Korea: the Mongol Invasions

Q THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES KOREA THE MONGOL INVASIONS KOREA THE MONGOL INVASIONS BY W. E. HENTHORN 6J?> LEIDEN E. J. BRILL 1963 PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS TABLE OF CONTENTS U J f/Z Preface // J / //< v Introduction 1 Part I. The Mongol Invasion 14 Chapter 1. The Initial Phase 14 Chapter 2. The Invasions of Sartaq 61 Chapter 3. The Invasions of Tanqut-batur and Prince Yekii 102 Chapter 4. The Invasions of Jfalairtai-qorci 127 Chapter 5. Submission and Alliance 150 Chapter 6. The Rebellion of the Three Patrols, SampyOlch'o 173 Part II. Mongols Demands Upon Koryo 194 1. The Instructions for Surrendering States 194 2. Mongol Military -Administration in KoryO 19 5 3. Tribute, Levies, and Gifts 201 4. Mongol Military Colonies in Koryo 206 5. Ship Construction 208 6. Post-Stations 210 7. Military Support 210 8. Hostages 211 Appendix: Patrols, pyolch^o 226 Reference Table of Rulers of Kory6 236 Symbols, Abbreviations, and Bibliography 237 Index 248 1382780 PREFACE Events of the past decade have once again placed the Korean peninsula in the position of a buffer state where the wars of greater powers are focused. Historians will recall that Korea has had this role thrust upon her many times before. In recent times the peninsula was the battleground for the Sino -Japa- nese War of 1894-1895 while the opening battle of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, a naval action, took place off the present port of Inch'6n. As a result, a number of studies of the various aspects of modern Korean society, particularly in its contacts with the West, have been undertaken but little at- tention has been given to the evolution of that society. Yet it is only when this is studied for each period in Korean history that studies of contemporary Ko- rean society can be approached in other than a limited sense. The Kory6 ^ )^ period (918-1392) during which the Mongol invasions occurred was a great formative period in the history of the development of Korean society. The period encompassing the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century and the subsequent establishment of Mongol military-adminis- trative organs on the Korean peninsula was one of the important phases of transition in Korean history. The development of any society is, of course, continuous, but for the purposes of study I have found it convenient to treat the subject at hand in two natural divisions. The Mongol invasions of Korea in the thirteenth century as a development in Korean history form the subject of the present study. It is my intention to treat, in a separate work, the full extension of Mongol control in Korea which followed the period of conquest and with which I have dealt only summarily if at all in these pages. For the period covered I have, however, considered the question of the form and nature of Mongol demands upon Koryd as well as the implementation of these demands as an illustration of Mongol methods of establishing control in and extracting wealth from con- quered nations. The reciprocal of this was the Kory6 response to Mongol demands and pressures which was obviously limited and guided by her internal situation as well as hei external relations. The Mongol conquest and subsequent occupation of KoryO represent but one phase in the development of the Mongol empire and in many respects the least known phase. The Mongols, initially, did not set out to conquer Koryo ix but were at the time fighting the Chin in North China. When a drive across South Manchuria led them into northern Koryo, they obtained KoryO's submission Avithout fighting a battle against Kory6 forces. There were many factors which contributed to KoryO's initial peaceful submission but the key factor was that the Mongols represented, or appeared to represent, the new power in Manchuria, And KoryO had always been tributary to the power which held North China and Manchuria. When it became apparent that the Mongols were not at the time strong enough to hold South Manchuria, Koryo severed the relationship. This led to a period of sporadic warfare lasting almost thirty years. When KoryO finally submitted to the Mongols it was due more to internal events than as a result of the conflict. It has been one of the purposes of this study to examine these events and, if possible, to discover some of the reasons behind what were often apparently contradictory act ions by the Kory6 authorities. My approach has been primarily philological and in this respect I have, in general, endeavored to 'let the records speak for them- selves'. Unfortunately studies of pre-modern Korean history by Western scholars have been extremely limited to say the least, while studies by Korean, Chi- nese, and Japanese scholars are often difficult to obtain. In consideration thereof, I have divided the present study into two parts. The first part is in the form of a descriptive and chronological narrative; the second part deals primarily with considerations and consequences of events described in the first part and is more analytical in nature. Thus, a 'feed-back' methodology is projected. The narrative of events places them in perspective so that an analysis of component parts may be undertaken without distortion; the analysis of component parts in turn allows modification of the narrative of events. Since Homer Hulbert's two volume History of Korea, first published in 1905 has recently been reprinted, a word should be said about earlier ac- counts of Korean history which include J.Ross* History of Corea, first printed in 1880, W.E.Griffis', Corea, the Hermit Nation, first printed in 1882, and J. S. Gale's, A History of the Korean People, which appeared se- rially in the Korean Mission Field in the years 1925-1927o It would be too easy to subject the pertinent sections of these works to criticism but since I can see no purpose which would be served by so doing, I have refrained from commenting on what I consider to have been valiant pioneer efforts. For the convenience of the non-specialist, I have added an introductory chapter which provides a brief background and I have endeavored, particularly in the narrative, to relegate technical matters to footnotes. However, for convenience, whenever a reference consists merely of the abbreviated title of the work plus chUan and page numbers, I have simply placed such in- formation in parentheses in the appropriate location. In the romanization of Chinese (except for .^- which I have romanized ke) I have followed the Wade -Giles system with the usual modifications; for Jap- anese the Hepburn system, again with the usual modifications. In the romanization of Korean I have followed the McCune-Reischauer system with the following exceptions: 1) utilized names or terms commonly known in another form, e.g., Seoul, etc. H j£ , 2) spaced rather than linked both particles and auxiliary verbs; rendered S-j as ui in all cases; and omitted the diaeresis over e '^M when so called for by the MR system. In the reconstruction of Mongolian names and terms, I have followed the works of Pelliot, Hambis, Shiratori, and Cleaves and, excluding the well- known term daruyaci or resident commissioner, references have been provided in footnotes. Where no reference is provided the reconstruction is my own. Since my knowledge of thirteenth century Mongolian is very limited, I have left the majority of these names in Chinese transcription, providing orthographic variants when such were encountered, excluding variations re- sulting from the well-known Ch'ien-lung language reforms of the mid- eighteenth century. When the name of a location differs from its current designation, I have endeavored to identify or locate it by placing in parentheses following it the modern name it is known by or the area in which it is located; more detailed references are given in footnotes. All bibliographical abbreviations are in capital letters and may be found in the bibliography; non-bibliographical abbreviations are listed separately preceding the bibliography. All dates are lunar except where the western name of the month is given in which case they are solar. In indicating the reign dates of monarchs, I have commenced with the wdnny&n y\_,}^~ and ended with the year preceding the wwinydn of the next monarch; when a monarch reigned only during the year of his accession, I have accorded the monarch that year as his 'reign-year'. In indicating the birth dates of individuals when the age at death was known I have arrived at the birth date by subtracting the age plus two years since, as is well-known, in Korea like in China, a child is assumed to be one-year old upon his birth and adds one year to his age each successive (lunar) new year's day. It should be observed that even this method does not always produce the correct year of birth. Translations of the titles of works in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese are provided in brackets following the title in the original language; when the author of such a work has himself supplied either a translation or an alter- nate title in a western language, it is so indicated by quotation marks. A word of caution must be given regarding large numbers occurring in the text. The majority of figures of 10 000 or more should be viewed with some skepticism while the number three should always be suspect. I gratefully acknowledge the aid given to me by The Rockefeller Founda- tion and The Ford Foundation whose generous assistance made it possible for me to work at Leiden which resulted in this study, the publication of which was aided by a grant from the Netherlands Ministerie van Onderwijs, Kunsten en Wetenschappen.

Load more