Chapter VI.
The king moves to Kang-wha.... a slave rebellion.... Mongol anger.... second invasion.... Mongol charges.... popular insurrections.... palace building.... the north occupied by Mongols.... Mongols not good seamen.... suffering and distress.... nature of Mongol occupation.... diplomacy.... temporary peace.... Gayuk Khan.... Mangu Khan.... efforts to get the king out of Kang-wha.... great invasion of 1253.... an urgent letter.... king decides not to remove.... great fortress falls.... impossible demands.... siege of Ch‘un-ch‘ŭn.... Ya Gol-dă meets the king.... the king promises to return to the capital.... a ferocious governor-general.... exchequer depleted.... Cha Ra-dă before Kang-wha.... a beautiful reply.... a new viceroy.... succession of disasters.... viceroy overthrown.... Mongol ravages.... the north defenseless.
That neither the Koryŭ king nor any of the officials believed that the end of the trouble had come is evident. No sooner had the tumult of war subsided than the question arose in the Koryŭ councils as to the moving of the court. Some objections were made, but Choe U silenced them by killing off a few of the objectors. As for the king, he could not make up his mind to go; but the viceroy showed no hesitation. Seizing the government carts he loaded his household effects upon them and moved to the island of Kang-wha. He also urged the people to do likewise, and put up placards threatening with death anyone who should speak against removing. Meanwhile the people throughout the country were rising in revolt against the Mongol governors and were driving them out. This was sure to call down upon the troubled land another invasion, and the king at last made up his mind to follow the example of his viceroy and move to Kang-wha. A palace had been prepared for him there and on the appointed day a start was made from the capital. It happened to be in the midst of the rainy season when the roads are well-nigh impassable. The whole cavalcade soon found itself mired, and torrents of rain added materially to the discomfort. Even ladies of noble rank were seen wading with bared limbs in the mud and carrying bundles on their heads. The wailing and crying of this forlorn multitude was audible for a long distance. Gen. Kim Chung-gwi was left to guard the capital. When the king at last arrived on the island he found that the palace was not ready for occupancy and he was obliged to live in a common house while the officials shifted for themselves. Messengers were immediately sent in all directions ordering the people to leave the mainland and seek refuge on the islands.
The common people in Song-do were in utter confusion. Anarchy stared them in the face. A slave by the name of Yi T‘ong gathered about him a band of slaves and raised an insurrection. The general who had been placed in charge was driven out, the monks were summoned to help in the sack of the town and all the government buildings were soon looted. It is hardly complimentary to Buddhism that her monks were invited by this seditious rabble to help in these lawless acts but it is probably a true picture of the times. When this came to the ears of the king he sent Gen. Yi Cha-sung to put down the insurrection. The slaves barricaded the road but the general dispersed them and at night gained admittance to the city by feigning to be a deserter. Once within, he caught the slave leader Yi T‘ong and the rest soon dispersed.
When the news of this exodus from the capital and the driving out of the Mongol governors reached the Mongol capital is caused a sensation. The emperor, in a white heat, sent a messenger post-haste to Song-do and behind him came a powerful army. The demand was “Why have you changed the capital? Why have our people been driven out?” The king replied that the capital was changed because all the people were running away, but he affirmed that although he had removed to Kang-wha his friendly feelings toward the Mongols had not changed. To this the Mongols made the only answer that was to be expected from them. They fell upon the northern towns and put them to indiscriminate slaughter. Men, women and children fell beneath their swords. Gen. Sal Ye-t‘ap himself came to attack Cho-im fortress. In that place there was a notable archer. He shot with unerring skill and every arrow found its victim. Aided by this man the garrison offered such a stubborn resistance that the Mongols at last fell back in disorder. It is said that Gen. Sal Ye-t‘ap himself was one of the victims of this man’s superb marksmanship. The king offered him official position but he would not accept it.
The spring of 1233 found the emperor’s anger somewhat abated and instead of sending another army he sent another envoy with four formulated charges. (1) No Koryŭ envoy had come to do obeisance. (2) Highwaymen had killed a Mongol envoy. (3) The king had run away from his capital. (4) The king had given false figures in the census of Koryŭ. We are not told whether these were answered but we may infer that they were, and in the humblest tone.
It would be singular indeed if, in such lawless times, there were not many insurrections in the country. A considerable insurrection was gotten up in Kyŭng-sang Province but was put down with a heavy hand, for the records say that after the battle between the rebels and the loyal troops the road for six miles was lined with dead. In P‘yŭng-yang likewise there was a rising led by one Pil Hyŭn-bo. The King sent Gen. Chöng I alone to settle the difficulty. He had already been a P‘yŭng-yang prefect and had put down one insurrection. He was feared throughout the whole section. As he approached the northern city his servant besought him not to enter it, but he replied that such were the king’s orders. So he went to his death, for the insurrectionists, failing to win him over to their side, gave him his quietus. The viceroy then sent 3,000 picked troops to the rebellious city. They took the rebel leader, cut him in two and sent the fragments of his body to the king. The second in command named Hong Pok-wŭn, fled to the Mongols, by whom he was warmly welcomed. He became their guide in many subsequent expeditions. These renegades were a source of constant trouble between Koryŭ and the Mongols; so much so that the King took pains to show favor to the parents and relatives of those who had fled to the Mongol flag. This same year a second wall was built about Kang-wha. The king sent asking the Mongols to recall the rest of their troops, and it was done.
With the opening of the following year, 1234, great numbers of people were summoned to help in the building of a palace on Kang-wha. At this time the utmost favor was shown to Buddhism. Sacrifices were offered on all the mountains and beside the streams with the hope of enlisting the sympathy of the gods. The viceroy also looked out for himself, for we are told, probably with some exaggeration, that he built himself a house twenty li in circumference. It was in this same year that the Kin dynasty became extinct.
With the opening of the next year the real occupation of the land by the Mongols commenced. The north was systematically occupied, scores of prefects being seized. The king of[of] Kang-wha meanwhile was trying to secure a cessation of these hostilities by turning sun-worshipper, for every morning from seven to twelve the officials spent their time worshipping that very useful, but hardly divine, luminary. The year following increased the hopelessness of Koryŭ’s position a hundred fold, for the Mongols established seventeen permanent camps in P‘yŭng-an and Whang-hă Provinces. They came as far south as Han-yang, the present Seoul. They then proceeded southward to the very extremity of the peninsula, and camps were established through all that portion of the land. The only reverse the Mongols met in this triumphal march was at the hands of Son Mun-ju the prefect of Chuk-ju, now Chuk-san, who had learned the tactics of the Mongols while serving in the north. Every day he foretold successfully at what point the enemy would make the next attack. People said he was inspired.
It would seem that the Mongols, however, did not remain long in the south, for we read that when the standard of revolt was raised the following year at Na-ju, the Koryŭ forces, sent by the king, speedily overcame them. This would hardly have been likely had the Mongols been in force in that vicinity.
We must remember that the Mongols were continental people and knew nothing of the sea. Even the narrow strip of water between Kang-wha and the mainland daunted them. And so it was that the king from his island retreat defied the tremendous Mongol power.
By 1238, when the Mongols again flooded the country with their soldiery, the people had mostly found refuge among the mountains and on the thousands of islands which lie off the western coast of Korea. It would be impossible for anyone to imagine the suffering and distress entailed by these invasions. The records say that the people simply left their houses and fields and fled to these places of refuge. What did these hundreds of thousands of people live on as they fled, and after they reached their places of retreat? What breaking of old bonds of friendship and kinship, what rending of family ties and uprooting of ancient landmarks! It is a marvel that the land ever recovered from the shock. These Mongols were fiercer and more ruthless than the Japanese who overran the country three centuries later and they were far more numerous, besides. Plunder being their main motive, their marauding bands covered a much greater territory and mowed a much wider swath than did the soldiers of the great Hideyoshi, who kept to comparatively narrow[narrow] lines of march. Nor did these Mongols meet the opposition which the Japanese met. The Mongols made a clean sweep of the country, and never again do we read of those splendid armies of 200,000 or 300,000 men which Koryŭ was once able to put into the field, even when groaning under the weight of a corrupt court and a rampant priesthood. It is from these days that dates that utter prostration of Koryŭ’s power which left her an easy prey to every Japanese freebooter who had 100 good swords at his back.
After ravaging to their hearts’ content the Mongols withdrew in 1236 to their own territory but sent a messenger ordering the king to go to Peking and bow before the Mongol emperor. He refused, but sent instead a relative by the name of Chŭn with a letter asking the emperor to excuse him from attempting the difficult journey to the Mongol court. Again the next year the same demand was made, but this time the king simply declined to go. The Mongols then modified their demand and ordered the King to come out from his island retreat and return to Song-do. This the king had no intention of doing; but the next year he sent another relation named Sun as a hostage to the Mongol court asserting that this was his son. The emperor believed this and married Sun to one of his own near relatives.
The Mongol emperor Ogdai died in 1242 and the queen dowager took charge of affairs during an[an] interval of four years, until 1246, when Gayuk became emperor. This brought peace to troubled Koryŭ for a period of five or six years. During this time, all that was left of her resources was used up in sending five or six embassies to the Mongol court each year. The moment the pressure of war was raised the king followed once more the bent of his inclinations, and while the country was in the very lowest depths of distress he feasted royally in his island retreat, while the viceroy vied with him in the splendor of his entertainments. It is said that at one feast 1300 musicians performed. Meantime the people were slowly returning to their homes.
Gayuk Khan came to the Mongol throne in 1246, and it was the signal for the renewal of hostilities against Koryŭ. At first four hundred men came, ostensibly to catch sea-otter but in reality to spy out the country and learn the mountain passes of the north. The king was not expecting a renewal of hostilities, or else was too much taken up with his feasting to attend to the defenses of the north; so the people fled in panic before this handful of invaders. Many of them took refuge on Wi-do Island off P‘yŭng-an Province and there engaged in agriculture. They built a great dam across an estuary of the sea and reclaimed a large tract of cultivable land, but they suffered badly from lack of wells.
In 1249 Gayuk died and the regency again devolved upon the queen dowager. Peace again reigned for a time, broken only by a single attempted invasion by the Yŭ-jin people, which was unsuccessful. The king began the erection of a new palace at Song-do in order to make it appear that he intended to obey the standing injunction of his suzerain to go back to the capital.
The Mongol regency ended in 1251 and Mangu Khan became emperor. An envoy was immediately despatched to inquire whether the king had yet obeyed this command, but as the answer was unsatisfactory the Koryŭ envoy who appeared at the emperor’s court the following year was thrown into prison and a last envoy was sent with instructions to[to] settle the question definitely. If the king would come out and return to his capital the people might remain on Kang-wha, but if the king refused, the envoy was to return with all haste to the Emperor and war would be declared at once. A certain Korean, hearing about these instructions, hastened forward and informed the king and urged that he go out and meet the envoy. To this the king did not assent. When the envoy arrived the king set a great feast for him, in the midst of which the Mongol arose and, assuming a terrible aspect, demanded loudly why the king did not leave the island and return to Song-do. Without waiting for an answer to the question he strode out of the hall and posted back to the north. The people were in dismay and said to each other, “This means war again.”
When the lengthening vernal sun of 1253 had melted the northern snows this prophetic word was verified. The renegade Koryŭ general, Hong Pok-wŭn, told the emperor that the king had triple-walled the island of Kang-wha and would not move therefrom. War, ever welcome to these first Mongol emperors, was now afoot. The first detachment of 10,000 troops was led by the Emperor’s brother Song-ju. With many allies from the Yŭ-jin and other tribes he crossed the Yalu. Then the Mongol general, A Mo-gan, and the renegade Hong crossed and advanced as far as the Ta-dong River. Following these came Gen. Ya Gol-dă with sixteen chieftains in his train and with a formidable array of troops.
The envoy Sun who, we will remember, had married a Mongol princess, now wrote an urgent letter to the king saying “The emperor is angry because you persist in disobeying him and he is sending seventeen kings against you. But he says that if you will leave the island and follow out his commands he will even now recall the army. You have now an opportunity of giving your country a lasting peace. If you leave the island, send your son to the emperor and receive the Mongol envoy well, it will be a blessing to the kingdom of Koryŭ. If you will not do this, I beg of you to put all my family to death.”
Beneath this last appeal lay a terrible threat and the king realized it. A great council was convened and the universal voice was in favor of compliance; but a single voice was raised in opposition. It said “How much treasure have we squandered on this insatiable barbarian, and how many good men have gone as envoys and never returned. Let the king go out now from this place of safety and when we behold him a corpse our condition will be enviable indeed!” This word startles the assembly. Cowards that they are, they rise to their feet and with one voice applaud the stirring words and charge the king to stay in his island fortress and still defy the savage of the north.
Gen. Ya Gol-dă now sent a messenger to the King purporting to be from the Emperor saying “I have begun from the rising sun and I will conquer to its going down. All people rejoice but you, who do not listen. I now send Gen. Ya Gol-dă. If you receive him well, I will leave you in peace; if not, I will never forgive the offense.” Immediately putting his troops in motion the redoubtable general approached[approached] the strongest fortress in Whang-ha Province. It was surrounded by almost perpendicular precipices. The commandant laughed at[laughed at] the Mongols and defied them, and feasted in their sight. But the Mongols, directing all their energy at a single point, soon battered down a portion of the wall[wall], set fire to the buildings with fire arrows, and with scaling ladders effected an entrance. The commandant hanged himself, and 4,700 of the garrison were put to the sword. All children above ten years old were killed and all the women were ravished.
Gen. Ya Gol-dă, being at To-san in Whang-ha Province, received a plaintive letter from the king asking him to retire from the country. He told the bearer of this missive “The Emperor says the king is too old to bow. I am going to find out whether this is true. I will give him just six days[days] to get here.” The messenger argued the dangerous condition of the road and said it could not be done in that time. Then the Mongol forces turned eastward[eastward] and began to destroy the fortresses and loot the store-houses, at the same time sending to the king saying “If every prefect in the land will send in a written surrender I will retire.” This was impossible in the present state of turmoil, and it probably was a mere pleasantry on the part of the Mongols.
The town of Ch‘un-ch‘ŭn was a rather formidable place and its siege and fall offer some interesting indications of the method of Mongol warfare. First a double fence or stockade was built around the town and outside this a bank six feet high and a ditch correspondingly deep. Ere long the supply of water in the town gave out and the people killed their cattle and drank the blood. The distress was terrible. Cho Hyo-ip, a leading man, seeing that there was no escape, first burned up his family and then killed himself. The prefect fought until he was exhausted and then threw himself into a burning house and perished. A party of the strongest of the remaining soldiers made a fierce attack upon one portion of the stockade and succeeded in breaking through, but they could not force the bank and trench beyond. The enemy entered, razed the town and burned the grain, and the women were carried away. During this time the king was using the only means left for turning the tide of war. He was worshipping every spirit that he could think of, and before every large boulder. He raised all his ancestors several rounds in the ladder of apotheosis; but it all seemed to have little effect upon the progress of events. Another renegade, Yi Hyŭn, arose in the north and forced many districts into his following.
In the course of time Gen. Ya Gol-dă arrived before the town of Ch‘ung-ju in Ch‘ung-ch‘ŭng Province, but being unable to reduce it without a regular siege, he left his main army there and came north to the vicinity of Kang-wha. He then announced, “If the King will come out and meet me here I will take my forces back across the Yalu.” With this message he sent ten Mongol generals to the king. The latter complied, and with a heavy guard came across the straits and met Ya Gol-dă at Seung-ch‘ŭn-bu. Gen. Mong Go-dă was present with Ya Gol-dă at the interview which followed. The Mongol general said “After we crossed the Yalu into Koryŭ, thousands of your people fell every day. Why should you think only of your own comfort while your people are dying thus by tens of thousands? If you had consented to come out sooner, many lives would have been saved. We now ought to make a firm treaty.” He added that Mongol prefects must be placed in each district and that a force of ten thousand in all must be quartered upon Koryŭ. To this the king replied that with such conditions it would be extremely difficult for him to return to Song-do. In spite of this the Mongol leader placed one of his men in each of the prefectures. The only question which was discussed in the royal councils was how to get rid of the Mongols. One man dared to suggest that the Crown Prince be sent to intercede with the emperor. The king flew into a rage at this but soon he was so far mollified as to consent to sending his second son, Chang, with rich gifts to the Mongol court, a course of procedure which once more drained the royal coffers to the last farthing. The king had promised the Mongols to go back to Song-do “gradually” as fast as preparations could be made, and also to destroy the palaces in Kang-wha. The Mongols kept their word and retired but as they went they plundered and ravaged. When they had gone the king caught the renegade Yi Hyŭn and killed him and his son, and banished all his adherents. This was a dangerous course, for this man had acted as guide to the Mongols and the latter were more than likely to resent his death. So it turned out, for an envoy came post from the Mongol court complaining that only the king alone had come out from Kang-wha, and that a man who had helped the Mongols had been slain for it. Whether the king answered these complaints satisfactorily we do not know, but soon the emperor developed a new plan. He sent Gen. Cha Ra-dă with 5,000 troops to become governor-general of Koryŭ. The emperor little knew what sort of a man he was letting loose upon Koryŭ. No sooner had this beast in human shape crossed the frontier than he began a systematic course of extermination. He killed right and left, every living thing. The king hastened to remonstrate but he answered “Unless all the people have their hair cut I shall continue to kill.” The records say that he carried into captivity the enormous number of 206,800 souls, both men and women, and that of the dead he left behind no estimate was ever made. When the emperor heard of this, even his fierce heart was touched, and the next year, 1255, he recalled the monster. The latter obeyed but on his way north he built fortified camps along the way, for future use.
In spite of the thanks which the Koryŭ king sent to the emperor for this deliverance, the latter allowed this same general to come back with a powerful force, and accompanied by the same former envoy, Sun, who had married the Mongol princess. The king had to go out and meet them and waste his remaining treasure in useless presents. So thoroughly was his exchequer depleted that his own table was but ill supplied.
The two countries were now nominally at peace, but as Gen. Cha seemed bent on fighting, there seemed to be nothing to do but to fight. Some of his soldiers were roughly handled at Chung-ju where a thousand were killed. Again in the east a large detachment of his troops were heavily defeated.
At last Gen. Cha came, in his sanguinary wanderings, to the vicinity of Kang-wha and displayed his banners in sight of that island, to the great uneasiness of its occupants. Sun, the renegade, was now a Mongol general and was as bitter against Koryŭ; as any of the northern savages.
The king, in despair, sent Kim Su-gan to the emperor to make a last appeal to his clemency, but the emperor replied “I cannot recall my troops, for your king will not come out from his retreat”. To this the envoy made the beautiful reply, “The frightened quarry will not come forth from its hole till the hunter has departed. The flower cannot spring from the frozen sod”. Upon hearing this the emperor immediately gave orders for the recall of the ruthless Gen. Cha.
Ch‘oe Hang the son of Ch‘oe U, had held the position of viceroy for eight years. His course had been one of utter selfishness and oppression. Many honorable men had met their death at his hands. He now died, leaving a son, Ch‘oe Chung, a young man of considerable power. When the viceroy died his retainers did not announce the fact until the household had been put in readiness for any emergency and a strong armed guard had been stationed at every approach. We can argue from this fact that the viceroyalty was anything but pleasing to the king and that in case the viceroy died the king would be glad of an opportunity to abolish the office altogether. Subsequent events proved the truth of this supposition. When everything was in readiness the death was announced and the young man Ch‘oe Chung was put forward as viceroy. The king was obliged to confirm him in the office. He had no power to refuse. Ch‘oe Jung was a son by a concubine and from this time the annals contain no mention of men’s birth on the mother’s side. This was because Ch‘oe Jung killed everybody who was heard speaking slightingly of his birth. If anyone had a spite against another he could always effectually vent it by charging him with having said that Ch’oe Chung was of common birth.
Disaster and distress followed each other thick and fast in these days. An insurrection arose in Kang-wŭn Province under the leadership of one An Yul, but was put down. A famine wasted the country and the poor were fed out of the government supplies. The Mongols though nominally at peace with Koryŭ seemed to consider the territory as their legitimate foraging ground, and now they came walking through the land, coming even to the gates of Song-do. The king sent Gen. Yi Eung and feasted the unwelcome guests in the hope of inducing them to leave the unhappy country. It was a vain hope. They turned southward and continued their thieving across the Han River even to Chik-san. The king feasted them again and asked them to desist. The leader replied that he would do so if the king would come out of Kang-wha and send the Crown Prince to the Mongol court. As this leader was that same Gen. Cha who had once been recalled by the emperor for cruelty, we may easily understand how anxious the king was to be rid of him, at any cost. He therefore consented to the conditions, and Gen. Cha retired as far as Yŭn-ju and ordered all the detachments of his army to desist from plundering. The king kept his word, in part at least, for he sent not the Crown Prince but his second son together with Ch’oe Chung.
Ch’oe Chung used his wits for the purpose of personal emolument and his credulity also led him into all kinds of difficulties. His grand mistake was in casting off an aged slave, Kim In-jun, who had served his father and grandfather faithfully and deserved better treatment at the young man’s hands. The worm, thus trodden upon, turned and bit to the bone. It was as follows. The aged servant, gaining access to the king, told him that the young viceroy was dead and in a moment secured another man as leader of the soldiers. Clad with his new power the vengeful old man caught and killed some of the most intimate friends of the viceroy and in the early morning gained access to the viceroy’s house and hunted him from room to room. He found him hidden in a disused chimney flue from which he was speedily drawn forth and dispatched. When the old slave announced this to the king the latter said “You have done me a great favor”, and could hardly refrain from tears. The king then destroyed the picture of Ch’oe Chung-heun who had founded the viceroyalty, and distributed the ill-gotten wealth of the Ch’oe family among the people. It is said that even the lowest citizen received at least three bags of rice or other grain. At the same time all Ch’oe’s following were banished.
The year 1258 had now come, the last that the aged king Ko-jang was destined to see. In this year the Mongols came again as usual. They began by building and garrisoning a fortress at Eui-ju. Then Gen. Cha Ra-dă with a small body of a thousand troops came southwards as far as Su-an in Whang-hă Province. It shows how utterly shorn of power Koryŭ was, that this general should dare to penetrate so far into the land with only a thousand men at his back. Hearing of this the aged king decided to try a little artifice. He came out of Kang-wha, across the straits to Tong-jin on the opposite bank, in order to make it appear that he had complied with the emperor’s command. Gen. Cha demanded that the crown prince also come out. He made a line of camps all the way from Song-do to Tong-jin and settled down as if he intended to stay and see his orders obeyed. The king had retired to the island again upon the near approach of the Mongols and now the latter redoubled their demands and ravaged more remorselessly than ever. They swarmed all about Kang-wha and nothing but a narrow strip of water lay between the king and that more than half savage army. The water proved, however, an effective barrier. All this time another Mongol force under Gen. San Gil-dă was wasting the northern and eastern districts, The people of Wha-ju and of fourteen other towns, led by one Sin Chip-pyŭng sought refuge on Cho-do island but finding this insecure, moved to another; but some Koryŭ renegades led Mongol troops there and overthrew the little colony.
The king now altered his tactics. Sending an envoy to China he said “I have desired to obey the emperor but hitherto I have been prevented by the powerful officials. Now that the viceroy has been put out of the way I will go back to Song-do and do as you shall direct. But we are surrounded by your soldiery and it is hard to move. We are like mice when the cat is about. Let them be ordered back home and I will do as you direct.”
Meanwhile two traitors in the north had overpowered the Koryŭ general and had gone over to the enemy. The whole north was therefore without a single defence and was being held by these two traitors under Mongol orders. Such was the unhappy condition of affairs when the year 1258 came to a close.