Corea: The Hermit Nation

by William Elliot Griffis

Fuyu and Manchiu.

This career of conquest suffered a check for a time, when a Chinese expedition, sailing up the Yalu River, invested the capital city of the king and defeated his army. The king fled beyond the Tumen River. Eight thousand people are said to have been made prisoners or slaughtered by the Chinese. For a time it seemed as though Kokorai were too badly crippled to move again.

Anarchy broke out in China, on the fall of the house of Han, A.D. 220, and lasted for half a century. That period of Chinese history, from 221 to 277, is called the “Epoch of the Three Kingdoms.” During this period, and until well into the fifth century, while China was rent into “Northern” and “Southern” divisions, the military activities of Kokorai were employed with varying results against the petty kingdoms that rose and fell, one after the other, on the soil between the Great Wall and the Yalu River. During this time the nation, free from the power and oppression of China, held her own and compacted her power. In the fifth century her warriors had penetrated nearly as far west as the modern Peking in their cavalry raids. Wily in diplomacy, as brave in war, they sent tribute to both of the rival claimants for the throne of China which were likely to give them trouble in the future. Dropping the family name of their first king, they retained that of their ancestral home-land, and called their nation Korai.

Meanwhile, as they multiplied in numbers, the migration of Kokorai people, henceforth known as Korai men, set steadily southward. Weakness in China meant strength in Korai. The Chinese had bought peace with their Eastern neighbors by titles and gifts, which left the Koraians free to act against their southern neighbors. In steadily displacing these, they came into collision with the little kingdom of Hiaksai, whose history will be narrated farther on. It will be seen that the Korai men, people of the Fuyu race, finally occupied the territory of Hiaksai. Already the Koraians, sure of further conquest southward, fixed their capital at Ping-an.

In 589 A.D. the house of Sui was established on the dragon throne, and a portentous message was sent to the King of Korai, which caused the latter to make vigorous war preparations. Evidently the Chinese emperor meant to throttle the young giant of the north, while the young giant was equally determined to live. [[27]]The movement of a marauding force of Koraians, even to the inside of the Great Wall, gave the bearded dragon not only the pretext of war but of annexation.

For this purpose an army of three hundred thousand men and a fleet of several hundred war-junks were prepared. The latter were to sail over from Shantung, and enter the Ta-tong River, the goal of the expedition being Ping-an city, the Koraian capital

The horde started without provisions, and arrived in mid-summer at the Liao River in want of food. While waiting, during the hot weather, in this malarious and muddy region, the soldiers died by tens of thousands of fever and plague. The incessant rains soon rendered the roads impassable and transport of provisions an impossibility. Disease melted the mighty host away, and the army, reduced to one-fifth its numbers, was forced to retreat The war-junks fared no better, for storms in the Yellow Sea drove them back or foundered them by the score.

Such a frightful loss of life and material did not deter the next emperor, the infamous Yang (who began the Grand Canal), from following out the scheme of his father, whom he conveniently poisoned while already dying. In spite of the raging famines and losses by flood, the emperor ordered magazines for the armies of invasion to be established near the coast, and contingents of troops for the twenty-four corps to be raised in every province. All these preparations caused local famines and drove many of the people into rebellion.

This army, one of the greatest ever assembled in China, numbered over one million men. Its equipment consisted largely of banners, gongs, and trumpets. The undisciplined horde began their march, aiming to reach the Liao River before the hot season set in. They found the Koraian army ready to dispute their passage. Three bridges, hastily constructed, were thrown across the stream, on which horse and foot pressed eagerly toward the enemy. The width of the river had, however, been miscalculated and the bridges were too short, so that many thousands of the Chinese were drowned or killed by the Koraians, at unequal odds, while fighting on the shore. In two days, however, the bridges were lengthened and the whole force crossed over. The Chinese van pursued their enemy, slaughtering ten thousand before they could gain the fortified city of Liao Tung. Once inside their walls, however, the Korai soldiers were true to their reputation of being splendid garrison fighters. Instead of easy victory the [[28]]Chinese army lay around the city unable, even after several months’ besieging, to breach the walls or weaken the spirit of the defenders.