his fall from favor as an opportunity to attempt a break with Yuan rule and rid the court of his father's followers, the men who constituted the Shenyang faction.

A nearly bankrupt government and the increasingly clamorous bickering of political factions in both Kaesong and Shenyang set the stage for sweeping changes in Koryo. King Chunghye deposed Chungsuk in 1330. Chungsuk retook the throne two years later and managed to hold on for seven more years. All the while, the Shenyang faction continued their efforts to place Wang Ko on the Koryo throne, going so far as to foment a short-lived armed revolt. This back and forth power struggle continued through the reigns of Chunghye (1339-1344), Chungmok (1344-1348), and Chungjong (1348-1351). With Kaesong embroiled in internal power struggles and with the Mongols in their very midst as queens, Koryo's rulers had little chance to organize any effective opposition to their Mongol overlords.

It is no understatement to say that political events in China now had a greater influence on Koryo than at any time in its past. Following the dynamic and beneficent 35-year reign of Kublai Khan, a string of incompetent, largely autocratic and self-serving Mongol emperors seemed to appear and disappear every few years. In the 39 years following Kublai Khan, a total of nine different monarchs took the Yuan throne, two of whom ruled for only one year. As the Mongols neglected their duties and abandoned themselves to corruption and personal pleasures, the Yuan emperors and the Mongol government gradually dropped all pretense about concern for the welfare of the Chinese people. The succession of brief reigns of incompetent monarchs left the Chinese government in the hands of court ministers and the palace eunuchs. Emperors came and went, but the bureaucracy lived on.

By the time Toghan-Temur ascended the throne in 1333 as Emperor Shun Di, Mongol control over a Chinese population that had never really accepted them began to weaken. Internal disputes had so debilitated the central government in Khanbalik that the Mongols began to losing their grip on the Yuan Empire. Even nature conspired against the Mongols by subjecting China to frequent drought-induced famines in the north often followed by disastrous flooding of the Yellow River, aptly known as "China's Sorrow." In the eyes of the Chinese, the Mongols had clearly lost the Mandate of Heaven. The Chinese people grasped the opportunity at hand and local officials began to seize power, triggering rebellions throughout China.

The legalized racial distinctions introduced in Chinese government by the Mongols to separate them from the rest of the population caused bitter discontent among the Chinese. The Mongols' fed their growing appetite for luxurious living and their lavish endowments to Buddhist monasteries by forcing impossibly hard exactions on the populations of China and Koryo, a move that triggered uncontrollable inflation throughout the empire. By the end of the Yuan Dynasty paper currency had become completely worthless. Segregation and the inequality it fostered combined with official corruption and rampant inflation to incite a widespread outbreak of rebellions in the fourteenth century. It appeared to be only a matter of time before the Yuan dynasty would completely collapse.

Chinese opposition to the Yuan dynasty crystallized during the decade of the 1340s in the form of numerous secret societies, groups that harbored both religious and political aspirations. The most serious of these early threats came from Liu Futong, leader of the Red Army. Commanding an armed force of over 10,000 men, Liu Futong proclaimed a descendant of the Song Chinese, Xiao Ming-wang, "Junior King of Light," as the new Emperor of China. Rebel hopes for success died quickly when the rebellion disintegrated internally from infighting between the two principle figures. The pace of Chinese rebellions accelerated during the1350s, when rebels began to rapidly carve China away from Emperor Shun Di and parcel it out among a new group of local warlords. Several rebel leaders, most of whom came from the lower rungs of Chinese society, seized cities and territory and set themselves up as kings, even emperors.

By the time King Kongmin ascended the Koryo throne in 1351, events were underway in East Asia that helped open the door to major reforms in Koryo. That year, a group known as the Red Turbans organized in western China. Named for the unique red head-dress they adopted, the Red Turbans coalesced around strident anti-Mongol Muslim dissidents, men who sought to resurrect the glory of the former Song Dynasty. Following the outbreak of large scale uprisings along the lower Yellow River basin, the Red Turbans took the lead in spreading the anti-Mongol revolt.

Seventeen-year-old Zhu Yuanzhang, born to a poor farm laborer in the eastern province of Anhui in the Huai River area northwest of Nanjing, saw his entire family die from an epidemic that swept through the province. Zhu sought comfort in a Buddhist monastery in south China until the age of twenty-five. In 1352, the anti-Mongol rebellion swept Zhu into its ranks and he joined a local band of Red Turbans under the command of the warlord Guo Zixing. In the short span of four years, Guo Zixing appointed this young Chinese commoner a general and gave him his own Red Turban command.

When Guo Zixing died, Zhu Yuanzhang set about to fulfill his real ambition - to conquer all of China. A wise Chinese scholar allegedly told Zhu he would succeed in his endeavor if he followed three simple rules:  first, build strong city walls;  second, gather and store as much grain as possible;  third, be slow to assume titles. Zhu followed this sage advice to the letter. With measured determination, Zhu seized the city of Nanjing and slowly conquered one warlord's territory after another while carefully watching the government's Mongol army. His ambition and ability earned Zhu the nickname, "the Chinese Napoleon."

King Kongmin initiated his own revolt against the Yuan in Koryo the same year Zhu Yuanzhang's Red Turbans captured Nanjing. The wealthy Ki family of Haengju, whose daughter reigned as Yuan Empress Ki, had become a real power in Koryo. Empress Ki's brother, Ki Ch'ol, who led a strong pro-Mongol faction in Kaesong, angered King Kongmin by repeatedly threatening the throne. Kongmin responded to the threat by ordering Ki Ch'ol's execution and moving to disperse his clique. Empress Ki became so angered by the death of her brother she persuaded Yuan Emperor Shun Di to remove King Kongmin from the Koryo throne. Open rebellion erupted in Koryo and Kongmin's army managed to practically annihilate the Mongol force sent into Korea to suppress it. The event marked the beginning of the end of Mongol power in Koryo.

The Red Turbans did not restrict their aggressive insurgency exclusively to China. In 1359, they emerged from the Hopei-Zhili area of northern China and pushed their way into southern Manchuria, temporarily occupying the Liaodong Peninsula. When a Mongol army sent to the Liaodong to crush the Red Turbans challenged them, the rebels broke ranks and about 40,000 men fled across the Yalu River into Koryo. Red Turban forces occupied defensive positions in four northwestern provinces and managed to push as far south as Pyongyang before a Koryo army defeated them and drove them back into Liao territory.

Two years later, in 1361, the Red Turbans returned to Koryo in force, sending 100,000 men across the Yalu River. On this incursion, they managed to occupy the entire northern half of Korea and force the royal court to flee south to the city of Andong in Kyongsang Province. The Red Turbans sacked and burned Kaesong, while scattered rebel forces in the countryside pillaged and terrorized peasant villages. It took the Koryo army almost a full year to retake the capital and push the Red Turbans back across the Yalu into Manchuria.

In southern China, Zhu Yuanzhang's well-organized Red Turban forces expanded their influence to the point where they controlled most of the countryside below the Yangtze River. Once they felt ready to challenge the faltering power of the Yuan Mongols, Zhu's Red Turban armies swept across the Yangtze River in a great northward flood that took everything in its path. When the Mongol capital in Khanbalik fell in 1368, forty-year-old Zhu Yuanzhang announced the end of the Yuan dynasty. He proclaimed himself Emperor Taizu, first emperor of the new Ming ("Brilliant") Dynasty, a force that would rule the Chinese for the next three hundred years. By 1369, Zhu Yuanzhang controlled all of China from his new capital in Nanjing except for Sichuan in the east (conquered in 1371) and Yunnan in the southeast (conquered in 1382). Zhu Yuanzhang and Liu Bang, founder and first emperor of the Han Dynasty, hold a unique place in China's history as the only two peasants ever to establish a Chinese dynasty.

The Mongols fled China and returned to their old homeland where Toghan-Temur, Emperor Shun Di, later established the Northern Yuan Empire. The collapse of the Mongol Yuan dynasty in China also removed the yoke from Koryo's neck and freed King Kongmin of Yuan domination, a situation that had eluded his six predecessors. Although the people of Koryo harbored deeply rooted psychological hostility toward the Mongols for generations afterward, Koryo's population of less than half a million people felt intensely proud of the fact that Koryo remained the only Asian nation that had successfully resisted the Mongol invasions.

The people in Koryo, most of whom had long opposed the Yuan, happily welcomed the Mongol defeat. Soon after the Ming dynasty established itself, Koryo received its first demand for submission and tribute from Emperor Taizu. King Kongmin immediately established a pro-Ming policy for Koryo, exchanged envoys with the new Ming royal court, and opened formal diplomatic relations with China.

Despite the political turmoil that surrounded Koryo's diplomatic ties with China, the country enjoyed many commercial and trade benefits from the relationship. For example, in 1363, royal court envoy Mun Ik-chom returned from a journey to Yuan China with the first cotton seeds ever seen in Koryo. His father-in-law, Chong Ch'on-ik, not only succeeded in growing the seeds, but devised a cotton gin and built a spinning wheel to process the resulting crop. Woven cotton cloth soon made its first appearance in Koryo and that led to marked improvements in clothing. Before this time, the only textiles available in Koryo were hemp for the common people and silk for the upper classes. Cotton's superiority to hemp and the fact it could be cultivated and manufactured at relatively low cost rapidly made the new light weight cloth very popular in Korea.

Finally free to pursue badly needed reforms in Koryo, King Kongmin launched his plans along two separate fronts. Externally, he removed all influence of the Yuanby removing pro-Mongol aristocrats and military officers from power. Internally, he moved to suppress the powerful landowners. He abolished Kublai Khan's Eastern Expedition Field Headquarters, restored the old government structure, and sent his armies into Hamgyong province to attack the headquarters of the Yuan commandery at Ssangsong and recover Koryo's lost territory. In later years, he sent troops to attack the Yuan Dongning Commandery at Xingjing, Manchuria (modern Xinbin, about eighty miles east of Shenyang). This aggressive, defiant reaction to Mongol rule provoked a drastic response from not only the Yuan, but from pro-Mongol adherents in Koryo. The Mongols had only been driven out of China, not demolished. They were still a force to be reckoned with in Manchuria and remained fully willing and able to meddle in Koryo affairs.

While Zhu Yuanzhang's Red Turbans were busy driving the Mongols out of China, Ki Ch'ol's son laid plans to avenge his father's death. He carefully organized Yuan refugees in Manchuria to help him replace the king with Prince Tokhung, the younger brother of King Chungsuk of Shenyang. The Mongols established contact with the pro-Mongol faction in Kaesong. Choe Yu, who fled the Koryo court earlier to escape criminal punishment, helped these men develop a plot to assassinate King Kongmin at the Hungwang-sa monastery, where he was staying for his safety. Once King Kongmin learned of the plot, he quickly had the coup leaders killed and their followers dispersed.

The Mongol emperor Toghan-Temur, even though he no longer had an empire to rule, appointed Choe Yu to the leading government post in Koryo and, just as in the old days, sent orders to Kaesong commanding the change of kingship. When the order brought no response, Choe Yu led a force of 10,000 troops across the Yalu River to restore Mongol authority by force. King Kongmin dusted off the old tradition that Koryo was the rightful successor to the old state of Koguryo and thus Manchuria's sovereign. To reinforce his position and rid himself of the Mongol problem once and for all, Kongmin sent two of his finest generals against the Mongols.

General Ji Yongsu soundly defeated Choe Yu's soldiers and pushed westward into the Liaodong Peninsula toward Toghan-Temur's capital in Liaoyang. The Mongol emperor soon saw the folly of his attempts to dominate Koryo and reopened peace negotiations with the Koryo government. For his failure, Choe Yu was sent to Kaesong in chains to be executed.

General Yi Song-gye was the fifth-generation son of a Koryo military family that had long held the post of Chief of One Thousand in northeastern Hamp'yong Province. His ancestors had fought the Jurchen and the Mongols at various times and when his father died, Yi Song-gye inherited both his father's rank and position. While in the service of the king, he suppressed two local rebellions and figured prominently in driving the Red Turbans out of Koryo. By 1361, the twenty-five-year-old officer had already distinguished himself as a military leader. General Yi Song-gye's command swept northward through the Hamhung plains into northeast Korea. His campaign against the Mongols opened a new phase in his career which, in the span of twenty-four years, would put him on the Koryo throne. Thinly stretched along two fronts, Koryo's armies were unprepared to hold all the territory they took. Although Kaesong never abandoned its claim to the former lands of Koguryo east of the Liao River, the government soon recalled its forces.

Before the Mongols dominated Koryo, various aristocratic factions enriched themselves and managed to secure the support of their followers by expropriations and land grants. The practice became so widespread that the system of using temporary land grants to pay official salaries completely broke down. Following the Choe clan's military revolt, powerful families resorted to the use of fraudulent documents, foreclosures, even armed force to expand their estates. They ended up controlling the vast majority of agricultural land, which was worked by tenant farmers and indentured slaves. These practices continued long after the Mongols arrived on the scene, aided and abetted by the Mongols eliminating Koryo civil officials in favor of military men, particularly those patronized by both the Mongols and the royal family.

The military, not noted for its love of Chinese-style civilian rule, used the opportunity provided by increased external pressure from the Red Turbans and the mounting pressure of Japanese coastal pirates to gain an upper hand in the government. King Kongmin, a man whose artistic temperament far exceeded his political aptitude, faced a near impossible situation. The extensive growth of wealthy landowners and powerful estates over the years left his government virtually without an economic foundation. Ironically, the government could not exist without the support of the great landowners, many of whom were the very officials supposedly putting many of Kongmin's land reform measures into practice. Still, Kongmin pursued a policy of internal reforms, beginning with the elimination of the Personnel Authority, an instrument of the autocratic, militaristic rule of the Choe clan that had remained in existence long after their downfall.

King Kongmin chose an obscure Buddhist monk to administer his reform program, a man with no connections to either the military or the powerful families. P'yonjo, whose name later changed to Sin Ton, not only held the government's highest clerical post, but had the requisite power and authority necessary to carry out the reform process. The appointment may have been made to make reform work with less conflict, but Sin Ton went about his work with far too much vigor. He soon instituted a wholesale reorganization and reestablishment of royal authority and bureaucratic government. With Kongmin's consent, Sin Ton created a special agency for land reform and placed himself at its head. He then proceeded to return lands and slaves seized by the powerful families to their original owners and in many cases actually set slaves free. It did not take long for Sin Ton's actions to become the target of aristocratic landlords who saw him as a direct threat to their power and wealth.

A minority class of large landowners, deposed aristocrats and military officials who greatly benefited from the Mongol presence in Koryo were not at all pleased by the Mongols' departure. Upset over their future prospects without Mongol support, they joined to form the core of a strong, conservative faction opposed to reforms. The focus of the pro-Mongol faction's anger was King Kongmin's reform leader, Sin Ton. In 1371, under a cloud of trumped up charges that he wasted state funds on Buddhist ceremonies, they orchestrated his banishment from government. Soon after removing the Buddhist monk from office, Sin Ton's opponents quietly murdered him.

Sin Ton's death ended Kongmin's reform plans to create a reinvigorated centralized state government and forced him to reach a compromise with the landlords simply to maintain relative peace. He soon realized that all his reform efforts amounted to nothing. King Kongmin suffered a personal tragedy in 1365, when his Mongol wife died in childbirth. A noted artist in his own right, the king painted a portrait of her and commanded the construction of a large hall to enshrine his work. It is said that he sat before the painting day and night alone and without an heir, engulfed in sorrow over her death. Unable to free his kingdom from the grip of its powerful families, King Kongmin abandoned any further attempts at reform, withdrew from active participation in government, and retired to a life of sorrow and idle luxury.