Koryo’s Inevitable Decline Essay, Research Paper

Koryo is one of critical kingdoms in Korean history during 10th and 14th century. During Koryo era, cultural aspect of the country flourished in many ways. For example, blue ceramic is a clear demonstration of creativity. Moreover, Koryo made a lot of cultural exchanges with foreign countries, such as contacting with Thailand and Islam cultures. These contacts made the country to experience international differences and contributed to the outgrowth of the country. Unfortunately, Koryo went through extreme chaos at the end of the era. Koryo started to decline because of the invasions of foreign countries, new rules on land policy and the advent of ambitious general, Yi Songgye.

Despite of many mutual exchanges with foreign countries, Koryo was attacked and invaded by China and Japan constantly. When a country is attacked by another country numerously, the country loses control on inner affairs and becomes unstable and easier to decline. Geographically, Northern part of Korea is connected to China. Therefore, it was easier for China to invade Korea. At the end of Koryo era, which was 1359, Koryo was attacked by a group called Red Turbans (Han, 178). These aggressive Red Turbans were defeated by the Mongol army (Mongolia was the country right above Northern Korea) and about 40,000 Red Turbans fled to Koryo. They occupied four Northwest towns and took Pyongyang, but they were defeated by Koryo army (Han, 178). However, Red Turbans returned again with 100,000 strong men. All the Northern part of Koryo were destroyed and corrupted. This time, Kaesong (Capital city of Koryo) was in danger. The court had to move down to Andong, which was located in the South. By moving the court, Koryo wasted a lot of capital money. The cost of lives and resources that have been lost from these attacks were the causes of decline. Mongolians have been attacking Koryo on and off for many years before the Red Turbans. For example, in 1231, When King Kojong was in reign, a large Mongolian army crossed the Yalu River and attacked Koryo (Hatada, 52). Here’s an excerpt from Koryo-sa in 1254 describing the attack: ” men and women seized by the Mongol troops reached the enormous number of 206,800, and innumerable people were massacred.” (Hatada, 52). These types of events happened repeatedly. These numerous invasions were a clear causes of deteriorating a country.

Mongolians were not the only ones who attacked Koryo. Koryo had to face the increasing problems of Japanese piracy (Han, 179). These Japanese pirates, also known as Woegu (dwarfs) constantly attacked the coasts of China and Korea. Woegu would sail up river to attack large cities such as Kongju and Chonju (Han 180). Many farmlands of these coastal areas were losing transportation of tax grain to the capital and also losing government food cargo ships (Hatada, 54). The interference of Woegu destroyed many coastal lands and capital goods. This is another example of gradual decline of Koryo.

As the country was attacked and invaded by these foreign countries, Koryo faced another problem – new policy on lands. The new policy was to privatize the estates. When the power of bureaucracy declined and dynasty power was rising, dynasty assured the livelihood of the officials (Hatada, 55). A large number of officials gradually increased their power through purchasing the private agricultural states. By privatizing the lands, officials could buy number of lands as they want. That means, the lands are less owned by the states and the states had problems with their finances. This resulted the officials to own a land that could only meant to gain their personal power. The instability of the country was yet to be begun.

Since these private estates were owned by the officials, it was difficult to distinct the lands. Whenever the government position of the officials were changed, the private estates were hard to categorize its ownership. Once the officials were removed from their positions, the land ownership had to pass to another officials. This often brought instability in the government and the conflicts between officials. Therefore it caused the land administrative system to fall into disorder (Hatada, 56). When this occurred, many officials were claiming to hold the rights of the same land (Hatada, 56). This brought cultivators to experience poverty caused by excessive assessments. Koryo was gradually losing its power to unify the control of the people. Between the officials, lower-rank officials were dissatisfied with the ownership of higher-rank officials. The income of these states was already declined, and thus the allowances of the land became irregular. If you were an official and do not own the private agricultural estates, you were guaranteed to face instability in your life. One way to solve this problem was to divide the lands that were monopolized by the king, princes, and the nobles. However, meeting the demand of this suggestion was not negotiable and therefore Koryo finally fell because it was unable to solve it (Hatada, 57).

The most people that had to suffer from these new rules on lands were the peasants. The peasants, both free and unfree whom had their lands handed down for generations in their own villages had to give up the lands. Since these lands were controlled by the states and were not owned by them personally, these peasants became tenant farmers of the officials and paid taxes to the states (Hatada, 57). The peasantry was exploited enormously, and their living conditions were extremely difficult (Hatada, 57). During this time, Mongolians were invading and Woegu were attacking the coastlines. Because of numerous invasions and privatized agricultural lands, peasants did not find many lands to cultivate. They no longer had a place to live! Many of these poor peasants became vagrants and bandits (Hatada, 57). Furthermore, due to poverty that was caused by high taxes on working in these privatized farms, many peasants had no choice but to sold themselves or their children or grandchildren into servitude to the landowners (Hatada, 58). During this period, slaves and unfree peasants frequently revolted, and fought for their liberation (Hatada, 58). The country was again facing instability and this time, not because of any foreigners but because of its own people. Koryo could not provide fair treatment to the people who really needed help, which were the peasants. By changing to private landholding, neither the officials nor the peasants were gaining any sort of benefits. Koryo became unstable and the stage was set for a new leader.

The new leader was ambitious general who was called Yi Songgye. During the last years of Koryo, the country was confused and corrupted by many internal and external affairs. Through his military achievements, Yi Songgye became the chief general of national defense during the critical period at the end of Koryo (Hatada, 61). Yi Songgye was also a statesman. He foresaw the decline of Yuan Empire (from China) and with it he saw the loss of power of the old court parties of Yuan, which had long been parasites on Koryo (Hatada, 61). Therefore, Yi decides to turn back the army from Wihwa Island and take over the leadership of Koryo. In 1388, Yi proposed a new reform on lands. This reform was created to confiscate private agricultural estates and to redistribute land (Hatada, 61). These estates were to be broken up and the bulk of the land returned to the government tax rolls to provide revenues (Han, 189). Since many kings, princes and nobles depended on these estates, confiscation took away their power. Yi gained more power from lower officials who owned no private agricultural estates. This was a perfect time for Yi to prosper in his political future (Hatada, 61). In 1390, Yi and the reform party, publicly burned the old public and private land registers of King Kongyang of Koryo at the time and the nobles and high officials who owned private agricultural estates (Hatada, 62). With confiscating old landlords’ lands and gaining support from both army and scholar-officials who owns most government offices, Yi Songgye was ready to crush Koryo. The hopeless Koryo declined in 1392 and Yi Songgye was a new leader of the next era, Yi Dynasty.

Like many historical kingdoms, Koryo’s transition to the next era was not a smooth one. The transition was rather bloody and chaotic. Despite of cultural progress, Koryo’s instability was gradual and inevitable. Koryo was a vulnerable place for foreign countries to attack. The numerous invasions certainly made the country unstable, unstable enough to let the innocent people to die. While the country was unstable and innocent people were dying, more people were suffering from losing their lands. Losing their lands meant losing their identity and their everyday life. Koryo irresponsibly let the lower class of people to suffer and the country was at its peak to decline. At the final stage of Koryo, there was no show of signs to rise up as a country. An ambitious and rather an apt general Yi Songgye took over Koryo instantaneously since the country was so disordered. The time was perfect for someone to take over this unstable country. Koryo could and should have had smooth transition between eras, yet numerous causes of instability paved its way to decline.

Work Cited

Hatada, Takashi, A History of Korea, Santa Barbara, Clio Press, 1969.

Han, Woo-Keun, The History of Korea, Korea, East-West Center Press, 1970

Bibliography

Eckert, Carter J. et al, Korea: Old and New A History, England, Harvard University Press, 1990

Radio Korea International, The History of Korea, Korea, Jung moon Printing, 1995.

Lee, Hyun Hee, Yiyagi Hanguksa, Korea, Chung-A publication, 1987.