Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In the end it was Silla's approach that seemed to win out; by the late 7th century it had
sealed an alliance with Tang-Dynasty China and easily overran its two competitors. When
its Tang partners turned on Silla in an effort to seize the entire peninsula for themselves
(probably their plan from the beginning), Silla warriors managed to press them back into
Manchuria. While Silla failed to win all of Goguryeo's lands from the Chinese, it did have
the rest of the peninsula under its control, and after the Tang Dynasty formally recognized
Silla's claim to the territory it held in the early 8th century, a period of relative tranquility
and rapid cultural flowering began in Korea's first genuinely united kingdom.
The unification of the peninsula under the Silla Dynasty, which lasted until around AD 900,
was a cultural and political golden age in which the seeds of a genuinely national conscious-
ness were planted. Taking a lesson from its former Chinese allies, the Silla monarchy es-
tablished a fairly rigid aristocracy-led bureaucracy, a system of taxation, and a nationwide
military. Buddhism became the new state's official religion, resulting in a flurry of temple-
building and contributing to the development of exquisite art and ceramics. The kingdom
was internationally engaged, regularly passing relics and artistic techniques on to Japan and
trading with envoys from the Muslim world.
Unfortunately the peace was short-lived; peasant revolts sparked by the ruling classes'
growing corruption made Silla an easy target for a takeover by the remnants of the northern
Goguryeo kingdom, which seized power over the peninsula in AD 935. The Goryeo Dyn-
asty, as it was renamed, ushered in another couple of centuries of calm in which ties with
China were improved and Silla's ruling aristocrats were replaced with civil servants who
attained their positions through a rigorous system of examinations. The government en-
trenched this system throughout the country by appointing bureaucrats to oversee regional
capitals and creating a national education system. The stability that resulted allowed Goryeo
academics and artisans to concentrate on achievements such as celadon pottery and metal
movable-type printing. When trouble did come, it was from external forces—in 1231 the
Mongols overran Goryeo as part of a wider conquest of China and transformed it into a
vassal state. By the 14th century Goryeo had regained some degree of independence, but it
never recovered its past glory. Its rulers were overthrown in the 1390s by a renowned gen-
eral, Yi Seong-gye, who disagreed with an order to strike against Mongol forces in China.
Yi's ascension to the throne in 1392 ushered in the Joseon Dynasty, which endured until
the early 20th century. During this time the country as it exists today began to take shape,
with the capital relocated to present-day Seoul and provincial boundaries established that
