A History of Korea (37 page)

The emergence and growth of the Neo-Confucian literati class brought a change to literature. Members of the literati expressed themselves in the literary form of the so-called
ky
ŏ
nggi
-style poem. Although it succeeded the tradition of Silla’s hyangga, this newly developed poetic form was influenced by the literature and music of the Chinese Song dynasty and was written in Chinese. This new literary genre mainly depicted either the exultant and proud life of the emerging literati class or Korea’s beautiful scenery. The former is exemplified by
Hallim py
ŏ
lgok,
or Song of the Academicians, composed by the young Confucian scholars of the Hallimw
ŏ
n, and the latter by An Ch’uk’s
Kwandong py
ŏ
lgok,
or Song of Kwandong Region, and
Chukkye py
ŏ
lgok,
or Song of Chukkye Valley.

Although ky
ŏ
nggi-style poems were mainly composed by scholar-officials, the literary form of the common people was the
changga,
or long poem, written in the style of a folk song. Examples of the changga, whose authors are generally unknown, include
Ch’
ŏ
ngsan py
ŏ
lgok,
or Song of Green Mountain, which sings of life conversing with nature;
S
ŏ
gy
ŏ
ng py
ŏ
lgok,
or Song of the Western Capital, which describes love between a man and a woman;
Kasiri,
or Would You Now Leave Me? depicts the sorrow of parting;
Ch
ŏ
ng
ŭ
p sa,
or Song of Ch
ŏ
ng
ŭ
p County, delineates a wife’s fervent prayer for her husband, who is away on business, to return;
Tongdong,
or Tongdong Refrain, describes the moon’s 12-month cycle; and
Ssanghwaj
ŏ
m,
or the Turkish Bakery, which sings of decadent love between a man and a woman. These changga poems all frankly express the feelings and realities of life among the common people.

Regarding Kory
ŏ
’s architecture, the oldest surviving wooden building is the K
ŭ
ngnakch
ŏ
n, or Hall of Paradise, at the Pongj
ŏ
ng-sa temple, in present-day Andong, thought to date from 1363. The best example of Kory
ŏ
’s wooden architecture, however, is the Muryangsuj
ŏ
n, or Hall of Eternal Life, at the Pus
ŏ
k-sa temple, in present-day Y
ŏ
ngju, which seems to have been built in 1376. Other well-known structures from the late Kory
ŏ
period include the Chosadang, or Hall of the Founder, at Pus
ŏ
k-sa, and the taeungj
ŏ
n at the Sud
ŏ
k-sa temple, in present-day Yesan, South Ch’ungch’
ŏ
ng province.

Representative of the late Kory
ŏ
stone pagodas is the one at the Ky
ŏ
ngch’
ŏ
n-sa temple at Kaep’ung, North Korea (now housed in the National Museum of Korea in Seoul), built in the mid-fourteenth century. This ten-story pagoda, constructed in marble rather than granite, exhibits a Yuan and Lamaist influence and became the model for the W
ŏ
ngak-sa pagoda, built in 1467 at the time of the Chos
ŏ
n dynasty, located in Seoul.

Paintings of this age were mainly done by the literati. One example is the
sakunja,
or the four gracious plants (also known as the four gentlemen), referring to the orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum, and plum blossom, intended to portray the elegant lifestyle of the newly emerging literati class. A few paintings from this period have survived, and the most noteworthy is
Ch’
ŏ
nsan taery
ŏ
p to,
or Painting of the Great Hunt on Heavenly Mountain, thought to have been done by King Kongmin in 1352. Some Buddhist paintings still exist, and those known as the
Yangnyu kwan
ŭ
m to,
or Portrait of the Willow Goddess of Mercy,
rank as masterpieces of refinement and splendor. A few of these paintings, done by the court painter Kim U-mun, the monk Hyeh
ŏ
, and another artist named S
ŏ
Ku-bang, are now preserved in Japan.

In calligraphy, the laconic style of Ouyang Xun of the Chinese Song period, widely practiced in the earlier period, was replaced by the elegant style of
songxue
(
songs
ŏ
l
in Korean), after a penname of the famed scholar-calligrapher Zhao Mengfu of the Yuan period. A representative calligrapher of this school in Kory
ŏ
was Yi Am. This songxue style would become the predominant mode of calligraphy in the later Chos
ŏ
n dynasty.

Gunpowder was manufactured in this late Kory
ŏ
period for the first time in Korean history. It had already been produced and used in the Song and Yuan eras, but the Chinese kept the method of its manufacture a closely guarded secret, never revealing it to Kory
ŏ
. When Japanese pirates raided Kory
ŏ
, Ch’oe Mu-s
ŏ
n, a minor official, realized he needed more powerful weapons and succeeded in learning the secret of manufacturing gunpowder from a Yuan Chinese named Li Yuan. This allowed Kory
ŏ
to produce formidable weapons using gunpowder and cannons. In 1377 Ch’oe persuaded the government to establish the Hwat’ong togam, or Directorate for Gunpowder Weapons, under his supervision. In 1380 he equipped the Kory
ŏ
navy with cannons and gunpowder, and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Japanese pirates at the estuary of the K
ŭ
m River.

Another major development occurred in the materials used for clothing. Until the late Kory
ŏ
period, hemp had been the principal material for commoners’ clothing, and ramie and silk were used for the clothing of the aristocracy and the wealthy. In this period the introduction of cotton seeds and the successful manufacturing of cotton cloth revolutionized Korean clothing, and cotton emerged as a major material for clothing. Cotton seeds were secretly brought to Kory
ŏ
from Yuan in 1364 by Mun Ik-j
ŏ
m, who had gone there as secretary to a Kory
ŏ
envoy. He gave the seeds to his father-in-law, Ch
ŏ
ng Ch’
ŏ
n-ik, who not only succeeded in growing cotton but learned to devise a cotton gin and build a spinning wheel from a Chinese monk. Subsequently cotton cloth was mass-produced as the principal material for clothing and would even be used as currency in the later Chos
ŏ
n kingdom.

The spread of disease brought on by the many wars of this period encouraged the development of an indigenous medical science. The oldest extant medical
work,
Hyangyak kug
ŭ
p pang,
or Emergency Remedies of Folk Medicine, published in 1236, was based on Korea’s traditional folk remedies. Later, similar works appeared including the thirteenth-century work
Samhwaja hyangyak pang,
or Folk Medicine Remedies of Samhwaja, which served as a diagnostic guide. These medical works laid the groundwork for
Hyangyak chips
ŏ
ng pang,
or Compilation of Native Korean Prescriptions, published in the Chos
ŏ
n dynasty in 1433.

An especially noteworthy cultural achievement in Kory
ŏ
in this period was the invention of movable metal type, its first appearance in world history. Printing flourished in Kory
ŏ
, and a wide variety of books, including the Tripitaka, was published. Initially most of the printing was done using the woodblock technique. Woodblock printing was convenient to meet the widespread demand for a specific work. When many different works were printed in limited numbers, however, printing by movable type was more efficient and reduced publishing costs. With the emergence of the literati in the late Kory
ŏ
period, the demand for various kinds of books clearly increased.

Printing by movable type is said to have been invented in the eleventh century by Bi Sheng in the Northern Song dynasty, but the material he used for the type was clay. The inconvenience of using clay soon put that material out of use. According to a contemporary record, Kory
ŏ
printers used cast metal type in 1234 for publishing
Sangj
ŏ
ng kog
ŭ
m yemun,
or Prescribed Ritual Texts of the Past and Present. Clearly the type used to print this work was movable metal type. This is hard to confirm, however, as the book has not survived. The oldest extant work printed by movable metal type, now housed in a Paris museum, appeared in 1377; titled
Chikchi simch’e yoj
ŏ
l,
or An Abstract on Looking Straight at the Mind and Perceiving Buddha’s Mind, it is an anthology of the S
ŏ
n teachings of great Buddhist priests. Thus the world’s first printed material with metal type was produced in Kory
ŏ
216 years before Johannes Gutenberg, or at least 73 years before. Kory
ŏ
also produced paper with wooden fiber of the best quality in Asia. In sum, in this late period, Kory
ŏ
achieved great scientific and technological development.

In the reign of King Kongmin, Kory
ŏ
was invaded by the so-called
Hongg
ŏ
nj
ŏ
k,
or Red Turbans, a powerful Chinese peasant force who rebelled against Yuan twice, in 1359 and 1360, and suffered enormous human and material losses. In their first invasion, in late 1359, these Chinese bandits, numbering more than
40,000, occupied Pyongyang. They were repulsed by Kory
ŏ
forces in early 1360; only some 300 escaped alive across the Yalu. These Chinese brigands, amounting to 200,000, invaded Kory
ŏ
again in late 1360 and occupied the capital of Kaes
ŏ
ng. The king was forced to flee as far south as present-day Andong. They were finally repelled in early 1362, when more than 100,000 of them were killed by the Kory
ŏ
defenders. Kory
ŏ
took advantage of these Chinese invasions to regain control of its northern territory from Yuan. On the other hand, Kory
ŏ
suffered an irreparable blow, which in part caused the kingdom’s ultimate downfall.

As already pointed out, another external trouble that shook the Kory
ŏ
dynasty to its core was the Japanese piratical raids that were later stopped by the use of Kory
ŏ
’s new gunpowder weaponry. Unlike short-lived Chinese incursions, the raids of
waegu,
or Japanese pirates, extended over a lengthy period and greatly affected the entire country. Piracy of the seaborne Japanese marauders had already begun as early as 1223 and continued until the mid-Chos
ŏ
n period. The impoverished Japanese in Tsushima, northern Kyushu, southern Honshu, and along the Sedo-naikai seacoast frequently raided Kory
ŏ
’s coastal areas. By 1353 Japanese piracy had become an annual occurrence. The Japanese pirates despoiled the coastal districts and villages on a large scale. Piracy became so severe, in fact, that people had to vacate the seacoast areas for many miles inland, turning the entire coastal region into a no-man’s land. At first the Japanese pirates raided the Korean coast, later extending their raids to the Chinese coast. These bands of seagoing bandits gradually increased in number, constituting a small army. They became ever bolder, even raiding towns and villages located 30 to 40 miles inland.
⁴
Damage from these raids was so severe that the very nation was endangered. The Japanese pirates prevented the vital transportation of grain taxes by sea, and because local taxes could not be brought to the capital, the central government at Kaes
ŏ
ng faced virtual economic collapse.

Kory
ŏ
’s initial attempts to end these waegu attacks by diplomatic means failed, as the Japanese authorities were powerless to suppress these pirates; meanwhile, the impetus for piracy and the poverty of the Japanese continued. But then Kory
ŏ
resorted to military campaigns and, under the command of Ch’oe Y
ŏ
ng and Yi S
ŏ
ng-gye, succeeded in repulsing the Japanese raiders. With his fearful gunpowder weapons, Ch’oe Mu-s
ŏ
n also had remarkable success in repelling the Japanese pirates. In 1389 Pak Wi led a direct assault on these pirates’ den on Tsushima, destroying more than 300 Japanese ships. Japanese piracy gradually diminished, and thanks to their victorious battles
against the Japanese, the influence of Ch’oe Y
ŏ
ng, and particularly Yi S
ŏ
nggye, greatly increased.

After Japanese piracy was essentially brought under control, sharp disagreement arose between Ch’oe Y
ŏ
ng and Yi S
ŏ
ng-gye over Kory
ŏ
’s policy toward the continent. After expelling Mongols from China proper, the Ming dynasty gradually extended its strength into southern Manchuria, and then shared the border with Kory
ŏ
across the Yalu. In 1388 Ming formally notified Kory
ŏ
of the establishment of the Tianling-wei, or Ch’
ŏ
lly
ŏ
ng Commandery, to administer the vast area from the Liaodong region of Manchuria to Kory
ŏ
’s northeastern territory north of the Ch’
ŏ
l-ly
ŏ
ng pass, or present-day Hamgy
ŏ
ng province. Ming demanded the “return” of the Kory
ŏ
territory on the grounds that it had been occupied and administered by Yuan’s Ssangs
ŏ
ng commandery. Upon receiving this demand, the outraged Ch’oe Y
ŏ
ng, who held power in the government, determined to invade the Liaodong region with a force of 40,000. That same year the expedition was launched, with Ch’oe Y
ŏ
ng as commander-in-chief and Cho Min-su and Yi S
ŏ
ng-gye as deputy commanders.