Notes

KORYŎ IN EAST ASIA
Koryŏ’s great external challenge was dealing with its northern frontier.
The tenth-century upheaval resulted in a great influx of peoples from
Manchuria to the Yalu and Tumen Rivers. Some of them entered the peninsula.
The most troublesome of the new peoples along the frontier were
the Khitan. The Khitan helped bring about the collapse of Parhae in 926,
then laid claim to its land. They also claimed to be the heirs of Koguryŏ.
For Wang Kŏn and his successors these tribal peoples posed a threat to
their efforts to consolidate Koryŏ’s position on the frontier. Wang Kŏn
made his hostility to the Khitans clear when in 942 they sent envoys with
fifty camels as gifts. He banished the envoys to an island and let the camels
starve. His successor, King Chŏngjong, planned to move the capital to
Pyongyang and created the armed force called the Kwanggun (Resplendent
Army) to prepare against Khitan invasions. As part of the effort to
expand northward, the Koreans from 949 to 975 established garrison forts
beyond Ch’ŏngch’ŏn River.
The Khitan meanwhile created the state of Liao on the northern borders
of China and ruled much of Manchuria. The Liao emperor Shenzong
(983–1031) led a series of campaigns against the Song that ended with
the Treaty of Shanyuan in 1005. Under this treaty the Chinese emperor
recognized the frontier state as an equal. At the same time they were
fighting the Chinese, the Khitans began to tighten their pressure on
Koryŏ. In 993, the Khitan ruler Xiao Sunning led an invasion force. This
invasion resulted in negotiations with the Koreans and a brief period of
nonhostile relations began. The Koreans built six garrisons on the Yalu
River, establishing it as their northern boundary for the first time. But the
Khitan demanded that Koryŏ turn over the six garrisons to them. When
Koryŏ refused, the Khitan emperor, Shenzong, launched another invasion
in 1010. Initially Koryŏ under Yang Hyu was victorious, but an overconfident
general Kang Cho was defeated and the invaders burnt Kaesŏng.
King Hyŏnjong fled south and then agreed to pay homage in person at
the Khitan court. Koryŏ did not fulfill this promise, however, which led
to the invasion of 1018 under the Khitan leader Xiao Paiya. The Koreans
defeated this force at Kuju fortress under the military command of Kang
Kam-ch’an. According to the Korean chroniclers, only a few thousand of
the 100,000 Khitan invaders survived. Whatever the true scale of victory,
it was not enough for Koryŏ to avoid submitting to the powerful invaders
from the north. Korea kept its independence but was forced to pay tribute
to the Khitan state of Liao.
After 1022, Koryŏ raised a corvée of 300,000 to reconstruct the destroyed
capital and finished it seven years later. Between 1033 and 1044
the Koreans constructed a long wall and fortifications against the Khitans
and another Northeastern Asian tribal group, the Jurchens (or Ruzhen).
Meanwhile, despite its resistance, Korea was forced to not only pay tribute
to the powerful Liao state but in 994 to adopt the Liao calendar. Thus
in effect the kingdom became a tributary state of Liao as it had in the
past been a tributary of Tang. These were simply concessions to reality;
the Koreans continued to regard the Khitan as barbarians. After 1054 the
Liao yoke over Korea lightened, and there appears to have been no tribute
after that date.
The Khitan cut Korea off from the militarily weak but prosperous and
culturally dynamic Song. Because of the existence of the powerful and hostile
Liao state between them, there was little direct contact between Korea
and China for a century. Taking advantage of a lessening of Liao militancy,
China opened relations with Koryŏ in 1062. For a while, considerable
trade flourished between China and Korea, enabling Koreans to participate
in some of the intellectual and cultural activities in China. China
sought to bring Korea into its tributary system, but relations between the
two were not especially close. Partly this was because Korean-Chinese relations
were complicated by the fact that Korea was a tributary of the Liao.
Fearing close relations with China that might arouse Khitan hostility, the
Koreans appear to have been cautious and selective in their relations with
their great continental neighbor. There was a suspicion of Korea among
the Chinese officials as well, some of whom saw the country as a potential
ally of the Khitans and Jurchens. Some Song officials complained that vital
information given to Korean embassies could find its way to the Khitan;
consequently they restricted the Koreans’ access to books.
Koryŏ was part of the network of trade that linked Northeast Asia. The
government established regulated markets in the northwest with Liao
and in the northeast with Jurchen tribes. On its northern border Koryŏ
supplied grain, iron, agricultural implements, and weapons to the Khitans
and Jurchen peoples in exchange for horses. Koreans also carried out
an active trade with Japan, importing folding fans and swords. After the
reopening of relations with Song, trade with China greatly overtook that
with Japan and the Manchurian-Siberian frontier in volume. Korean merchants
sailed to the Song ports of Gwangzhou, Quanzhou, Hongzhou,
and Mingzhou. Quanzhou merchants took the initiative in reestablishing
trade. In 1078, Song sent two “divine ships,” which were given a tumultuous
welcome in Korea.9 Most merchants traveled on Chinese vessels,
although some trade was conducted on Koryŏ ships, mostly to the north
China port of Dengzhou. The voyage from Mingzhou to the Hŭksan Islands
off the southwestern coast of Korea took three weeks; from there
it took several days along the Korean coast to reach Yesŏng. The voyage
was dangerous and frequently resulted in wrecks.10 Yet it could be
highly profitable. Koreans imported Chinese teas, lacquerware, books,
medicines, ceremonial robes, and a variety of luxury goods. Korea’s
most important import was probably porcelain. Merchants from Fujian
in southern China sailed to Korea in large ships loaded with the highly
prized products from their kilns. Even Arab merchants arrived in Korea
from China to trade in 1024 and 1025. Koryŏ exports were copper, gold,
silver, utensils, ginseng, pine nuts, silks, ramie cloth, paper, furs, and
even horses. The balance of trade seemed to favor China, but this is not
certain.11 This foreign trade was a stimulus to commercial development.
Major towns had permanent marketplaces, and in the thirteenth century
Kaesŏng is reported to have had over 1,000 shops and stalls. A government
bureau regulated weights and measures.
The era of active foreign trade and contact came to an end with the rise
of a new seminomadic power on the northern frontier, the Jurchens. The
Jurchens created the state of Jin, conquered the Khitan in 1126, and then
conquered northern China in 1127. Interestingly, the Jurchens claimed
Koguryŏ ancestry. This testified to the reputation of Koguryŏ, but it also
suggested that Jurchen ambitions included the peninsula. In response
to this new threat, Korea in the early twelfth century created a special
military force, the Pyŏlmuban, to deal with the Jurchen challenge. After an
internal debate, the Koreans established a tributary relationship with the
Jurchen state of Jin and broke off relations with China. The period that followed
was a peaceful one on the northern frontier, allowing the Koreans
to concentrate on their own domestic developments. Not surprisingly,
during this period of relative isolation and external calm, Korean political
and cultural institutions moved somewhat further away from the Chinese
model. Another important result of this peaceful period was that it led
to a further downgrading of the military and the ascendancy of civil officials.
The decline of the military’s prestige led to the 1170 coup that can
be seen as a delayed reaction to these events (see chapter 5).
Koryŏ’s interactions with its neighbors helped stamp its own identity.
Koreans have projected their own sense of national identity into the past,
but most scholars see national identity as something modern, a product of
the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Who were the people of Koryŏ?
How did they view themselves? As Remco Breuker has pointed out in his
study of medieval Korea, there were many names for the country. The
name Koryŏ is, as we have noted, taken from the northernmost of the
Three Kingdoms, and one that was at least in part a Manchurian state. Yet
contemporary documents sometimes referred to the land and its people
as the Samhan, the Three Han, after the tribal peoples of the southern half
of the peninsula. The names Haedong, East of the Sea, a reference to the
Yellow Sea that separated the peninsula from China, and Tongguk, the
East Country, both suggested they saw themselves in relation to China.
Both of these later names appear on Koryŏ coins, indicating that at least
the elite had some sense of their belonging to a distinct cultural tradition
that identified with their state.12