A History of Korea (21 page)

The reconsideration of Korea’s regional position via a creative appropriation of Chang Pogo and his era also accompanies, ironically, a recent downgrading of Unified Silla in Korea’s historical trajectory. A growing perspective in both popular and academic arenas has come to view “Unified Silla” as somewhat of a misnomer, given that Silla’s vanquishing of Paekche and Kogury
in the seventh century left unincorporated the vast majority of
former Kogury
territory. This territory was claimed by a thriving kingdom, Parhae, that stretched from the northern part of the peninsula well into Manchuria. Parhae’s status in conventional Korean historiography has always been somewhat ambiguous, as only its ruling elite seem to have descended from Kogury
origins, while the masses came from a mish-mash of various ethnicities. More powerful in excluding Parhae were official histories compiled in subsequent periods instituting the notion of a “Three Kingdoms” era of ancient Korea that came to an end through Silla’s unification. Partly due to nationalist sentiment over the course of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century, the concept of a “Unified Silla” era has lost ground to a perception of this era as that of the “First North-South Division,” with the strong implication that Parhae was a fully Korean historical entity. (In North Korea, for obvious reasons, this view is a matter of course.) Chang Pogo, then, is not the only artifact of the late first millennium to be mined for contemporary purposes; Parhae is grounds for claiming that Korea at this time was a central player in northeast Asia in more ways than one. However transparent the motives behind this revisionism, these issues draw beneficial attention to the significance of these long-ago eras even beyond their contemporary connections.

LOCAL STRONGMEN AND THE END OF SILLA

For all his utility as a symbol of Unified Silla’s growth and achievements, in the end Chang tells us just as much about its demise. We have reason and documentation, in particular the remarkable fragments of village household registers discovered in the early twentieth century, to believe that the Unified Silla state had made great strides in extending central control—or at least taxation authority—following its conquest of Kogury
and Paekche. But there appear to have been limits to this integration effort. Indeed Chang’s great power might have reflected not the Silla state’s authority but rather its weakness in the outer provinces. And the court’s decision to turn to Chang to command the southwest might
have reflected the state’s lack of control and revenue outside the original Silla territory of the southeastern part of the peninsula. Within half a century after Chang’s death, the very region that had served as his base (and was likely his original home region)—the southwestern part of the country that used to belong to the kingdom of Paekche—would erupt in rebellion against the Silla state. This uprising was led by a local warlord, Ky
n Hw
n, who, while fanning the flames of Paekche resentment and calling his breakaway region “Paekche,” likely envisioned himself a successor to Chang Pogo. Another local strongman, however, would prove even more effective in overturning Silla control, and he called his territory “Kogury
.”

4

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Founding of the Kory
Dynasty

CHRONOLOGY

Late 9th c.	Beginning of the Latter Three Kingdoms period
895	Wang K n joins Kim Kungye’s rebel movement against Silla
918	Founding of the Kory by Wang K n
935	Silla’s surrender to Wang K n, solidification of Kory Rule
936	Final defeat of Latter Paekche by Wang K n
943	Drafting of Wang’s Ten Injunctions
958	Institution of the state examination system