Samguk Yusa

by Ilyon

  53. King Kyong'ae (924-927)

  The fifty-fifth sovereign was King Kyong'ae. In the first year of his reign, on the 19th of February, the King held a Buddhist seminar at Hwangnyong Temple, and entertained 300 monks of the “Son” sect at a banquet. This was the beginning of the Hundred Seat Preaching of the Son sect. (The practice became a daily one. “Son” is more familiar to Western readers under its Japanese name, “Zen”.)

  54. King Kyongsun (927-935, the last king)

  The fifty-sixth sovereign of Silla was Kim Pu, the Great King, whose posthumous title is Kyongsun. In the year 926, during the reign of his predecessor King Kyong'ae, Chin Hwon, the tiger-spirited general of Later Paekje invaded Silla, attacking Koul-pu. King Kyong'ae sent a request for military aid to Wang Kon, the King of Koryo, but before the troops could arrive Chin Hwon led an attack on Kyongju and took the city.

  King Kyong'ae had been enjoying a party with his Queen and court ladies, merrily drinking, singing and dancing. When the rebel soldiers entered the city the King and Queen hid themselves in the inner palace, while the attendant nobles and their wives scattered in all directions, prostrating themselves before the victorious enemy and offering to be slaves if only their lives were spared.

  Chin Hwon set up his headquarters in the royal palace and ordered his men to plunder both public and private treasures. He forced the King to fall on his own sword, violated the Queen and loosed his soldiers upon the court ladies and the King's concubines. After these outrages he chose Kim Pu, a distant cousin of King Kyong'ae, placed him on the throne, and withdrew from Kyongju in triumph, carrying off hundreds of aristocrats and pretty women together with precious jewels from the palace.

  No sooner had the new King emerged from his coronation than he changed his dragon robe for mourning clothes and his royal crown for a hempen hat. Then he ordered that the body of King Kyong'ae lie in state in the West Palace, where he wailed loudly with his courtiers.

  The King of Koryo in Songdo (Kaesong) dispatched a special envoy to Kyongju to convey his condolence and deep sympathy. In March of the following year he visited Kyongju in person, accompanied by fifty horsemen. King Kyongsun and his court came to the outskirts of the city to greet him, and invited him to a welcoming banquet at Imhae Pavilion.

  After the formalities had been observed King Kyungsun shed tears as he told his noble visitor of Chin Hwon's savage raid and the falling fortunes of Silla. In tears himself, the King of Koryo comforted his royal host, and extended his visit for ten days before returning home. During his stay in Kyongju his soldiers behaved like gentlemen and not one of them violated military discipline or committed lawless acts. The people of Silla—men and women, boys and girls—congratulated each other, comparing Chin Hwon to a man-eating tiger and Wang Kon to an affectionate father.

  On the day of the mid-autumn moon festival the King of Koryo sent an envoy to the Silla court with an embroidered brocade robe and a saddle for the King and gifts for all the nobles and generals according to their rank.

  By October of the year 935 most of the territory of Silla was occupied by rebels, and there were more uprisings daily. The countryside was infested with bandits, the royal troops had lost the martial Hwarang spirit, and famine stalked the land. It seemed to the King that there was no end to his troubles and that his decayed kingdom, despite its glorious history of a thousand years, might collapse at any moment.

  In desperation His Majesty called a royal conference of his highest officials and said to them, “We are met to discuss a very grave matter. Should we surrender to Wang Kon and cede to this kind-hearted neighboring monarch our sovereignty over Silla or should we continue to fight the fierce wardogs at home and prepare for a final battle for supremacy with Wang Kon, which it seems to me would mean the total destruction of Silla?”

  Opinions were divided and there was considerable argument. The Crown Prince wished to fight to the end. “The rise or fall of a nation depends on the will of Heaven,” he said. “We must rally all loyal subjects and patriotic soldiers to defend the fatherland with all our strength, of one mind with our people till the last minute. Why should we give up without a fight? How can we so easily surrender our thousand-year-old country to a neighbor?”

  “Silla is now helpless and we cannot hold out any longer,” the King replied. “If we are neither strong nor weak, we will be caught in the middle. It is unbearable to see thousands of good people suffering tragic deaths in a losing war. Rather, we must lose face and surrender peacefully to save the people from great catastrophe. Kim Pong-hyu, my loyal minister! Go and present my official letter of voluntary surrender to the King of Koryo. All is over.”

  “Ah, sad day!” said the Crown Prince, weeping bitterly. “Farewell,. King and kingdom! I am going to Kaegol-san (the Diamond Mountains)” So the young prince departed and entered a deep, rocky valley under Pirobong, the highest peak in the range. There he dressed himself in hemp and fed on grass roots, and rallied the loyal sons of the Hwa-rang to fight Wang Kon.

  The King's youngest son shaved his head and became a monk of the Hwaom sect with the religious name Pomgong, residing at Popsu and Heian temples during the rest of his life.

  Wang Kon, the King of Koryo, when he received the letter of surrender, immediately dispatched his first minister of state Wang Ch'ol to Kyongju with orders to conduct King Kyongsun and his entourage to Songdo (Kaesong) with an honor guard. The King accordingly set out for Songdo accompanied by the civil and military officials of his court. The long procession of carriages and carts laden with royal treasures stretched over ten miles of the highway, which was lined from Kyongju to Songdo with vast throngs of spectators.

  Wang Kon came to the outskirts of his capital to meet the royal procession from Silla. He celebrated the day with a great feast on Man-wol-dae (Full Moon Hill) and gave his eldest daughter, the Princess of Nangnang, to the surrendered Silla king in marriage. He reconfirmed his title as King and promoted him to the highest position in the Koryo court, ranking above even the Crown Prince. Moreover, Wang Kon granted the Silla King an annual allowance of one thousand large bags of rice and gave him the old Silla territory (which he called Kyongju) as his fief.

  The alliance between the two royal houses was further cemented when King Kyongsun gave the beautiful daughter of his uncle to Wang Kon as his wife. (This uncle, Ilyon says, was Ok-nyom, younger brother of the King's father Hyojong-Kakkan. This was Queen Sinsong.)

  However, according to the royal family tree prepared by Kim Kwan-ui during the Koyro dynasty, Queen Sinsong was of the Yi family and Wang Kon married her during a trip to Hapju county, of which Yi Chong-on, a Kyongju nobleman, was magistrate. She bore the King a son who was known as Anjong. The day of her death was the 25th of March and her tomb was called Chong-nung, where a temple, Hyonhwa-sa, was erected in her memory. Among the twenty-five queens and concubines of the King, no woman of the Kim family is recorded in the royal chronicle, but the annalist does record that Prince Anjong was a grandson (on the maternal side) of Silla.

  Wang Kon's grandson Sin (King Kyongjong, 975-981) married King Kyongsun's daughter.

  When King Kyongsun died in 978, his old royal title was again conferred upon him together with the title Sang-pu (royal father-in-law). King Kyongjong issued a royal decree as follows:

  “Know ye, my loyal subjects: When Chou of the Chi family founded a new kingdom he first invested Lu Wang with an honorary title and when Han of the Liu family rose to power he first invested Su Ho with an honorary title. Hence the royal glory shone far and wide over all the world and the happiness of the royal household bloomed for thirty generations of the Dragon Picture and four hundred years of the Giraffe-Hooves, bright as the sun and moon, coeval with heaven and earth. This institution began with a ruler assisted by his wise ministers.

  (The allusions here are to the Chou and Han dynasties of ancient China. The reader will recall the dragon with a picture on its back described in the prologue as the portent of a great king. “Giraffe Hooves” is the
title of a section of the Confucian Book of Odes, but is here used to allude to the Han dynasty, which did indeed endure for about 400 years.)

  “Kim Pu, King of Nangnang, who is endowed with a fief of 8,000 households, hereditarily residing in Kerim (Silla), and honored with a royal title, possessed eminently noble qualities and was gifted with fine literary talent.

  “Looking forward to greater happiness, he lived comfortably in his fief with a Military Strategy (a well-known Chinese work on this subject is here alluded to) in his bosom. The founder of our kingdom, having bound the two royal families in friendly ties, gave him a daughter in marriage. Now the two kingdoms are united and the new state ruling over the Three Hans prospers anew daily, with one patriotic mind from the throne to the plough.

  “I hereby confer on him the title of Royal Father-in-law and increase his fief to 10,000 households in consideration of his loyal and meritorious services to the state. I command you, all competent officials to execute my orders with due ceremony.”

  “The 10th month of the 8th year of Kaipao (Royal Sign Manual, Royal Seal) Countersigned by Yung-son

  His Majesty's President

  of the Privy Council

  and His Majesty's Cabinet Ministers.”

  According to 'Saron' the progenitors of the Pak and Sok clans of Silla were born of eggs, while that of the Kim clan was found in a golden box which descended from heaven on a golden chariot. But these stories are too fantastic to believe, although they have traditionally been accepted by the populace as facts. The early Silla rulers were frugal in their personal lives and generous to others. They maintained few government offices and observed the annual rites simply. They sent tribute to and received envoys from the Middle Kingdom across the sea, and dispatched youths to study in that kingdom, thereby to cultivate decorum in their nation through the influence of the refined customs and advanced culture taught by the ancient sages. Moreover, with the aid of the military might of the Imperial T'ang army Silla subjugated Paekje and Koguryo, making them provinces under her single rule in her days of greatness.

  However, due to the evils of Buddhism, pagodas and temples lined the streets and the common people deserted their farms to become monks and nuns,. The morale of the army fell into decay, calling down rebellion and destruction upon the nation. King Kyong'ae gave himself up to merriment and soft pleasures. He reveled at the Pavilion of the Stone Abalone with his choicest beauties and flattering courtiers, unaware of his doom until Chin Hwon, like Han Ch'in-hu, sprang at his throat, and his Queen fell prey to Hwon, like Chang li-hua. (The King and Queen are compared to figures in Chinese history.)

  King Kyongsun surrendered voluntarily to the King of Koryo because his kingdom was in extremities, but his decision was nevertheless praiseworthy. Had he chosen to fight on until the end the royal Kim clan would have been exterminated and a great catastrophe would have fallen upon his innocent people. His cession of sovereignty over his kingdom, sealing his royal treasure vaults without awaiting the King's orders, was an act not only of obeisance to our King but of mercy to myriads of living creatures. In the olden days Su Tzu-chen praised Chen-shih as a loyal vassal for surrendering Wu and Yueh to Sung, but the virtue of the Silla King outshines that of Chen-shih. (Yet another Chinese precedent is cited here.)

  The founder of the Koryo dynasty had many queens and concubines who bore him many children, but ever since King Hyonjong ascended the throne (1009) as the maternal grandson of Silla royalty the successive Koryo Kings have been his descendants, with the royal throne transmitted in an unbroken line thanks to the charity of King Kyongsun.

  When Silla fell and the old land passed under the rule of a new dynasty, Agan-Sinhoe, a noble-hearted Silla courtier, withdrew from official life and returned to his native place in Kyongju. Seeing the desolate condition of the ruined capital he recited the old poem Shu Li-li (The Millet Hangs its Head, a poem from the Book of Odes about a ruined palace which had been turned into a millet-field). His heart sank with grief and he wept when he saw the millet heads and wild grass tossing among the ruins of the Silla palace. He composed a song about the fall of Silla but unfortunately it has been lost.

  (This whole last passage, following the decree, has a decidedly Confucian tone. Its rejection of the old legends and its blaming Buddhism for the fall of Silla are quite unlike Ilyon in other parts of the book.)

  55. South Puyo, Early Paekje and North Puyo

  Puyo-gun(county) was the capital of early Paekje, According to the Samguk Sagi, in the spring of the twenty-sixth year of King Song of Paekje (548) the King moved his court to Saja (or Sabi), calling his kingdom Nam (south) Puyo. (Saja or Sabi was another name for Soburi, now Kosongjin.)

  In the (Koryo) land survey it is registered as Chonjong Chuch'op in Soburi-gun and the present Puyo-gun has had its old name restored in honor of the name of the Paekje royal family, Pu. Puyo was also called Yoju. To the west of Puyo is a temple called Chapok-sa on whose curtains the following is embroidered in Chinese characters: “The Great Temple of Merit in Yoju, May, 15th year of T'ung-huo, year of the chicken (Chong-yu).” An old document of the magistrate of Hanam-Imju says that Imju is now Karim-gun and Yoju is now Puyo-gun

  In the Paichi Tili-chih it is written (quoting the Hou Han-shu), “Paichi (Paekje) is one of the seventy-eight states of the three Han nations.” The Pei-shih says, “Paichi (Paekje) is bounded on the east by Silla, on the southwest by the Great Sea and on the north by the Han River. Its capital was in Kobal-song, also called Koma-song and Obang-song.” (The suffix “song” means “fortress.”)

  The T'ung-tien states, “Paichi (Paekje) adjoins Silla on the south, Koguryo on the north, and faces the Great Sea to the west.” The Chiu T'ang-shu says, “Paichi (Paekje) is another name for Puyo. On its northeast is Silla, on its south and west are Wo (Japan) and Yuehchow across the sea, and on its north is Koguryo. The King's palaces are surrounded by two city walls on the east and west. The Hsin T'ang-shu also says Paekje is bounded on the south and west by Wo (Japan) and Yuehchow across the sea and on the north by Koguryo. According to the Samguk Sagi the royal founder of Paekje was Onjo, whose father was King Ch'umo, also called Chumong.

  When Chumong the good bowman escaped southward from Puk-puyo to Cholbon-Puyo, the king of that land, who had three daughters but no son, found Chumong a great hero and gave him his second daughter in marriage. When the King died soon after, Chumong succeeded to the throne. Two sons—Pullyu and Onjo—were born to him by this queen.

  These two sons were afraid of Yuri, the crown prince, and fled southward with ten courtiers including Ogan and Maryo. On reaching Han-san Onjo settled down at Hanam-Wiryesong6, with the Han River on the north, high mountains to the east, fertile fields to the south, and the Great Sea to the west, so that the area was a natural fortress fit to become a capital city. He called his new kingdom Sipje because he founded it with the assistance often courtiers. (“Sip” is the number ten.)

  But Pullyu went to the seacoast at Mich'uhol in the wet lowlands, unfit for comfortable living, and there he soon died of shame and remorse. His subjects returned to Wiryesong to live under the rule of Onjo, who now called his kingdom Paekje because his subjects had increased to one hundred. (A pun. There is a word “paek” meaning one hundred, and it is the same one as the name of the kingdom.) Because the royal clan of Paekje traced its ancestry to the Puyo people (in Koguryo) it was called Hai-ssi, like the Koguryo royal family. During the reign of King Song (523-554) the capital was moved to Saja or Sabi and was called Puyo (now Puyo-gun). Mich'uhol is Inju (Inchon) and Wiryesong is now Chiksan (This last is evidently a mistake).

  According to an old book, Onjo, the third son of King Tongmyong (founder of Koguryo) came to Wiryesong from Cholbon-Puyo, built his palaces and assumed the title of king. Eleven years later he moved his court to Hansan (now Kwangju), where his royal descendants ruled the kingdom for 389 years. During the reign of King Kunch'ogo (346-375), the thirteenth sovereign, Paekje took south P'yongyang (modern Seoul) from Kogury
o and moved its capital to north Han-song (now Yangju), where successive kings ruled for 105 years. Then King Munju (475-477) moved the court to Ungch'on (now Kongju), where it stayed for the next sixty-three years. Finally King Song (as already noted) established the capital at Saja or Sabi, where it remained for 120 years, until the reign of King Uija (last king, 641-661).

  In the twentieth year of King Uija the kingdom of Paekje was destroyed by the allied forces of Silla and T'ang China under the command respectively of Kim Yu-sin and Su Ting-fang.

  Originally Paekje consisted of five departments divided into thirty-seven counties and was inhabited by 760,000 households. After the fall of the kingdom the Chinese set up five military districts, establishing military governments in Ungjin, Mahan, Tongmyong, Kumnyon and Togan, and appointing local leaders as administrators under the military. But Silla soon occupied this territory and divided it into three provinces—Ung, Chon and Mu.

  In Puyo there was a rock called Chongsa-am (Political Rock) at Hoam-sa (Temple of the Tiger Rock). Tradition says that before naming a prime minister officials would write down the names of the candidates, put them in a box under seal, and place the box on this rock for some days (hence its name). Then they would open the box and make their decision.

  The Yong-am (Rock of the Dragon) is so called because of the story that the Chinese general Su Ting-fang baited a line with a white horse and hooked a dragon there. Indeed, this rock still bears the marks of a crouching dragon.

  On the riverbank at Saja is a flat rock big enough to accommodate a dozen people. Tradition says the King of Paekje liked to cross the river and have picnics on this rock, and when he did so he would always prostrate himself in the direction of the Buddha at Wanghung Temple in the distance. Since the cold rock always became warm at the approach of the “jade body” of the King it was called Nan-sok (Warm Rock).