Wiman Becomes King
Wind, campfire and river sounds change with every scene, and the music follows the story.
The Samguk Yusa tells how Dangun Wanggeom founded Gojoseon, the first kingdom in Korean history. Gojoseon clashed with its neighbor Yan and governed its people with the Eight Prohibitions. Then, in the reign of King Jun, a man named Wiman crossed the river from the land of Yan to the west, leading a band of more than a thousand.
Characters
The hero of this story
bronze smith
from Yan
Bau’s father was one of the finest bronze smiths in the village.
One dagger takes a month of care.
In the chaos as Qin fell and Han rose, tens of thousands of people from Yan, Qi and Zhao fled to Gojoseon.
Among the refugees was a blacksmith who worked an unfamiliar metal.
It’s not bronze.
and they say it rusts easily.
And iron ore can be dug up all over.
That night, Bau went to see the blacksmith, carrying a bowl of barley rice.
All I have left is this hammer.
how to work iron.
bronze smith?
That day, for the first time, Bau saw his father bow his head to someone.
Let’s forge together.
In 195 BCE, Lu Wan, the king of Yan, rebelled against Han and fled to the Xiongnu. In that turmoil, Wiman, a man of Yan, came east with his followers.
Wiman and his band of more than a thousand crossed the Paesu River.
just like us!
Yan clothes, either.
Wiman went to King Jun and knelt before him.
on the western frontier.
and be a bulwark for Joseon.
with a hundred li in the west.
Every day, people gathered around Wiman. Before long, the western land King Jun had given him was bustling like a small kingdom.
No one knew whom those spearpoints would one day be turned against.
Make a hundred more!
really coming?
His father didn’t answer; he just kept bringing the hammer down.
Not long after, a messenger sent by Wiman came racing to Wanggeom Fortress.
is attacking along ten routes!
to guard Your Majesty.
After a long silence, King Jun spoke.
…Let him in at once.
That night, Wiman’s army set out with torches.
for Wanggeom Fortress…
Pretend you didn’t see.
But it was not the border that Wiman’s army turned its spears toward.
It was the palace.
I trusted you!
King Jun fought back, but he could not hold out.
King Jun took the palace attendants still at his side and set out to sea.
struck me down.
You can begin again.
King Jun is said to have reached the land of “Han” (韓) across the sea to the south, where he called himself King of Han.
A king who generously took in an exile, and lost his kingdom.
Yet thanks to that generosity, the people and the skills to work iron came to Gojoseon.
Trust made the kingdom great,
and it also put it in danger.
Wiman took the throne. Officials who were Joseon people also took their places at his court.
We are Joseon!
And iron began to change Gojoseon.
Years passed, and Bau became a renowned ironsmith in Wanggeom Fortress.
I hear spearheads fetch a better price.
feeds a whole family.
Cutting rice with iron sickles was nothing like the old days of picking the heads one by one with half-moon stone knives.
storehouses this year!
As harvests grew, so did the population, and the army, armed with iron weapons, grew stronger.
Now stronger, Gojoseon subjugated its neighbors Jinbeon and Imdun. The Records of the Grand Historian says its territory reached “several thousand li on each side.”
Years went by, and Bau grew old too. He handed the hammer to his young grandson: the very hammer the blacksmith from across the river had given his father.
depends on the heart of the one who forges it.
Wiman died, the throne passed to his son,
and then his grandson Ugeo became king.
Meanwhile, in Han, Emperor Wu was expanding his territory in every direction.
Under King Ugeo, Gojoseon kept a firm grip on the crossroads between Han and the southern states.
Open the gate!
Do your trading inside this gate!
an outer vassal of Han!
In the end, She He had to go home empty-handed. Lesser King Jang of Joseon saw him off as far as the Paesu River.
Travel safely.
She He had his charioteer stab Lesser King Jang to death, then fled across the river.
Then he reported to the emperor that he had “killed a general of Joseon.”
Emperor Wu prized She He’s “achievement” and made him Eastern Commandant of Liaodong.
Enraged, Gojoseon sent troops, who attacked and killed She He.
That year, the clang of spearheads being hammered rang out all night from every smithy in Wanggeom Fortress. Bau’s grandson, too, took up his grandfather’s hammer.
Emperor Wu of Han raised an army, rounding up even convicts.
That autumn, by sea, and by land.
Gojoseon’s final year
was drawing near.
