As has been said, nearly all that the western world was able to learn about Corea until recent years, has been collected from Chinese and Japanese sources, which confine themselves mainly to the historical and political connection with these countries. The meagre early accounts owed to Europeans on this interesting subject, originate either from shipwrecked mariners who have been cast upon the inhospitable shores of Corea and there been kept imprisoned for some time, or from navigators who have extended their voyages of discovery to these distant seas and who have touched a few prominent points of the coast.
Like almost every country on earth, 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 who came from beyond the northern frontier. It may not be a wrong conjecture, which is corroborated by many outward signs, to look for the origin of the people in Mongolia, in a tribe which finally settled down in Corea after roaming about and fighting its way through China. We may also take those who bear the unmistakable stamp of the Caucasian race to have come from Western Asia whence they had been driven by feuds and revolutions. At the conclusion of the long wars which have at last led to the union of the different states founded by various tribes, a partial fusion had taken place, which, though it has not succeeded in eradicating the outer signs of a different descent, at least caused the adoption of one language and of the same manners and customs.
Most of the Coreans claim to be in complete darkness and ignorance of their own origin; some declare quite seriously that their ancestors have sprung from a black cow on the shores of the Japan sea, while others ascribe their origin to a mysterious and supernatural cause.
The first mention of the inhabitants of Corea we find in old Chinese chronicles about 2350 B.C., at which period some of the northern tribes are reported to have entered into a tributary connection with China. The first really reliable accounts, however, commence only with the twelfth century B.C., at which time the north-westerly part of the peninsula first stands out from the dark.
The last Chinese emperor of the Shang dynasty was Chow Sin, who died B.C. 1122. He was an unscrupulous tyrant, and one of his nobles, Ki Tsze, rebuked and remonstrated with his sovereign. His efforts were hopeless, and the nobles who joined him in protest were executed. Ki Tsze was cast into prison. A revolt immediately ensued against the tyrant; he was defeated and killed, and the conqueror Wu Wang released the prisoner and appointed him prime minister. Ki Tsze however refused to serve one whom he believed to be an usurper and exiled himself to the regions lying to the north-east. With him went several thousand Chinese immigrants, most the remnant of the defeated army, who made him their king. Ki Tsze reigned many years and left the newly founded state in peace and prosperity to his successors. He policed the borders, gave laws to his subjects, and gradually introduced the principles and practices 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. The Japanese pronounce the founder’s name Kishi, and the Coreans Kei-tsa or Kysse. The name conferred by the civilizer upon his new domain was that now in use by the modern Coreans, “Cho-sen,” or “Morning Calm.”
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 that time.
This early portion of Cho-sen did not contain all of the territory of the modern Corea, but only the north-western portion of it. While the petty kingdoms of China were warring among one another, the nearest to Cho-sen encroached upon it and finally seized the colony. This was not to be permanent however, and there ensued a series of wars, each force becoming alternately successful. The territory of Cho-sen grew in area and the kingdom increased in wealth, power and intelligence under the rule of King Wie-man, who assumed the authority 194 B.C. Thousands of Chinese gentry fleeing before the conquering arms of the Han usurpers settled within the limits of the new kingdom, adding greatly to its prosperity. In 107 B.C., after a war that had lasted one year, a Chinese invading army finally conquered the kingdom of Cho-sen and annexed it to the Chinese empire. The conquered territory included the north half of the present kingdom of Corea.
Things remained in this condition until about 30 B.C., at which time a part of Cho-sen taking advantage of the disorders which had broken out afresh in China, separated itself from the empire and again formed a state by itself, but still remained tributary; while the other portions of the old kingdom for some time longer remained under Chinese rule, until they also joined the portion that had been freed. Up to this period Cho-sen forming the north-west of the present Corea, had been the only part of that country that had become more closely connected with China. The tracts to the north-east, south-west and south were occupied by different independent tribes, and little more is known of them than that they were ruled by chiefs of their own clan. In course of time three kingdoms, Korai, Hiaksai, and Shinra, were formed out of these various elements, subsisting by the side of Cho-sen, at a later date fighting either beside or against China, and almost incessantly at feud with each other, until Shinra gained the predominance about the middle of the eighth century A.D. and kept the same up to the sixteenth century. It was then supplanted in the leading position by Korai, which united under its supremacy all those parts of Corea which had hitherto been separate, and constituted the whole into a single state. Like the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Wales, these Corean states were distinct in origin, were conquered by a race from without, received a rich infusion of alien blood, struggled in rivalry for centuries, and were finally united under one nation with one flag and one sovereign.
Hiaksai was for a while the leading state in the peninsula. Buddhism was introduced from Thibet in 384 A.D. And to this state more than any other part of Corea, Japan owes her first impulses towards the civilization of the west. The kingdom prospered until the decade from 660 to 670, when it was overrun and practically annihilated by an army of Chinese, despite the aid of four hundred junks and a large body of soldiers sent from Japan to the aid of Corea.
Korai of course took its turn in struggling with the Dragon of China. Early in the seventh century China had been defeated, and for a generation peace prevailed. But the Chinese coveted Koraian territory and again an invading fleet attacked the country. It took years to complete the conquest, but finally all Korai with its five provinces, its one and seventy-six cities and its four or five millions of people, was annexed to the Chinese empire.