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South Korea THE THREE KINGDOMS PERIOD
Unavailable
Figure 2. Korea During the Three Kingsons Period, Fifth to Sixth
Centuries, A.D.
The territory south of the Han River is relatively distant
from the Asian continent; hence, the people living there were
initially able to develop independently, without much involvement
with events on the continent. The early settlers of this region
gradually organized themselves into some seventy clan states that
were in turn grouped into three tribal confederations known as
Chinhan, Mahan, and Pyonhan. Chinhan was situated in the middle
part of the peninsula, Mahan in the southwest, and Pyonhan in the
southeast. Their economies were predominantly agricultural, and
their level of development was such that they built reservoirs
and irrigation facilities. These tribal states began to be
affected by what was happening in the region north of the Han
River around the first century B.C.
About the middle of the third century A.D., the Chinese
threat began to serve as a unifying political force among the
loose confederations of tribes in the southern part of the
peninsula. Adopting the Chinese political system as a model, the
tribes eventually merged into two kingdoms, thereby increasing
their chances of survival against Chinese expansionism. The two
kingdoms eventually came to play an important role in Korean
history.
Geographic features of the southern parts of the land, in
particular the configuration of mountain ranges, caused two
kingdoms to emerge rather than one. In the central part of Korea,
the main mountain range, the T'aebaek Range, runs north to south
along the edge of the Sea of Japan, which lies off the east coast
of the peninsula. Approximately three-fourths of the way down the
peninsula, however, at roughly the thirty-seventh parallel, the
mountain range veers southwest, dividing the peninsula almost in
the middle. This extension, the Sobaek Range, proved politically
significant; the tribes west of it were not shielded by any
natural barriers against the Chinese-occupied portion of the
peninsula, whereas those to the southeast were protected.
Moreover, the presence of the mountains prevented the tribes in
the two regions from establishing close contacts.
The tribal states in the southwest were the first to unite,
calling their centralized kingdom Paekche. This process occurred
in the mid-third century A.D., after the Chinese army of the Wei
Dynasty (A.D. 220-65), which controlled Lolang, threatened the
tribes in A.D. 245. The Silla Kingdom evolved in the southeast.
Silla historians traced the kingdom's origin to 57 B.C., but
contemporary historians regard King Naemul (A.D. 356-402) as
having been the earliest ruler. Some of the tribal states in the
area of the lower Naktong River, along the south central coast of
the peninsula, did not join either of these kingdoms. Under the
name Kaya, they formed a league of walled city-states that
conducted extensive coastal trade and also maintained close ties
with the tribal states in western Japan. Sandwiched between the
more powerful Silla and Paekche, Kaya eventually was absorbed by
its neighbors during the sixth century
(see
fig. 2).
The northern kingdom of Koguryo emerged from among the
indigenous people along the banks of the Yalu River. The Han
Chinese seized the area in 108 B.C., but from the beginning
Chinese rulers confronted many uprisings against their rule.
Starting from a point along the Hun River (a tributary of the
Yalu), the rebels expanded their activities to the north, south,
and southeast, increasingly menacing Chinese authority. By A.D.
53 Koguryo had coalesced into an independent centralized kingdom;
the subsequent fall of the Han Dynasty and ensuing political
divisions in China enabled Koguryo to consolidate and extend its
power. Despite repeated attacks by Chinese and other opposition
forces, by 391 the kingdom's rulers had achieved undisputed
control of all of Manchuria east of the Liao River as well as of
the northern and central regions of the Korean Peninsula.
Koguryo's best-known ruler, King Kwanggaet'o--whose name
literally means "broad expander of territory"--lived to be only
thirty-nine years of age, but reigned twenty-one years, from 391
to 412. During that period, Kwanggaet'o conquered 65 walled
cities and 1,400 villages, in addition to aiding Silla when it
was attacked by the Japanese. His accomplishments are recorded on
a monument erected in 414 in southern Manchuria. Koguryo moved
its capital to P'yongyang in 427 and ruled the territory north of
the Han River. But Koguryo's expansion caused it to come into
conflict with the Sui Dynasty of China (581-617) in the west and
Silla, which was beginning to expand northward, in the south.
Although Koguryo had been strong enough to repulse the forces
of the Sui Dynasty, combined attacks by Silla and the Tang
Dynasty of China (618-907) proved too formidable. Koguryo's ally
in the southwest, Paekche, fell before Tang and Silla in 660; the
victorious allies continued their assault on Koguryo for the next
eight years and eventually vanquished the weary kingdom, which
had been suffering from a series of famines and internal strife.
Silla thus unified Korea in 668, but the kingdom's reliance
on China's Tang Dynasty had its price. Eventually Silla had to
forcibly resist the imposition of Chinese rule over the entire
peninsula, which Silla's rulers did, but their strength did not
extend beyond the Taedong River. Much of the former Koguryo
territory was given up to the Chinese and to other tribal states.
It remained for later dynasties to push the border northward to
the Yalu and Tumen rivers.
Data as of June 1990
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