Gungye弓裔

Gungye was a man of Silla, and his surname was Kim. His father was Uijeong, the forty-seventh king, King Heonan, and his mother was a lesser consort of King Heonan, whose surname and name are lost. Some say he was the son of Eungnyeom, the forty-eighth king, King Gyeongmun.

He was born at his mother's family home on the fifth day of the fifth month. At that time there was a white light above the roof, like a long rainbow, and it reached up and joined the sky. The ilgwan reported, "This child was born on the day of the double fifth, and he was born with teeth, and the light and the flame about him are beyond the common. I fear that in time to come he will not be good for the country. It is fitting not to rear him."

The king commanded a messenger of the palace to go to the house and kill him. The messenger took him out of his swaddling clothes and threw him down below the upper floor. The wet nurse caught him in secret, and her hand touched him by mistake and blinded one of his eyes. She carried him off and hid, and reared him with much toil.

When he was ten and some years old he would not stop his play, and his nurse told him, "When you were born you were cast away by the country, and I could not bear it and reared you in secret until this day. But your wild ways are like this, and you will surely be found out by others, and then neither I nor you will escape. What are we to do?"

Gungye wept and said, "If it is so, then I shall go away, and I shall not be a care to my mother."

He went at once to Sedalsa, which is the Heunggyosa of today. He shaved his head and became a monk, and he called himself Seonjong.

When he was grown he did not hold to the rules of the monks and made no distinction of high and low, and he had daring in him. Once he was going to a feast of offering, and on the way a crow held something in its beak and dropped it into the bowl he carried. He looked at it, and it was an ivory tally with the word "king" (王) written on it. He kept it hidden and did not speak of it, but he thought a good deal of himself.

He saw that Silla was worn down and at its close, that the government was in disorder and the people scattered, that outside the royal domain half the provinces and counties had turned and gone over, and that far and near the many robbers rose up like bees and gathered like ants. Seonjong thought that if he took the disorder and gathered a host he could get what he wished, and in the fifth year after Queen Jinseong ascended the throne, the second year of Dashun, a sinhae year, he went over to Gihwon, the robber chief of Jukju.

Gihwon slighted him and was haughty and did not treat Seonjong with courtesy, and he was downcast and not at ease in himself, and he secretly bound himself in friendship with Wonhoe and Sinhwon and others who were under Gihwon.

In the first year of Jingfu, an imja year, he went over to Yanggil, the robber of Bugwon. Yanggil treated him well and put affairs in his hands, and at last he divided his troops and had him take land to the east.

So he went out and lodged at Seongnamsa on Mount Chiak, and he went about and fell upon the counties of Jucheon and Naeseong and Ullo and Eojin, and brought them all to surrender.

In the first year of Qianning he went into Myeongju, and his host was three thousand five hundred men. He divided them and made fourteen companies, and he made Gimdae and Geommo and Heunjang and Gwipyeong and Jangil and others sasang.

He shared sweet and bitter and toil and ease with his officers and men, and in giving and taking away he was fair and not partial. Because of this the hearts of the host feared him and loved him, and they pushed him forward and made him general.

At this he struck and broke the fortresses of Jeojok and Seongcheon and Buyak and Geumseong and Cheorwon, and the fame of his army was very great. Many of the robber bands of Paeseo came and surrendered. Seonjong thought his host was now great and that he might open a country and call himself lord, and for the first time he set up offices within and without.

our Taejo came from Songak commandery and gave himself over to him, and he was given at once the post of prefect of Cheorwon commandery.

In the third year, a byeongjin year, he attacked and took the two counties of Seungnyeong and Imgang. In the fourth year, a jeongsa year, the county of Inmul surrendered.

Seonjong held that Songak commandery was a noted commandery north of the Han river and that its hills and waters were strange and fine, and so he fixed on it and made it his capital. He struck and broke the fortresses of Gongam and Geompo and Hyeolgu.

At that time Yanggil was still at Bugwon, and he had taken more than thirty fortresses, Gugwon and the rest, and held them. He heard that Seonjong's land was wide and his people many, and he was greatly angered, and he meant to fall upon him with the strong troops of those thirty and more fortresses. Seonjong learned of it in secret and struck first, and beat him utterly.

In the first year of Guanghua, a muo year, in spring, the second month, he repaired the wall of Songak. He made our Taejo daegam of the picked horse, and struck Yangju and Gyeonju. In winter, the eleventh month, the Palgwan assembly was held for the first time.

In the third year, a gyeongsin year, he ordered Taejo again to strike Gwangju and Chungju and Dangseong and Cheongju and Goeyang and the rest, and they were all brought to order. For his merit Taejo was given the office of achan.

In the first year of Tianfu, a sinyu year, Seonjong called himself king, and he said to the people, "In days past Silla asked Tang for troops and so broke Goguryeo, and therefore the old capital of Pyeongyang has become a place grown thick with weeds. I shall surely take revenge for it." It was, it seems, because he bore a grudge for having been cast away when he was born that he spoke so.

Once as he went about the south he came to Buseoksa in Heungju, and he saw the likeness of a king of Silla painted on the wall, and he drew his sword and struck it, and the mark of the blade is there still.

In the first year of Tianyou, a gapja year, he set up a name for the country and called it Majin, and he made the era name Mutae.

For the first time he set up Gwangpyeongseong and filled its posts with gwangchina and seosa and oeseo. He set up also byeongbu and daeryongbu and suchunbu and bongbinbu and uihyeongdae and naphwabu and jowibu and naebongseong and geumseoseong and namsangdan and sudan and wonbongseong and biryongseong and muljangseong. He set up also sadae and sikhwabu and jangseonbu and judoseong. He set out besides the grades and offices of jeonggwang and wonbo and daesang and wonyun and jwayun and jeongjo and boyun and gunyun and jungyun.

In autumn, the seventh month, he moved a thousand households of the people of Cheongju into the fortress of Cheorwon and made it his capital. He struck and took more than thirty provinces and counties, Sangju and the rest, and Honggi, the general of Gongju, came and surrendered.

In the second year of Tianyou, an eulchuk year, he went into the new capital and repaired the palace and the halls and the towers and terraces, and his extravagance was utter and his excess was at its height. He changed Mutae and called it the first year of Seongchaek. He divided and fixed the thirteen garrisons of Paeseo.

Geomyong, the general and lord of the fortress of Pyeongyang, surrendered, and Myeonggwi and the others, the robbers of the red coats and the yellow coats of Jeungseong, came over and submitted.

Seonjong prided himself on his strength and his flourishing, and his mind was to swallow up the rest, and he had the people of the country call Silla Myeoldo (滅都), and all who came from Silla he cut down and killed.

In the first year of Qianhua under the Liang of Zhu, a sinmi year, he changed Seongchaek and called it the first year of Sudeok Manse, and he changed the name of the country and called it Taebong.

He sent Taejo to lead troops and strike Geumseong and other places, and he made Geumseong into Naju. When merit was reckoned, Taejo was made daeachan and general.

Seonjong called himself the Maitreya Buddha. On his head he wore a golden headcloth, and on his body he put a square robe. He made his eldest son the Bodhisattva Cheonggwang (青光, Blue Light) and his youngest son the Bodhisattva Singwang (神光, Divine Light). When he went out he always rode a white horse, and he had its mane and tail dressed with coloured silk, and he had boys and girls carry banners and canopies and incense and flowers and lead the way before him, and he ordered more than two hundred monks to chant the Buddhist hymns (梵唄) and follow behind.

He also made more than twenty scrolls of sutras himself, and his words were wild and false and all of them things that do not stand to reason. Sometimes he sat up straight and expounded them, and the monk Seokchong said, "They are all crooked words and strange tales, and they cannot be taken for teaching." Seonjong heard of it and was angry, and he beat him to death with an iron club.

In the third year, a gyeyu year, Taejo was made pajinchan and sijung.

In the fourth year, a gapsul year, he changed Sudeok Manse and called it the first year of Jeonggae. He made Taejo General of a Hundred Ships.

In the first year of Zhenming, the lady Gang, because the king did many lawless things, set her face straight and remonstrated with him. The king hated it and said, "You have been unchaste with another man. What is this?"

The lady Gang said, "How could there be such a thing?"

The king said, "I have seen it by my divine power." With an iron pestle heated in a fierce fire he pierced her privy parts and killed her, and it reached to her two children as well.

After this he was full of suspicion and quick to anger, and from the many officers and generals and clerks down to the common people, those who were killed without guilt were many and often, and the people of Buyang and Cheorwon could not bear his cruelty.

Before this there was a merchant, Wang Changgeun, who had come from Tang and was lodging in the market street of Cheorwon.

In the fourth year of Zhenming, a muin year, he saw a man in the middle of the market whose looks were great and imposing, whose side hair and head hair were all white, and who wore old clothes and an old cap. In his left hand he held a porcelain bowl and in his right hand an old mirror, and he said to Changgeun, "Will you buy my mirror?" Changgeun at once exchanged rice for it. The man shared out the rice to the begging children of the streets, and after that no one knew where he had gone.

Changgeun hung the mirror on the wall, and when the sun shone on the face of the mirror there was fine writing on it, and he read it, and it was like an old poem. The gist of it was this. "The Lord on High sends down his son into Jinma / first he will seize the fowl, and after he will strike the duck / in a sa year two dragons will appear / one will hide his body within a green tree / one will show his shape east of the black metal."

At first Changgeun did not know there was writing there, and when he saw it he thought it beyond the common, and at last he told the king. The king ordered the office in charge to search out the owner of the mirror together with Changgeun, going by his looks, but he was not to be seen, and only in the Buddha hall of Balsapsa there was a clay image of Saturn (鎮星) that was like that man.

The king marvelled and thought it strange for a long while, and he ordered Song Hamhong and Baek Tak and Heo Won and other men of letters to interpret it.

Hamhong and the others said to one another, "That the Lord on High sends down his son into Jinma means Jinhan and Mahan. That two dragons appear, and one hides his body in a green tree and one shows his shape in the black metal — the green tree is the pine, so is this not to say the grandson of the man of Songak commandery who took the dragon for his name, that is, the pajinchan and sijung of today? The black metal is iron, so it means Cheorwon, where the capital now is.

It is the proof that the lord who reigns now first rose here and will in the end perish here. That he first seizes the fowl and after strikes the duck is to say that the pajinchan and sijung will first get Gyerim and after gather in the Amnok."

Song Hamhong and the others said to one another, "The cruelty and disorder of the lord who reigns now are such as this. If we speak as it is, not only shall we be made into pickled meat, but the pajinchan too will surely meet with harm." So they dressed up their words and told him.

The king gave free rein to his fierceness and cruelty, and his officers shook with fear and did not know what to do.

In summer, the sixth month, the generals Hongsul and Baegok and Samneungsan and Boksagwi — these are the childhood names of Hong Yu and Bae Hyeongyeong and Sin Sunggyeom and Bok Jigyeom — the four of them took counsel in secret, and by night they went to Taejo's own house and said, "The lord who reigns now fills out his will with wanton punishment. He has killed his wife and slain his sons and cut down his officers, and the people are in the mire and the fire and cannot live of themselves. From of old, to put down the dark and set up the bright is the great right of all under heaven. We ask that you do as King Tang and King Wu did."

Taejo changed his face and refused them and said, "I have pledged myself to loyalty and purity. Though he is violent and disorderly now, I dare not hold a second heart. To put a lord aside as his subject is what is called a change of the mandate. I am truly without virtue. How should I dare to follow the example of Yin and Zhou?"

The generals said, "The moment does not come twice. It is hard to meet and easy to lose. When heaven gives and one does not take, one receives the blame for it instead. Now the government is in disorder and the country in danger, and the people all look on the one above them with hatred as on an enemy.

In virtue and repute today there is none who stands above you. And the writing of the mirror that Wang Changgeun got is such as it is. How should you crouch down like a hen and take your death at the hand of a tyrant whom all have left?"

The lady Yu heard the counsel of the generals, and she said to Taejo, "To strike the unkind with kindness is the way it has been from of old. Now that I hear the counsel of the many, even I, your handmaid, am stirred to anger. How much more a great man? Now the hearts of the multitude have suddenly changed, and the mandate of heaven has a place to go to." With her own hands she took up the coat of mail and offered it to Taejo.

The generals held Taejo up and guarded him and went out at the gate, and they had men cry out before him, "Lord Wang has raised the banner of right."

At this those who ran up from before and behind and came to follow were beyond counting, and those who reached the gate of the palace fortress first and beat drums and shouted and waited were more than ten thousand as well.

The king heard of it and did not know what to plan, and he fled in plain clothes into the hills and the woods, and soon he was killed by the people of Buyang.

Gungye rose in the second year of Dashun of Tang and came to the fourth year of Zhenming of the Liang of Zhu, so that in twenty-eight years in all he perished.