Wang Geon Opens Goryeo
Wind, campfire and river sounds change with every scene, and the music follows the story.
At the end of the 9th century, Silla was faltering. The royal house was mired in feuds, and peasants crushed by taxes rose up across the land. In 900, Gyeon Hwon founded “Later Baekje” in Wansan Province (today’s Jeonju); in 901, the monk Gungye, said to be of Silla royal blood, founded “Later Goguryeo” at Songak. The land was split in three once more — the age of the Later Three Kingdoms. On the coast at Songak lived a family that had grown powerful through seafaring trade. It was the family of Wang Geon.
Characters
918, age forty-two
Called himself Maitreya
Wang Geon’s wife
Wants to make Wang Geon king
The sixth month of 918, in Cheorwon, capital of Taebong. In the dead of night, people bearing torches were surging toward the palace.
At their head was a general of forty-two: Wang Geon.
The story begins twenty-two years earlier, in the seaside town of Songak.
Wang Ryung, a local lord of Songak, headed a family that had amassed great wealth through seafaring trade.
to Gungye of Cheorwon.
Please make my son
lord of its fortress.
In 896, Wang Ryung submitted to Gungye. Twenty-year-old Wang Geon became one of Gungye’s generals.
Wang Geon knew the sea. In 903 he led a fleet down the Yellow Sea coast and seized Geumseong (today’s Naju), in Later Baekje’s rear.
Gungye’s banner now stood in the heart of Gyeon Hwon’s land.
One year, on campaign, Wang Geon rested his horse beneath an old willow at Jeongju (today’s Kaepung). By the stream stood a woman.
of this town’s elder.
Wang Geon stayed one night at that house, then left again for the battlefield. For a long time after that, no word came.
Rather than marry another, she shaved her head, became a Buddhist nun, and waited. So records the Goryeosa (History of Goryeo).
When Wang Geon heard of it, he came for her and took her as his wife.
keeping you waiting.
In 905 Gungye moved his capital to Cheorwon, and in 911 he named his kingdom “Taebong.”
I see into
men’s hearts!
Calling himself the Maitreya Buddha, he wore a golden peaked hood and called his two sons bodhisattvas. Claiming that his “mind-reading” (gwansimbeop) laid bare what was in people’s hearts, he put innocent people to death.
In 915, when Queen Gang tried to set the king’s wrongs right, Gungye killed her — and even their two sons.
One day Gungye summoned Wang Geon before him.
GungyeI hear you gathered men last night and plotted treason. Explain yourself.
Wang Geon…There was no such thing.
GungyeDo not deceive me. I see into men’s hearts!
Just then the scribe Choe Eung, sitting nearby, dropped his brush on purpose.
Wang Geon bowed to the floor: “Your subject plotted treason and deserves to die.”
Gungye roared with laughter and pardoned him. The man was honest, he said.
One night in the sixth month of 918, four generals — Hong Yu, Bae Hyeon-gyeong, Sin Sung-gyeom and Bok Ji-gyeom — came in secret to Wang Geon’s house.
he has killed even his wife and children.
My lord, please rise up!
to loyalty. Cruel as the king is,
how could I betray him?
and you will suffer its wrath instead!
Then, from behind the curtain, his wife, Lady Yu, stepped out.
Lady YuRaising a righteous man to replace a cruel king — this has been done since ancient times.
Lady YuHearing the generals, even I, a woman, burn with anger. How much more you, a man of valor!
With her own hands, she put the armor on her husband.
Many years since their meeting beneath the willow. That night, Wang Geon buckled on his sword.
Surrounding Wang Geon, the generals strode out through the gate, shouting.
At the palace gate, more than 10,000 people were already waiting, beating drums.
Gungye changed his clothes and slipped out of the city in secret.
Wandering the mountains, starving, he stole ears of barley to eat — and died at the hands of the people of Buyang.
15th day of the 6th month, 918
Pojeongjeon Hall, Cheorwon.
Wang Geon ascended
the throne.
The kingdom’s name: “Goryeo” — heir to Goguryeo.
The era name was Cheonsu — “Granted by Heaven.”
The king ordered that less be taken from the people. Taxes, heavy under Gungye, went back to one tenth of the harvest.
The following year, 919, the king moved his capital to his hometown of Songak — Gaegyeong, a city at the mouth of a river opening onto the sea.
At his side was the wife he had met beneath the willow at Jeongju: Queen Sinhye.
Yet the land was still split in three. To the south lay Gyeon Hwon’s Later Baekje; to the east, a waning Silla.
Eighteen more years would pass
before Goryeo made this land one again.
