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- Herausgeber: Skyline
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Corea, though unknown even by name in Europe until the sixteenth century, was the subject of description by Arab geographers of the middle ages. Before the peninsula was known as a political unit, the envoys of Shinra, one of the three Corean states, and those from Persia met face to face before the throne of China. The Arab merchants trading to Chinese ports crossed the Yellow Sea, visited the peninsula, and even settled there. The youths of Shinra, sent by their sovereign to study the arts of war and peace at Nanking, the mediæval capitol of China, may often have seen and talked with the merchants of Bagdad and Damascus. The Corean term for Mussulmans is hoi-hoi , “round and round” men. Corean art shows the undoubted influence of Persia.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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William Elliot Griffis
Corea: The Hermit Nation
Table of contents
ORTHOGRAPHY AND PRONUNCIATION.
I. ANCIENT AND MEDIÆVAL HISTORY
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
II. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL COREA.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
III. MODERN AND RECENT HISTORY.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHAPTER XL.
CHAPTER XLI.
CHAPTER XLII.
CHAPTER XLIII.
CHAPTER XLIV.
CHAPTER XLV.
CHAPTER XLVI.
CHAPTER XLVII.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
CHAPTER XLIX.
CHAPTER L.
CHAPTER LI.
CHAPTER LII.
CHAPTER LIII.
CHAPTER LIV.
ORTHOGRAPHY AND PRONUNCIATION.
I.
ANCIENT AND MEDIÆVAL HISTORY
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
THE OLD KINGDOM OF CHŌ-SEN.
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.
Coin of Modern Chō-sen. “Chō-sen, Current Treasure.”
[19]
[ Contents]
CHAPTER III.
THE FUYU RACE AND THEIR MIGRATIONS.
Somewhere north of that vast region watered by the Sungari River, itself only a tributary to the Amur, there existed, according to Chinese tradition, in very ancient times, a petty kingdom called Korai, or To-li. Out of this kingdom sprang the founder of the Corean race. Slightly altering names, we may say in the phrase of Genesis: “Out of Korai went forth Ko and builded Corea,” though what may be sober fact is wrapped up in the following fantastic legend.
Long, long ago, in the kingdom called To-li, or Korai (so pronounced, though the characters are not those for the Korai of later days), there lived a king, in whose harem was a waiting-maid. One day, while her master was absent on a hunt, she saw, floating in the atmosphere, a glistening vapor which entered her bosom. This ray or tiny cloud seemed to be about as big as an egg. Under its influence, she conceived.
The king, on his return, discovered her condition, and made up his mind to put her to death. Upon her explanation, however, he agreed to spare her life, but at once lodged her in prison.
The child that was born proved to be a boy, which the king promptly cast among the pigs. But the swine breathed into his nostrils and the baby lived. He was next put among the horses, but they also nourished him with their breath, and he lived. Struck by this evident will of Heaven, that the child should live, the king listened to its mother’s prayers, and permitted her to nourish and train him in the palace. He grew up to be a fair youth, full of energy, and skilful in archery. He was named “Light of the East,” and the king appointed him Master of his stables.
One day, while out hunting, the king permitted him to give an exhibition of his skill This he did, drawing bow with such unerring aim that the royal jealousy was kindled, and he thought of [20]nothing but how to compass the destruction of the youth. Knowing that he would be killed if he remained in the royal service, the young archer fled the kingdom. He directed his course to the southeast, and came to the borders of a vast and impassable river, most probably the Sungari. Knowing his pursuers were not far behind him he cried out, in a great strait,
The Founder of Fuyu Crossing the Sungari River. (Drawn by G. Hashimoto, Yedo, 1853.)
“ Alas! shall I, who am the child of the Sun, and the grandson of the Yellow River, be stopped here powerless by this stream.”
So saving he shot his arrows at the water.
Immediately all the fishes of the river assembled together in a thick shoal, making so dense a mass that their bodies became a floating bridge. On this, the young prince (and according to the [21]Japanese version of the legend, three others with him), crossed the stream and safely reached the further side. No sooner did he set foot on land than his pursuers appeared on the opposite shore, when the bridge of fishes at once dissolved. His three companions stood ready to act as his guides. One of the three was dressed in a costume made of sea-weeds, a second in hempen garments, and a third in embroidered robes. Arriving at their city, he became the king of the tribe and kingdom of Fuyu, which lay in the fertile and well-watered region between the Sungari River and the Shan Alyn, or Ever-White Mountains. It extended several hundred miles east and west of a line drawn southward through Kirin, the larger half lying on the west.
Fuyu, as described by a Chinese writer of the Eastern Han dynasty (25 B.C.–190 A.D.), was a land of fertile soil, in which “the five cereals” (wheat, rice, millet, beans, and sorghum) could be raised. The men were tall, muscular, and brave, and withal generous and courteous to each other. Their arms were bows and arrows, swords, and lances. They were skilful horsemen. Their ornaments were large pearls, and cut jewels of red jade. They made spirits from grain, and were fond of drinking bouts, feasting, dancing, and singing. With many drinkers there were few cups. The latter were rinsed in a bowl of water, and with great ceremony passed from one to another. They ate with chopsticks, out of bowls, helping themselves out of large dishes.
It is a striking fact that the Fuyu people, though living so far from China, were dwellers in cities which they surrounded with palisades or walls of stakes. They lived in wooden houses, and stored their crops in granaries.
In the administration of justice, they were severe and prompt. They had regular prisons, and fines were part of their legal system. The thief must repay twelve-fold. Adultery was punished by the death of both parties. Further revenge might be taken upon the woman by exposing her dead body on a mound. Certain relatives of a criminal were denied burial in a coffin. The other members of the family of a criminal suffering capital punishment were sold as slaves. Murderers were buried alive with their victims.
The Fuyu religion was a worship of Heaven, their greatest festival being in the eleventh month, when they met joyfully together, laying aside all grudges and quarrels, and freeing their prisoners. Before setting out on a military expedition they worshipped [22]Heaven, and sacrificed an ox, examining the hoof, to obtain an omen. If the cloven part remained separated, the portent was evil, if the hoof closed together, the omen was auspicious.
The Fuyu chief men or rulers were named after the domestic beasts, beginning with their noblest animal, the horse, then the ox, the dog, etc. Rulers of cities were of this order. Their king was buried at his death in a coffin made of jade.
Evidently the Fuyu people were a vigorous northern race, well clothed and fed, rich in grain, horses and cattle, possessing the arts of life, with considerable literary culture, and well advanced in social order and political knowledge. Though the Chinese writers classed them among barbarians, they were, in contrast with their immediate neighbors, a civilized nation. Indeed, to account for such a high stage of civilization thus early and so far from China, Mr. Ross suggests that the scene of the Ki Tsze’s labors was in Fuyu, rather than in Chō-sen. Certain it is that the Fuyu people were the first nation of Manchuria to emerge from barbarism, and become politically well organized. It is significant, as serving to support the conjecture that Ki Tsze founded Fuyu, that we discern, even in the early history of this vigorous nation, the institution of feudalism. We find a king and nobles, with fortified cities, and wealthy men, with farms, herds of horses, cattle, and granaries. We find also a class of serfs, created by the degradation of criminals or their relatives. The other Manchurian people, or barbarians, surrounding China, were still in the nomadic or patriarchal state. Why so early beyond China do we find a well-developed feudal system and high political organization?
It was from feudal China, the China of the Yin dynasty, from which Ki Tsze emigrated to the northeast. Knowing no other form of government, he, if their founder, doubtless introduced feudal forms of government.
Whatever may be thought of the theory there suggested, it is certainly surprising to find a distinctly marked feudal system, already past the rudimentary stage, in the wilderness of Manchuria, a thousand miles away from the seats of Chinese culture, as early as the Christian era.
As nearly the whole of Europe was at some time feudalized, so China, Corea, and Japan have each passed through this stage of political life.
The feudal system in China was abolished by Shi Whang Ti, [23]the first universal Emperor, B.C. 221, but that of Japan only after an interval of 2,000 years, surviving until 1871. It lingers still in Corea, whose history it has greatly influenced, as our subsequent narrative will prove. In addition to the usual features of feudalism, the existence of serfdom, in fact as well as in form, is proved by the testimony of Dutch and French observers, and of the language itself. The richness of Corean speech, in regard to every phase and degree of servitude, would suffice for a Norman landholder in mediæval England, or for a Carolina cotton-planter before the American civil war.
Out of this kingdom of Fuyu came the people who are the ancestors of the modern Coreans. In the same Chinese history which describes Fuyu, we have a picture of the kingdom of Kokorai (or Kao-ku-li), which had Fuyu for its northern and Chō-sen for its southern neighbor. “The land was two thousand li square, and contained many great mountains, and deep valleys.” There was a tradition among the Eastern barbarians that they were an offshoot from Fuyu. Hence their language and laws were very much alike. The nation was divided into five families, named after the four points of the compass, with a yellow or central tribe.
Evidently this means that a few families, perhaps five in number, leaving Fuyu, set out toward the south, and in the valleys west of the Yalu River and along the 42d parallel, founded a new nation. Their first king was Ko, who, perhaps, to gain the prestige of ancient descent, joined his name to that of Korai (written however with the characters which make the sound of modern Korai) and thus the realm of Kokorai received its name.
A Japanese writer derives the term Kokorai from words selected out of a passage in the Chinese classics referring to the high mountains. The first character Ko, in Kokorai, means high, and it was under the shadows of the lofty Ever White Mountains that this vigorous nation had its cradle and its home in youth. Here, too, its warriors nourished their strength until their clouds of horsemen burst upon the frontiers of the Chinese empire, and into the old kingdom of Chō-sen. The people of this young state were rich in horses and cattle, but less given to agriculture. They lived much in the open air, and were fierce, impetuous, strong, and hardy. They were fond of music and pleasure at night. Especially characteristic was their love of decoration and display. At their public gatherings they decked themselves in [24]dresses embroidered with gold and silver. Their houses were also adorned in various ways. Their chief display was at funerals, when a prodigal outlay of precious metals, jewels, and embroideries was exhibited.
In their religion they sacrificed to Heaven, to the spirits of the land, and of the harvests, to the morning star, and to the celestial and invisible powers. There were no prisons, but when crimes were committed the chiefs, after deliberation, put the criminal to death and reduced the wives and children to slavery. In this way serfs were provided for labor. In their burial customs, they made a cairn, and planted fir-trees around it, as many Japanese tombs are made.
In the general forms of their social, religious, and political life, the people of Fuyu and Kokorai were identical, or nearly so; while both closely resemble the ancient Japanese of Yamato.
The Chinese authors also state that these people were already in possession of the Confucian classics, and had attained to an unusual degree of literary culture. Their officials were divided into twelve ranks, which was also the ancient Japanese number. In the method of divination, in the wearing of flowery costumes, and in certain forms of etiquette, they and the Japanese were alike. As is now well known, the ancient form of government of the Yamato Japanese (that is, of the conquering race from Corea and the north) was a rude feudalism and not a monarchy. Further, the central part of Japan, first held by the ancestors of the mikado, consists of five provinces, like the Kokorai division, into five clans or tribes.
At the opening of the Christian era we find the people of Kokorai already strong and restless enough to excite attention from the Chinese court. In 9 A.D. they were recognized as a nation with their own “kings,” and classified with Huentu, one of the districts of old Chō-sen. One of these kings, in the year 30, sent tribute to the Chinese emperor. In 50 A.D. Kokorai, by invitation, sent their warriors to assist the Chinese army against a rebel horde in the northwest. In A.D. 70 the men of Kokorai descended upon Liao Tung, and having now a taste for border war and conquest, they marched into the petty kingdom of Wei, which lay in what is now the extreme northeast of Corea. Absorbing this little country, they kept up constant warfare against the Chinese. Though their old kinsmen, the Fuyu men, were at times allies of the Han, yet they gradually spread themselves eastward and southward, so [26]that by 169 A.D. the Kokorai kingdom embraced the whole of the territory of old Chō-sen, or of Liao Tung, with all the Corean peninsula north of the Ta-tong, and even to the Tumen River.
Fuyu and Manchiu.
This career of conquest suffered a check for a time, when a Chinese expedition, sailing up the Yalu River, invested the capital city of the king and defeated his army. The king fled beyond the Tumen River. Eight thousand people are said to have been made prisoners or slaughtered by the Chinese. For a time it seemed as though Kokorai were too badly crippled to move again.
Anarchy broke out in China, on the fall of the house of Han, A.D. 220, and lasted for half a century. That period of Chinese history, from 221 to 277, is called the “Epoch of the Three Kingdoms.” During this period, and until well into the fifth century, while China was rent into “Northern” and “Southern” divisions, the military activities of Kokorai were employed with varying results against the petty kingdoms that rose and fell, one after the other, on the soil between the Great Wall and the Yalu River. During this time the nation, free from the power and oppression of China, held her own and compacted her power. In the fifth century her warriors had penetrated nearly as far west as the modern Peking in their cavalry raids. Wily in diplomacy, as brave in war, they sent tribute to both of the rival claimants for the throne of China which were likely to give them trouble in the future. Dropping the family name of their first king, they retained that of their ancestral home-land, and called their nation Korai.
Meanwhile, as they multiplied in numbers, the migration of Kokorai people, henceforth known as Korai men, set steadily southward. Weakness in China meant strength in Korai. The Chinese had bought peace with their Eastern neighbors by titles and gifts, which left the Koraians free to act against their southern neighbors. In steadily displacing these, they came into collision with the little kingdom of Hiaksai, whose history will be narrated farther on. It will be seen that the Korai men, people of the Fuyu race, finally occupied the territory of Hiaksai. Already the Koraians, sure of further conquest southward, fixed their capital at Ping-an.
In 589 A.D. the house of Sui was established on the dragon throne, and a portentous message was sent to the King of Korai, which caused the latter to make vigorous war preparations. Evidently the Chinese emperor meant to throttle the young giant of the north, while the young giant was equally determined to live. [27]The movement of a marauding force of Koraians, even to the inside of the Great Wall, gave the bearded dragon not only the pretext of war but of annexation.
For this purpose an army of three hundred thousand men and a fleet of several hundred war-junks were prepared. The latter were to sail over from Shantung, and enter the Ta-tong River, the goal of the expedition being Ping-an city, the Koraian capital
The horde started without provisions, and arrived in mid-summer at the Liao River in want of food. While waiting, during the hot weather, in this malarious and muddy region, the soldiers died by tens of thousands of fever and plague. The incessant rains soon rendered the roads impassable and transport of provisions an impossibility. Disease melted the mighty host away, and the army, reduced to one-fifth its numbers, was forced to retreat The war-junks fared no better, for storms in the Yellow Sea drove them back or foundered them by the score.
Such a frightful loss of life and material did not deter the next emperor, the infamous Yang (who began the Grand Canal), from following out the scheme of his father, whom he conveniently poisoned while already dying. In spite of the raging famines and losses by flood, the emperor ordered magazines for the armies of invasion to be established near the coast, and contingents of troops for the twenty-four corps to be raised in every province. All these preparations caused local famines and drove many of the people into rebellion.
This army, one of the greatest ever assembled in China, numbered over one million men. Its equipment consisted largely of banners, gongs, and trumpets. The undisciplined horde began their march, aiming to reach the Liao River before the hot season set in. They found the Koraian army ready to dispute their passage. Three bridges, hastily constructed, were thrown across the stream, on which horse and foot pressed eagerly toward the enemy. The width of the river had, however, been miscalculated and the bridges were too short, so that many thousands of the Chinese were drowned or killed by the Koraians, at unequal odds, while fighting on the shore. In two days, however, the bridges were lengthened and the whole force crossed over. The Chinese van pursued their enemy, slaughtering ten thousand before they could gain the fortified city of Liao Tung. Once inside their walls, however, the Korai soldiers were true to their reputation of being splendid garrison fighters. Instead of easy victory the [28]Chinese army lay around the city unable, even after several months’ besieging, to breach the walls or weaken the spirit of the defenders.
Meanwhile the other division had marched northward and eastward, according to the plan of the campaign. Eight of these army corps, numbering 300,000 men, arrived and went into camp on the west bank of the Yalu River. In spite of express orders to the contrary, the soldiers had thrown away most of the hundred days’ rations of grain with which they started, and the commissariat was very low. The Koraian commander, carrying out the Fabian policy, tempted them away from their camp, and led them by skirmishing parties to within a hundred miles of Ping-an. The Chinese fleet lay within a few leagues of the invading army, but land and sea forces were mutually ignorant of each other’s vicinity. Daring not to risk the siege of a city so well fortified by nature and art as Ping-an, in his present lack of supplies, the Chinese general reluctantly ordered a retreat, which began in late summer, the nearest base of supplies being Liao Tung, four hundred miles away and through an enemy’s country.
This was the signal for the Koraians to assume the offensive, and like the Cossacks, upon the army of Napoleon, in Russia, they hung upon the flanks of the hungry fugitives, slaughtering thousands upon thousands.
When the Chinese host were crossing the Chin-chion River, the Koraian army fell in full force upon them, and the fall of the commander of their rear-guard turned defeat into a rout. The disorderly band of fugitives rested not till well over and beyond the Yalu River. Of that splendid army of 300,000 men only a few thousand reached Liao Tung city. The weapons, spoil, and prisoners taken by the Koraians were “myriads of myriads of myriads.” The naval forces in the river, on hearing the amazing news of their comrades’ defeat, left Corea and crept back to China. The Chinese emperor was so enraged at the utter failure of his prodigious enterprise, that he had the fugitive officers publicly put to death as an example.
In spite of the disasters of the previous year, the emperor Yang, in 613, again sent an army to besiege Liao Tung city. On this occasion scaling ladders, 150 feet long, and towers, mounted on wheels, were used with great effect. Just on the eve of the completion of their greatest work and tower the Chinese camp was suddenly abandoned, the emperor being called home to put [29]down a formidable rebellion. So cautious were the besieged and so sudden was the flight of the besiegers, that it was noon before a Koraian ventured into camp, and two days elapsed before they discovered that the retreat was not feigned. Then the Koraian garrison attacked the Chinese rear-guard with severe loss.
The rebellion at home having been put down the emperor again cherished the plan of crushing Korai, but other and greater insurrections broke out that required his attention; for the three expeditions against Corea had wasted the empire even as they had sealed the doom of the Sui dynasty. Though no land forces could be spared, a new fleet was sent to Corea to lay siege to Ping-an city. Even with large portions of his dominions in the hands of rebels, Tang never gave up his plan of humbling Korai. This project was the cause of the most frightful distress in China, and seeing no hope of saving the country except by the murder of the infamous emperor, coward, drunkard, tyrant, and voluptuary, a band of conspirators, headed by Yü Min, put him to death and Korai had rest.
To summarize this chapter. It is possible that Ki Tsze was the founder of Fuyu. The Kokorai tribes were people who had migrated from Fuyu, and settled north and west of the upper waters of the Yalu River. They entered into relations with the Chinese as early as 9 A.D., and coming into collision with them by the year 70, they kept up a fitful warfare with them, sustaining mighty invasions, until the seventh century, while in the meantime Korai, instead of being crushed by China, grew in area and numbers until the nation had spread into the peninsula, and overrun it as far as the Han River.
