Ch 5 - Koryo and the Mongols

Dictators and Slaves

Following the military revolt of 1170, politics became a matter of raw power, where the group with the greater force became the greater class. The imposition of a military dictatorship triggered popular insurrections throughout Koryo, driven by thousands of peasants overburdened by land rents, taxes, tribute payments, and forced labor. The large-scale revolt aimed not just at restructuring the social order from the bottom up, but of seizing political power as well.

In the latter half of the 12th century, attaining political power in Koryo had nothing to do with marriage connections, or royal lineage, or tradition, or law. All that really mattered was the exercise of raw power. Whichever group mustered the greater force became the greater class. General Yi Ui-bang killed General Yi Ko and sought to grab power by marrying his daughter to the Crown Prince, whereupon the faction supporting Chong Chung-bu assassinated him. General Chong's increasingly dictatorial rule lasted until 1179, when he was murdered by a young military commander named Kyong Tae-sung. For some twenty-five years a veritable parade of military strong men burst on the scene suddenly, held power for a brief period, then disappeared.

A long running trend that had been underway for generations at the bottom of Koryo society ever since the reign of King Yejong soon began to make its presence felt. Thousands of peasants, overburdened by land rents, taxes, tribute payments, and the conditions of forced labor, simply abandoned their land for a life of aimless wandering. The problem was particularly severe in the region around Kaesong and in Hwanghae Province. Banding together in small groups from time to time, groups of rootless peasants formed gangs that disrupted life in local areas. The spread of political instability and social upheaval generated by Koryo's military revolt in 1170 further aggravated the already wretched lives of the lower classes, people already agitated by their desperate condition.

Driven by rage at the highhanded and rapacious behavior of local officials, people took inspiration from the military revolt and rose in rebellion. The first of many popular uprisings occurred in 1172, in of all places, the military district of the Western Border Region around Ch'angsong, Sonch'on and Ch'olsan, where most of the local residents were, in effect, common soldiers. These early insurrections were spontaneous local riots for the most part, in which the mutinous citizenry had no objective beyond that of freeing itself from unjust treatment suffered at the hands of local officials.

Popular insurrections spread quickly and soon engulfed even the lower classes. In 1176, rebels from Mangi and Mangsoi in the Myonghak forced labor district near Kongju stormed the Kongju Garrison, took control of Ch'ongju and Asan, and marched north toward Kaesong. They group managed to hold out for nearly a year before government troops put an end to their revolt. Six years later, soldiers in Ch'ongju, forced into labor to build ships, took up arms against the cruel and harsh treatment of local officials. Joined by government slave laborers, the rebels managed to hold effective control of the city for forty days. Smaller, but no less passionate revolts erupted one after another in various parts of Koryo. These were not rebellions in the service of some great cause. While there were cases where rebels fought to free themselves from their slave status, most insurrections were spontaneous affairs with the simplest of goals;  men trying to free themselves from unjust treatment by government officials.

By the last decade of the twelfth century, peasant rebellions developed a sustained momentum and became far more serious in tone. Two large rebel groups composed of soldiers, peasants and slaves alike emerged from separate locations in the southeastern corner of Koryo. Kim Sami and Hyosim joined to form a single peasant army said to number in the tens of thousands. Government troops suffered a number of humiliating defeats trying to deal with these rebels and it took nearly a year to subdue them. The size of this insurrection can only be imagined from the outcome of a deadly engagement in April 1194, when government troops killed nearly 7,000 rebellious farmers in a major battle at Miryang. The peasant rebellion essentially ended by December of that year with the capture of the rebel leader.

The suppression of the peasant revolt neither calmed the countryside nor settled the battle for ruling power within the military leadership council. Within two years, a vicious power struggle developed within the government led by the ruthless army general Ch'oe Ch'ung-hon and his brother Ch'oe Ch'ung-su. In his determined drive for absolute ruling power, General Ch'oe mercilessly eliminated all potential rivals through intrigue and assassination. After swiftly removing high-ranking government officials, generals, even leading Buddhist priests from the government, the Ch'oe brothers wrested government control from the military leadership in 1196.

General Ch'oe saw threats to his power from nearly every quarter and not even clan loyalty could protect a perceived usurper from his wrath. He ordered the execution of his own brother Ch'ung-su along with a nephew in fear of their rising influence. To ensure his personal safety and to police the government's many offices, Ch'oe Ch'ung-hon created an elite 3,000 man unit of personal bodyguards. He ensured their loyalty by assigning them the income derived from the vast farmlands worked by slaves.

Within a year General Ch'oe Ch'ung-hon established a personal dictatorship in Koryo. A ruthless man who completely controlled the Koryo monarchy, he consolidated power under the Ch'oe clan, who became the de facto rulers of Koryo for four generations. In the short span of sixteen years, this military dictator deposed two kings, Myongjong and Huijong, and set four more on the throne:  Sinjong (1197-1204), Huijong (1204-1211), Kangjong (1211-1213), and Kojong (1213-1259). Realizing the impossibility of purging Koryo society of its strong attachment to the tradition of a hereditary aristocracy, Ch'oe made no attempt to enhance his power by intermarriage with the royal house. To the end, General Ch'oe endured by relying almost exclusively on his own resources.

The harsh, dictatorial rule of Ch'oe Ch'ung-hon and his descendants wholly transformed Koryo's administrative structure. Following an attempt on his life in 1209, Ch'oe created and personally directed a new government office. Established initially as a private investigative unit, it soon usurped a number of other functions and in time became the directorate of state affairs. This special office reported directly to Ch'oe Ch'ung-hon and subsequently to his descendants. This innovation in Koryo's government effectively rendered the throne powerless and left the king in the status of a mere figurehead. General Ch'oe's reorganization of the military had a similar result by effectively erasing the existence of Koryo's veteran regular army. After removing the military from the control of the king and the king's ministers, he transformed its battle units into police forces, anti-guerilla patrols, or special units relegated to the performance of ceremonial duties.

While the military officers' revolt brought a new ruling elite to the top of Koryo society, it also triggered a widespread revolution that brought about great changes at the bottom of society. Despite their tremendous power, the Ch'oe clan was no better equipped nor any more able to solve the chronic discontent of the peasants and slaves than were Koryo's earlier kings. The conditions that drove peasants into rebellion in the past did not change under the Ch'oe clan's rule. In 1198, just two years after Ch'oe Ch'ung-hon seized power, the slopes of North Mountain near Kaesong rang with the stirring words of Manjok, leader of a revolt designed to attack government offices, murder government officials and burn the government's slave records. Manjok's stirring speech gave unique focus to his cause:

"Since the events of 1170 and 1173, many high officials have arisen from among the slave class. Are generals and ministers born to these glories?  No!  For when the time is right anyone at all can hold these offices. Why then should we only work ourselves to the bone and suffer under the whip? ... If each one kills his master and burns the record of his slave status, thus bringing slavery to an end our country, then each of us will be able to become a minister or general."

Government agents soon uncovered the plot and rounded up, arrested, and executed over one hundred conspirators by drowning.

The following year, peasants in the Kangnung area, joined by farmers from near Kyongju, rose in revolt and took the cities of Samch'ok and Ulchin. Beginning in 1200, rebellious slaves in Chinju joined an uprising of lowborn peasants at Hapch'on and linked up with other rebel groups at Kyongju, Ch'ongdo, Ulchin, and elsewhere in the provinces. Rebel peasants murdered thousands of petty local officials in these revolts, especially near Miryang, where they burned and looted the houses of many officials. In the area around Kyongsang, close cooperation among rebel groups provided a combined strength that allowed them to continue fighting for nearly a decade.

The military revolt of 1170 had repercussions far beyond the immediate result of installing a new power elite at the top of Koryo society. It triggered and inspired a round of uprisings far different from any that had come before. This was a large-scale effort aimed not just at restructuring the social order from the bottom up, but of seizing political power as well. Koryo's lower classes had taken a course of action that guaranteed a political response to their core demands;  liberation for the slave class and a thorough restructuring of Koryo's hereditary class system. The government killed thousands in its brutal suppression of the uprisings, but the violent expression of people who carried the heavy burdens of economic production for an improvement in their status clearly shook the foundations of Koryo's old social order.