Preface

The sources from which the following History of Korea is drawn are almost purely Korean. For ancient and medieval history the Tong-sa Kang-yo has been mainly followed. This is an abstract in nine volumes of the four great ancient histories of the country. The facts here found were verified by reference to the Tong-guk Tong-gam, the most complete of all existing ancient histories of the country. Many other works on history, geography and biography have been consulted, but in the main the narrative in the works mentioned above has been followed.

A number of Chinese works have been consulted, especially the Mun-hon Tong-go wherein we find the best description of the wild tribes that occupied the peninsula about the time of Christ.

It has been far more difficult to obtain material for compiling the history of the past five centuries. By unwritten law the history of no dynasty in Korea has ever been published until after its fall. Official records are carefully kept in the government archives and when the dynasty closes these are published by the new dynasty. There is an official record which is published under the name of the Kuk-cho Po-gam but it can in no sense be called a history, for it can contain nothing that is not complimentary to the ruling house and, moreover, it has not been brought down even to the opening of the 19th century. It has been necessary therefore to find private iimanuscript histories of the dynasty and by uniting and comparing them secure as accurate a delineation as possible of the salient features of modern Korean history. In this I have enjoyed the services of a Korean scholar who has made the history of this dynasty a special study for the past twenty-five years and who has had access to a large number of private manuscripts. I withhold his name by special request. By special courtesy I have also been granted access to one of the largest and most complete private libraries in the capital. Japanese records have also been consulted in regard to special points bearing on the relations between Korea and Japan.

A word must be said in regard to the authenticity and credibility of native Korean historical sources. The Chinese written character was introduced into Korea as a permanent factor about the time of Christ, and with it came the possibility of permanent historical records. That such records were kept is quite apparent from the fact that the dates of all solar eclipses have been carefully preserved from the year 57 B.C. In the next place it is worth noticing that the history of Korea is particularly free from those great cataclysms such as result so often in the destruction of libraries and records. Since the whole peninsula was consolidated under one flag in the days of ancient Sil-la no dynastic change has been effected by force. We have no mention of any catastrophe to the Sil-la records: and Sil-la merged into Koryŭ and Koryŭ into Cho-sŭn without the show of arms, and in each case the historical records were kept intact. To be sure, there have been three great invasions of Korea, by the Mongols, Manchus and Japanese respectively, but though much vandalism was committed by each of these, we have reason to believe that the records were not tampered with. The argument is three-fold. In the first place histories formed the great bulk of the literature in vogue among the people and it was so widely disseminated that it could not have been seriously injured without annihilating the entire population.

In the second place these invasions were made by peoples who, though not literary themselves, had a somewhat iiihigh regard for literature, and there could have been no such reason for destroying histories as might exist where one dynasty was forcibly ejected by another hostile one. In the third place the monasteries were the great literary centers during the centuries preceding the rise of the present dynasty, and we may well believe that the Mongols would not seriously molest these sacred repositories. On the whole then we may conclude that from the year 57 B.C. Korean histories are fairly accurate. Whatever comes before that is largely traditional and therefore more or less apocryphal.

One of the greatest difficulties encountered is the selection of a system of romanisation which shall steer a middle course between the Scilla of extreme accuracy and the Charybdis of extreme simplicity. I have adopted the rule of spelling all proper names in a purely phonetic way without reference to the way they are spelled in native Korean. In this way alone can the reader arrive at anything like the actual pronunciation as found in Korea. The simple vowels have their continental sounds: a as in “father,” i as in “ravine,” o as in “rope” and u as in “rule.” The vowel e is used only with the grave accent and is pronounced as in the French “recit.” When a vowel has the short mark over it, it is to be given the flat sound: ă as in “fat,” ŏ as in “hot,” ŭ as in “nut.” The umlaut ö is used but it has a slightly more open sound than in German. It is the “unrounded o” where the vowel is pronounced without protruding the lips. The pure Korean sound represented by oé is a pure diphthong and is pronounced by letting the lips assume the position of pronouncing o while the tongue is thrown forward as if to pronounce the short e in “met.” Eu is nearly the French eu but with a slightly more open sound. As for consonants they have their usual sounds, but when the surds k, p or t in the body of a word are immediately preceded by an open syllable or a syllable ending with a sonant, they change to their corresponding sonants: k to g, p to b and t to d. For instance, in the word Pak-tu, the t of the tu would be d if the first syllable were open. No word begins with the sonants g, b or d.

ivIn Korean we have the long and short quantity in vowels. Han may be pronounced either simply han or longer haan, but the distinction is not of enough importance to compensate for encumbering the system with additional diacritical marks.

In writing proper names I have adopted the plan most in use by sinologues. The patronymic stands alone and is followed by the two given names with a hyphen between them. All geographical names have hyphens between the syllables. To run the name all together would often lead to serious difficulty, for who would know, for instance, whether Songak were pronounced Son-gak or Song-ak?

In the spelling of some of the names of places there will be found to be a slight inconsistency because part of the work was printed before the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society had determined upon a system of romanization, but in the main the system here used corresponds to that of the Society.

This is the first attempt, so far as I am aware, to give to the English reading public a history of Korea based on native records, and I trust that in spite of all errors and infelicities it may add something to the general fund of information about the people of Korea.

H.B.H. Seoul, Korea, 1905.

Introductory Note

Geography is the canvas on which history is painted. Topography means as much to the historian as to the general. A word, therefore, about the position of Korea will not be out of place.

The peninsula of Korea, containing approximately 80,000 square miles, lies between 33° and 43° north latitude, and between 124° 30′ and 130° 30′ east longitude. It is about nine hundred miles long from north to south and has an average width from east to west of about 240 miles. It is separated from Manchuria on the northwest by the Yalu or Am-nok River, and from Asiatic Russia on the northeast by the Tu-man River. Between the sources of these streams rise the lofty peaks of White Head Mountain, called by the Chinese Ever-white or Long-white Mountain. From this mountain whorl emanates a range which passes irregularly southward through the peninsula until it loses itself in the waters of the Yellow Sea, thus giving birth to the almost countless islands of the Korean archipelago. The main watershed of the country is near the eastern coast and consequently the streams that flow into the Japan Sea are neither long nor navigable, while on the western side and in the extreme south we find considerable streams that are navigable for small craft a hundred miles or more. While the eastern coast is almost entirely lacking in good harbors the western coast is one labyrinth of estuaries, bays and gulfs which furnish innumerable harbors. It is on the western watershed of the country that we will find vimost of the arable land and by far the greater portion of the population.

We see then that, geographically, Korea’s face is toward China and her back toward Japan. It may be that this in part has moulded her history. During all the centuries her face has been politically, socially and religiously toward China rather than toward Japan.

The climate of Korea is the same as that of eastern North America between the same latitudes, the only difference being that in Korea the month of July brings the “rainy season” which renders nearly all roads in the interior impassable. This rainy season, by cutting in two the warmer portion of the year, has had a powerful influence on the history of the country; for military operations were necessarily suspended during this period and combatants usually withdrew to their own respective territories upon its approach.

The interior of Korea is fairly well wooded, although there are no very extensive tracts of timber land. A species of pine largely predominates but there is also a large variety of other trees both deciduous and evergreen.

Rice is the staple article of food throughout most of the country. Among the mountain districts in the north where rice cannot be grown potatoes and millet are largely used. An enormous amount of pulse is raised, almost solely for fodder, and other grains are also grown. The bamboo grows sparsely and only in the south. Ginseng is an important product of the country.

The fauna of Korea includes several species of deer, the tiger, leopard, wild pig, bear, wolf, fox and a large number of fur bearing animals among which the sable and sea-otter are the most valuable. The entire peninsula is thoroughly stocked with cattle, horses, swine and donkeys, but sheep are practically unknown. The fisheries off the coast of Korea are especially valuable and thousands of the people earn a livelihood on the banks. Pearls of good quality are found. Game birds of almost infinite variety exist and all the commoner domestic birds abound.

As to the geology of the country we find that there is viia back bone of granite formation with frequent outcroppings of various other forms of mineral life. Gold is extremely abundant and there are few prefectures in the country where traces of it are not found. Silver is also common. Large deposits of coal both anthracite and bituminous have been discovered, but until recently little has been done to open up the minerals of the country in a scientific manner.

Ethnologically we may say that the people are of a mixed Mongolian and Malay origin, although this question has as yet hardly been touched upon. The language of Korea is plainly agglutinative and may, without hesitation, be placed in the great Turanian or Scythian group.

The population of Korea is variously estimated from ten to twenty millions. We shall not be far from the truth if we take a middle course and call the population thirteen millions. Somewhat more than half of the people live south of a line drawn east and west through the capital of the country.

목차

Preface

Introductory Note

PART I

ANCIENT KOREA