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.