The Rarely Told Dramatic Story of Korea
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Get their newest arrivals in-store, online, and in the app. Hello, everyone. It's not Korea here. And I'm Gabby. And welcome back to the podcast, my hoes. I say welcome back, but I am not even back where it is that I belong. I am, we are currently in Korea in a hotel room. So if we sound a little bit off at any given point,

Please forgive us. New studio. It's not really a studio. It's just a room. Yeah, it's just a room. And this is like our second time recording because I've been crying all day. Not because of Korea. I'm going through some stuff. But I like it here if I could spend more than 10 minutes outside without bursting into tears. Yeah, one of the things is when it's hot and uncomfortable and you constantly feel like you're overheating already in your skin, it's not a great feeling.

That goes for pretty much anywhere. That's not necessarily a Korea problem. So if there's anyone who's listening to us from Korea, don't, it's not you. It's us.

we're dealing with some stuff. We're dealing with some stuff. But it has been really cool. I like it here a lot. Everything. Okay. Okay. My favorite thing is I mainly wear like black and gray and white clothing. Like I don't wear a whole lot of colorful stuff and I go outside and I look around and oh my God, it's the exact same here. And I like, I appreciate it. All of the cars are also like black, gray and white. And I'm like, this is great. Yeah.

Which is hilarious because my favorite color is actually yellow.

It does. I make zero sense as a person. But anyway, today's episode is on Korea because we're in Korea. But before we jump into that, I just want to say that we have a few early bird spots left for our trip to Thailand. And also, if you guys want to go to Turkey with us, there have been like a few spots that have opened up due to, you know, last minute cancellations. And you guys have about three weeks to sign up for that trip before it closes completely. And you'll never get to go to Cappadocia and get on a hot air balloon with me.

About that last part, I may not get on the hot air balloon, so you might go by yourself, but I'll root for you from the ground where I'm so safe. She will spiritually hold your hand the entire time. Exactly. Like, I'll be with you. My thoughts will be with you for sure if I'm physically not. But yeah, if you guys want to come on those trips with us, it'll be super duper fun. Probably.

I don't usually cry on group trips. I cry on my own personal time. Thank you very much. See, it's like what ends up happening when they talk about, you know, don't cry on your own, cry in the bathroom on company time because that's your boss paying for that. How does that apply to this? Because you're my boss. And what are you doing? Oh, I am crying on company time. You're right. Look at me. Yeah.

So, my friends, as she said, we're going to be talking about Korea. Now, mind you, when I say that, we're not talking about the Korean War, which that's typically like the first thing that people think of when we think, oh, yeah, we're talking about the history of Korea because.

now it's all about the North and the South and the struggle between communism and capitalism and all the weird crap that ends up happening in between that with all the stories of the DMZ. But Korea is so much older than the Korean War. Just people don't really pay attention to that. Oh, I learned so much about their invention of their written alphabet, like the Korean alphabet today, because that is how it's

is part of how they got out from under China's little control was they had to develop their own language. I forgot what it's called. Was it called? Hangul. Right.

So we went to some museums. I learned so much. True. And in comparison, like this is one of those things like when you compare this to China and Japan, it's too much larger neighbors. Korea doesn't really get mentioned as much except for being a battleground for said powers to fight over for the previous century for power and influence now or for much older for exactly the same thing.

For much of its history, its nickname was quite literally Little China or China's Little Brother.

that's were they okay with that yeah yeah in fact i mean if they're into that for the majority of their history that wasn't just something that was like oh we're begrudgingly going to have to accept this that was like a celebrated thing well wasn't that um partially why they didn't modernize or anything was because they were under the umbrella of china for so long like china's shadow basically so they didn't progress very much until what was it the

The Korean Empire? Korean Empire, which, oh my God, guys. It lasted 13 years? We're going to get into this. Was it 13? Yes, it was 13 years. Why? Japan, which you're going to learn a lot of times that like, oh, why did things not go well with Korea? Because the moment they try to do something, they end up getting invaded.

That'll do it. Which does happen. But before we get into his whole long, and I mean it's a lot, script, this will be like two parts, right? It is going to be two parts, but we're doing something. It's different than what I've said that we were doing two parts before in the past. I realize that a much more effective thing to really give people what it is that they want when it comes to like our patrons on Patreon is that I want to not only give you all the episodes that you want,

want, but I want to be able to tie that in with the grander scale of what it is that I am producing and get more people who want to perhaps go onto Patreon to get the ad-free content as well as bonus episodes. So similar to what happens for anyone who's familiar with History Unhinged that I do with 8 Madness and the Lore Lodge, that

What we're going to do with some episodes, not all, is that we are going to take suggestions from Patreon. We are going to turn those into full episodes, but then we are going to give additional content for it that is going to go up on Patreon as part of like extra long episodes. So instead of two separate 45 minute episodes, you can basically think of the Patreon episode as being like one big hour and a half long episode.

That sort of thing. That's kind of how I plan on putting it. And again, it's not going to apply to every episode. That's just what it is that we are thinking right now for some of them. Here's the thing. Going into Korea, Korea, as I said, for a lot of its history, has basically been China's little brother, which is not fair. Korea has its own history, its own weird, fun, and terrible things that happen in it, like Gabby.

put this in here very proud of this i say proud of this it sounds very conflicting when i say that here now um they have their own weird little history with slavery

Which, yeah, I know. We're starting off this episode strong in the first place by me talking about this. You made that sound like you had some cool, fun news, and then you go, haha, slavery. Okay, no, no, but seriously, please tell me you saw that viral video going around on TikTok of the podcast where Bobby Lee, which I'm not sure if you're familiar with this guy, he's an American comedian and actor. I know who Bobby Lee is. Yeah, okay. So, he states in this that Koreans do not have a history of oppressing people. I feel like

every country on earth has some sort of history where they have oppressed someone, even if it's just people within their own country. Because unfortunately, back in the day, people, that was kind of like the thing. That was what you did. You just, people did shitty things and they didn't even think they were shitty at that time. And that's just how you live and you learn. You learn and you grow.

Yeah. And that is why he immediately got shut down in what I have to say is one of the most hilarious, immediate, not gotcha moments because it's not got it's more like a. Unfortunately, very public learning moment. Exactly. Which are you familiar? Have you seen the clip that I'm talking about here? Absolutely not. We're on very different sides of TikTok. My side of TikTok is actually depressing right now because the world is a.

Terrible place. But yeah. So here's here's here's what I do. I'm going to give you my phone. You can hold it up to the mic so that this will play for the audio here. And then simultaneously you will you will see what it is that I'm talking about. OK. Is this even going to get picked up by the mic? Sorry, James. It should. Starting now.

But some societies, like Koreans, they might have a God complex, but they don't have a history of oppression. Are you fucking out of your mind? Koreans didn't have slaves. Did Koreans have slaves? Yeah, Google that. Yeah, because I think that's fucking wrong. We were thinking about the longest unbegon chain of slavery of any society in history spanning 1,500 years. Fuck off. That's not what it says.

My eyes are blurring. I want to read it. Read it out loud. Korea had the longest unbroken chain of slavery of any society.

Oh, that is unfortunate. See, this is why I never say anything before I fact check it. Literally, I can say A is the first letter of the alphabet. And I'm just gonna be like Googling that just to be sure, like, what's the first letter of the alphabet? Yeah. So yeah, that that happened. And I start with that because it really showcases misunderstandings that people have about the past, whether you know, you're talking about the good stuff or the bad stuff. And

It all gets mixed together. And that's part of what we're going to be talking about, because Korea has its own very complex history. Why did they have the longest unbroken chain of slavery? Oh, my God. We're going to get into this. What were they doing? Who were they enslaving? Korea basically had its own caste system. Like, think of what you have, the Hindus or the untouchables like in India. Yeah. Korea had their own system that ended up evolving. And yes, slavery was a part of that.

So if we go back to the very beginning, right, and we're going to be covering the whole story of Korea because people don't really pay attention to it nearly as much. The Korean peninsula was inhabited from around 10,000 BC or maybe even earlier because, you know, that's what happens with humanity by people who would subsist on hunting, fishing and gathering.

The earliest known settlements would date back to 6000 BC and megalithic structures from the second millennium BC still dot the landscape of Korea to this day. And there's over 200,000 of these just scattered around. They have these things called dolmen, which I want you to basically look that up, look it up, look up a dolmen right now. D-O-L-M-E-N.

Okay, because I was like, how am I supposed to know what that is? D-O-L-M-E. A dolmen is a type of prehistoric tomb or monument typically constructed from large flat stones supported by upright stones.

Yeah, and if you look at the images, Korea, I think, has the most dolmens of pretty much any society. They look like mushrooms. Yeah, kind of. Like stone shrooms. So rapidly moving forward then in time. Oh, they do. I want a dolmen. What do they do? It was like for a tomb, for markers. Oh, when I die, can I have one?

Sure. I'll build you a dolmen. No, I feel like you're saying it, but you won't do it, and then I'll have to haunt you. You have to pinky promise. I pinky promise. Give me your pinky. Oh, my God. You can't just say pinky promise. Okay. Thank you. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So agriculture, then, moving on from that, gets practiced around the second millennium B.C. and is then helped with the introduction of rice cultivation, which comes from China, by 700 B.C.

From there, you get the Korean Bronze Age, which covered the same period with the metal culture brought from Anchuria, and the presence of fine bronze goods such as swords, bells, and mirrors in certain tombs along the Taedong River show that culture was developing in a stratified sense of this time, with the tribal elite beginning to develop.

Other common bronze items include daggers, spearheads, belt buckles, fan-shaped axes. And then from there, you have the Korean Iron Age, which begins in the 3rd century BC, and it is at that time that the first state forms. I kind of have to give the background going into all this, because before this, we have pretty much these little independent tribes. And the tribes, they have complex structures. They're not really what you'd call states. But then you have the first one that develops later,

Gojoseon or Gojoseon. I'm actually not sure how to do the pronunciation for a number of these different things. Now, Gojoseon, according to Korean mythology, because yes, this is what we have to go off of. This was purportedly founded in 2333 BC, which is weird considering now that we're talking about it. Hold on. Didn't you say the third century BC? I did. But according to the mythology, it is 2000 years older.

which is a bit of a problem when talking about a lot of things in East Asia and history. Like, you know how there's all the very different Chinese dynasties? Yep. Yeah. So the Shang Dynasty is what we know of as the oldest or first Chinese dynasty. But apparently there is one that existed before that that is...

never been proven to actually exist. But China maintains its civilization is actually older than that with a semi-mythical dynasty that we'd have no actual proof of. So, wait, they can't prove it? Well, hold on. They probably, they don't have to because maybe it wasn't a written history and they just, it's word of mouth. That's a lot of cultures. Aren't a lot of, isn't a lot of history lost because it wasn't written down?

Like we only know like a super small fraction of history because there's no record of it, right? It's well, the problem is it's like we have we have basically limited proof of it there being a culture, but not an actual widespread controlling general civilization. Maybe they were more like free form a little bit, you know, do what you want. Go with the flow. Yeah.

Perhaps. You know, like maybe there wasn't an emperor or, you know, maybe they were just surviving. Truthfully, you don't have the first emperor until the Qin Dynasty. That's when you actually have the first emperor because he's the first emperor of China.

Okay, well, king. I don't know. Yeah, because you had different kings. So, Gojoseon, according to Korean mythology, this was from 2333 BC, and it was founded by Dagun Wangom, aka Tangun. Now, get this, all right? This guy, he was the son of a god. Okay. Okay.

Like an actual god or like the king? Because you know how sometimes they're like the emperor is a god, like an actual god or like. And a bear. A god and a bear. So a god. Right. Got jiggy with a female bear. Okay. So the bear is the mom. I was really, I need to know which was which. That's important here. Who was transformed into a human. That woman. Okay. Okay. Hold on. Let me see if I'm following. So the bear.

was not in bear form no it's it's not like balder's gate three did the god transform i don't know actually okay so when they say um man or bear this one was like woman or bear i get it i respect it i respect it um so the the why this is actually one of those things that you know like you're a god you can have anyone but you're like you know what that bear over there

I'm not sure. But that is how the story goes, is that the God got Jiggy with a female bear that turned into a woman. And then from there, boom, you got the first great king. Did the bear remain a woman? Again, I'd have to look at the actual myth for what happened. I just see that that was the original story for it. And there's not enough time to go into the details. I like it, though. I like it. It's very creative.

So that is the mythical origin. Archaeological evidence, on the other hand, suggests that the state was formed from an alliance of small fortified towns around the Daedong and Liao River basins anywhere between the 7th century and 4th century BC, so around 1300 to 1700 years later.

And if this sounds vague and uncertain, yeah, I'm sorry. Although mentioned around 100 BC in the text Records of the Grand Historian written by the Chinese historian Sima Qian, modern historians continue to debate to this day whether it is possible to describe Guozhazan as an actual proper state, when exactly it existed, what its capital was, what were the exact territories under its control. All of this is very prescriptive

loose and iffy. So Gojison prospered due to agricultural improvements with time, it seems. They did have iron tools that were introduced from China, and they had a lot of natural resources. So they had gold, they had copper, tin, zinc, silver, etc. And

At this time, this is where the famous on the underfloor heating system was invented and the first Korean stoneware started to be produced. Do you remember that one manhwa that we were reading together? Like there was the estate. I never finished it. Yeah. But remember the on the system where it was the trench that would be dug underneath the house and it was lit by the fire on the outside. He did floors. Yeah. Yeah.

Wait, that was a thing? Oh yeah, it was a thing. It was a real thing. Oh, why do we do that nowadays? That's part of traditional Korean building. And that has apparently existed since 300 BC. I'm going to do that for fun. They have a big backyard. Do you think the HOA... Oh, there's no external structures, right? Yeah, I don't know how that would actually apply. Dang. I feel like it'd be fun to do as like a little experiment. Because also, I don't think undul would work very well when it's dug underneath a concrete foundation. No, I was going to build a shed.

Oh yeah, you could do an outdoor, well, yeah, if you had a whole thing for shit in the new year. Yeah, that would make sense. That would make sense. So, Gochisun was weakened by attacks from the neighboring Yan state in around 300 BC, and from there, it gradually began to decline. Towards the end of the 3rd century, the Qin dynasty was then replaced by the Han dynasty in China, which created a massive period of social upheaval, and many people moved southward to Gochisun.

Their leader, Huimin, would then ascend to the throne in 194 BC, and Gojoseon would expand its territory under his rule. By this time, they had gone and adopted Iron Age technology, had developed agriculture, they had their own kind of handicrafts, and increased their military strength.

They tried to monopolize their profits and while serving as an intermediary in the trade between the Korean Peninsula and China, taking advantage of the fact that they were super close. So anyone who wanted to trade with China, you went through Korea and bam, that's how they got rich. This in turn led to a bit of confrontation between Gojisong and the Han Dynasty.

Han would end up attacking Gojison with a large number of ground and naval forces, and though they resisted the attack and did win a great victory in the early stage of the war, their capital of Wangmong Song Fortress would fall after just a year of war, and the state would ultimately collapse in 108 BC.

The Han were at that time interested in controlling basically everything, all the natural resources they had, their salt, their gold, everything else. And so they divided Korea into four different commanderies that were directly administered by their central government. And mind you, when I talk about this, this was not going to be the last time that the Korean state would completely collapse and being taken over by an outside power. That happens a lot.

So Gojoseon's territory would later become Goguryeo, while the southern part of Korea at the time, often referred to as the Proto-Three Kingdom period, was then split into, can you guess it?

No. Three kingdoms. Oh. Hence the proto three kingdom period. You had the three Hans of Byonhan, Mahan, and Jinhang, which even though I call this- Are you butchering these or are you like nailing it? Because you're saying them so confidently, I can't tell. These I think I'm saying right. The previous one with Gojison, I have no freaking idea, I'll be honest. Oh my God. But these became the three state of Bache, Gaya, and

in Silla in the subsequent Three Kingdoms period. And yeah, that's right. Just like China, Korea also had a Three Kingdoms period, though technically there was four, which is weird. But yeah. Wait, how were there four technically? Because you had three little kingdoms that were all to the south and then one giant kingdom to the north that encompassed a larger area that was the Goguryeo. So...

These three kingdoms would benefit from the cultural interactions that they would have from China and also with the fact that Gojoseon was collapsing and this allowed for refugees to kind of flood to the territory, allowing them to develop themselves culturally.

Anyway, the system of government of the three kingdoms was pretty much the same as what you would have for the rest of ancient Korea. You had a monarch who'd rule with the aid of senior administrative officials who were drawn from landed aristocracy. The government would appoint officials that would administer the provinces with the aid of local tribal leaders. And the majority of the population were peasants, which the state would then tax heavily. And usually goods were paid in kind. So, you know, if you had a bunch of cows, you paid your taxes in cows.

The state could also oblige citizens to fight in the army or work on government projects such as building fortifications. At the very bottom of the social ladder were slaves, typically prisoners of war or those in serious debt, and criminals who were forced to work on the estates of the aristocracy, which...

Yeah, that's how it works. Society was rigidly divided into a series of social ranks, which was best summed up by the Sila State's Sacred Bone Rank System, which was based on birth and dictated one's work possibilities, their tax obligations, and guess what? Even the clothes that you were allowed to wear and what utensils you were allowed to eat with.

What do you mean they told you what utensils you were allowed to eat with? Yeah, literally everything was controlled, which is when I describe this as an incredibly stratified society. One of my favorite things to cover in history is the sumptuary laws. You remember those fun ones, the sumptuary laws. You can wear certain colors, certain materials, eat certain foods. Yeah, correct. This is that on a rather extreme level.

So the bone rank system. So why is it called a bone rank system? Because you might as well have called it your blood system because it was your bloodline. It was based on your bones, like your ancestors. That's everything. It was called the bone rank system because it was based on your bloodline and it was introduced as part of a new law code in 520 A.D. by King Beofong.

Now, this caste system had three main classes. You had the highest class, which was the sacred bone or siun goul. You then had the true bone, the jin goul. And then finally, head rank, tupum.

The Silla Kings, which were descended from the pack royal line or their successors, the Kims, were all of the sacred bone class. So only rulers could come from this. But by the mid 7th century AD, the sacred bone class was abolished and thereafter royalty held true bone rank along with lesser royals, along with ministers of the high office and even high level aristocrats. So it kind of put them on a little bit more of a even-ish playing field, at least at the upper levels.

The head rank class was the largest and itself divided into six subclasses. These were numbered with ordinary people belonging to class 1, 2, and 3, and the aristocracy belonged to levels 4, 5, and 6. These top three levels were then linked to a person's family ties, the land they owned, the certain clans then dominated positions within the government and local areas. And that determined everything.

Membership of the head ring class was necessary for a person to be considered for civil and military roles. You literally couldn't serve or do anything within the state if you were not from a set family. If you were not, it didn't matter how skilled you were. It didn't matter how smart you were. It did not matter how rich you were. None of these things mattered. You literally would never be appointed or could get a job. How did this work out for them? Because typically when, you know, in situations like that,

Does corruption, is corruption even a thing that can happen? This is, this is. It can't really because you're, it's not like you can bribe someone to move. No, it's more like this is nepotism enshrined.

As part of just a state function. So that's what I'm saying. I feel like it would work decently well because if you come from like that set wealthy family, they're going to teach you how to do the job. This is true. This is my wild. This is just my wildest take I've ever seen. No, it's not a wild take. This is a time in which basically no one is educated. Think of it. 99% of the population can't read. Top 1% of society, they're the ones with an education and know how to actually do things. It doesn't mean that they're not

going to be horribly corrupt assholes about stuff because that's still going to happen. But they are the ones who actually would have an education to be able to do things. That's kind of shitty because like there's no progression of society. That, my dear, is one of the key problems that we're going to be getting into. You can't better yourself. And maybe like the person who can invent penicillin is like bottom line.

percentage. They never would have been listened to. And here's the problem. Everything that I just listed was covering like state jobs. Also, you can't

There's no innovation because it's always going to stay the same. There you go. They don't want change. Yes. So that's unfortunate. Yes. You can't have political reform. You get nothing actually adapt. No social change. And you just have to be OK with. Remember when I told you I ever since I was a little kid, I could never understand. Just like, you know how.

People are just like very, there's nothing wrong with this. It's just something I would struggle with. It's just, I like to have change. And I always think, oh, it's like just the idea of, um,

just doing the same job and then doing the exact same things every weekend would kill me even when like I worked at Solari so I would be going to college I would have to be doing something different and like extra because it was just never enough for me to just do the same old same old yeah yeah and you that you would

physically not be able to do this, Gabby, you would kill yourself. I know. You would be gone. You would not be able to live in such a system. Because I would have to do the exact same thing, the way people say it needs to be done and that's just how it's done. When people are like, well, that's just how we do it. Why?

Like, I'm the annoying person who's like, OK, but tell me exactly why it has to be done this way when it can be done so much better. So here, listen to this, Gab. What I just described in the first place was more so to do with government jobs. It goes way further than that. Think about every single aspect of your life being determined by the system. This is something that would determine who you are allowed to marry, how much tax had to be paid.

Your membership of a specific level was necessary for a person to enjoy types of housing, not only how big your house was allowed to be, how you were allowed to decorate it. As an example, this is one of those big things.

Unless you were of a certain class, you could not use ceramic roof tiles. If you were of a certain class, it did not matter how poor you actually were. If your family had fallen on hard times, you were expected to and supposed to have ceramic roof tiles instead of thatch. This was a very practical, invisible badge of rank in Korean society. At the same time, it does not matter if you were the wealthiest frickin' merchant on earth.

If you were not of a set class, you were not allowed to use those tiles for your house. So you're just going to have a shit ton of money in another way, I guess. BoneRank decided what transportation you're allowed to use, what type of saddle you were allowed to sit in, the number of servants that you were allowed to have, what cooking and eating utensils you were allowed to use.

Clothes would also be controlled and was another visible indicator of social status. Men who were members of the true bone class were not permitted to wear clothes that had embroidery, fur, brocade, etc. While only women of the sacred bone class were allowed to wear hairpins that had jade or gemstones in it. So again, imagine you're a super wealthy merchant. You want to buy your wife a gift, a hairpin that has like a little diamond on the top or something like that.

Forbidden. You could get in trouble with the state and go to jail. Could they have just made up their own status symbols? Like, okay, well, screw that. I'm not going to buy like a fancy hairpin. I'm going to buy her a fancy scarf. That's a good question. And you know, there probably would have been things. I think they would have done that. You know how when you go to a private school and they have uniforms and obviously the whole point of the part of the uniform is that it puts everyone on an equal-ish level.

- That never actually equalizes the way. - It never really does. - Because you accessorize in your own way. I went to private school. I mean, we would wear the same uniform, but then we would wear like other things. And then they would like crack down on like accessories, but they couldn't crack down on everything. Your shoes, you would just get like different shoes to set yourself apart. - Exactly. And so you may then wonder here, okay, well, what about social mobility?

There wasn't any. Yeah. Well, how would there be? How, how would there's no way that's, that's literally what I was saying. And that would, that would make a society just, I mean, it would get boring. Even if let's, let's pretend it doesn't cause societal problems, which hear me out. We have societal problems in societies that do have social mobility and political mobility and you know what I'm saying? Right. But let's pretend it doesn't,

It doesn't cause all of these insane issues. It'll be so boring. Oh, God, it would. It absolutely would. Here. Well, I'm going to give this example. Let's say that you are some kind of soldier or something. Let's say you do something where you save a member of the royal family's life. You do this incredibly great service. That sounds awesome. And yeah, you might be rewarded with land. You might be given a title.

But besides being given this, you didn't actually climb the social ladder.

You got money. You got maybe some respect. You didn't get anything else. Your birth was the way more important factor in determining the level that you were allowed to reach in society as an adult. Even if the son of a merchant expanded his father's business to the point that he was the richest man in the entire country, his new wealth was not going to allow him to get to a higher level of bone rank.

That that wasn't going to be that you were stuck forever. Your children were stuck forever. Yeah, really, the problem was that the rigidness of the system allowed those that were in power to really maintain that power unchallenged. But the major consequences of that was that talent often went unrewarded and the state would lose the opportunity to give individuals power when, you know, that would actually be a good thing.

This led to social stagnation and has been cited by many scholars as one of the key factors leading to the ultimate downfall of the regime. But that is something that is going to be happening here in a bit. We're getting ahead of ourselves. We haven't even talked about what happened to the collective states over the years. So Goryeo, with its capital Pyongyang, would prosper going into the 5th century in the reign of Gwanggit to the Great, who straight up had the title of Broad Expander of Domain.

That was his title. As you can guess by that, he did a little bit of conquering and that permitted Goryeo to dominate northern Korea, most of Manchuria and a portion of Inner Mongolia. Like quite impressive. Silla, meanwhile, with its capital at Gumsong, would flourish under the reign of King Belfong that I mentioned earlier, who would centralize the state under him.

Due to agricultural innovations such as oxen-drawn plows and irrigation systems, as well as its ties to China, it became extremely rich and powerful. Gaia, squeezed between its more powerful neighbors in the south peninsula, never really developed into its own proper centralized kingdom. Silla would capture the Gaia-ruling city-state of Bongaia in 532, and the state would collapse completely a few decades later.

Baekje had done well for a while, and an alliance with Silla in itself between 433 and 553 would bring about some stability. But they would also fight. And in 554, at the Battle of Wonsong Fortress, Baekje would try to reclaim some of the territory that they had lost to Silla before, and their 30,000-strong army was defeated and the king was killed. But wait for it. Everything changes when the Chinese attack.

Again, and then again. See, in the year 600... Wait, so the Chinese were attacking back in the day, and then they swapped to the Japanese attacking? Yes. Later in the day? Yes. That is crazy work. Yeah, it's kind of what ends up going down here, because remember, the whole thing happened with the Han initially invading in there, and then you had the Yan state, which is kind of the previous state that exists there in the north. I hate when the Han and the Yan do...

Their thing. Yeah. See, in the year 612, the Sui dynasty in China, which unified all of mainland China into one state, would go and attack Goryeo, mobilizing more than a million troops. Because it's China. And that happens. General, uh, General Yu, and I'm going to butcher the pronunciation of this in the first place, Yuji Mundyok of Goryeo would end up drowning the majority of the Chinese invaders in the Salsu River, which is called the Battle of Salsu.

The Sui Dynasty would sustain huge damage because of the campaign, which would then fall to the Tang Dynasty in 618, which would replace it. Tang China would also then go and attack Goryeo several times, but failed during each attempt. So it lasted, but over the course of the years, Goryeo would get weaker.

In the meantime, Baekje would frequently go and attack Silla, and Silla unsuccessfully would seek the assistance of Gokuryo and then would go and invade an alliance with Tang China instead. Silla troops, led by Kim Yusin, would defeat an elite force of Baekje troops commanded by Gyebek in Hwangsanbeul, and from there would march to Sabi, which was the capital of Baekje.

Troops of Tang China would invade Bac Che through an estuary of the Gonggang River, and with this double action, Bac Che would surrender to the Silatong forces in 660. From there, their forces would go and attack Boguio, which at the time had been, or I say at the time, or years prior, had been the most powerful kingdom in Northeast Asia.

But over the years of constantly fighting off against varying Chinese invasions, Goguryeo had depleted the majority of his resources and would ultimately fall after the attack between the two dynasties in 668. Upon conquering Bacchae and Goguryeo in alliance with Silla, Tang China would go and say, hey, you know what? We helped you. This is awesome. You're our little brother and are basically going to do what it is that we say.

Yeah. They attempted to exert control over the entire Korean peninsula, including Silla, by establishing the Unjin Commandery in Baekje, the Protectorate General to pacify the east in Goguryeo, and the Gyerim Territory Area Command, even in Silla.

turning into a puppet. Silla, as you can imagine, did not exactly take kindly to this and waged a war against the Tang, defeating its navy in Givapo near the estuary of the Gungang River and drove all of the Tang's forces out of the peninsula, which actually allowed them to complete the amazing feat of unifying Korea for the first time under the control of one power fully in 676.

So it was then that the unified Silla Kingdom, from 668 all the way to 935, this was the first dynasty to rule over the entire whole of the Korean peninsula. There was a state in the north at this time, technically, called Balhae, but most of its territory was in Manchuria, and so the majority of historians don't really consider it a proper Korean state.

The whole state was now divided into nine different provinces, three in each of the old three kingdoms, and five secondary capitals. Gunsung would continue as the overall capital, then known as Seorbol, which benefited from an extensive rebuilding program, pleasure palaces, temples, and more, and would eventually boast a population of around 900,000 people, which is a lot.

A whole series of administrative regions, prefectures, and counties were created right down to the village level. And to consolidate the kingdom, troublesome people and the ruling elite of the former kingdoms were forcibly relocated to other places, but they didn't have a power base anymore. And village headmen were compelled to send their eldest sons to work in the capital of administration or military so that they could be controlled by the state.

The kingdom would end up prospering due to a thriving agricultural industry and was more productive with extensive irrigation projects as well as trade with China. The prolonged absence of war also meant that art and science were able to flourish as never before, and from here, unified Silla would enter a period of massive economic development.

It would mend its relation with Tang China. The two countries would exchange traders, monks, and Confucian scholars with one another. Silla would export gold and silver handiworks and ginseng to Tang. And instead, or in return, they would bring back books, ceramicware, silk, clothes, and so much more. Goods from Central Asia were introduced to Silla, and traders from the region would pay visits to Silla via the Silk Road and the sea routes. They got rich. But Gabby...

Yeah. They have the bone system. So just because some people got rich, do you think they advanced in society at all? No. They're just rich, but they can't buy things, do things, or go places that the rich can. No. And they also can't hold the offices or do the cool stuff. No, they cannot. So despite all this prosperity, it was not going to last forever. The state began to slowly decline. Couldn't they do what they did in the Gilded Age and just make their own cool things from

Remember when they were like, you can't come to our opera house. And you're like, fuck you, we'll build our own. Key point. No, they couldn't. Because... Oh, the laws kept them from doing that. That was social convention in the Gilded Age. They didn't have laws. This was actual legal laws that forbade it. Well, that's shit. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Couldn't they bribe the people who made the laws? You would think so. Except...

They are the ones who actually that's how they maintain their power in the first place is by upholding those laws. You just have to find one guy, one guy who was greedier than he was smart. In a democracy. Sure. That doesn't happen with the monarchy. Damn it. Because you have the king who has all the power and the king says no. OK, so what you do, you get the hottest peasant to seduce your king. I just feel like that would work.

I just feel like it would work. Uh-huh. Would it not work? Uh-huh. I just feel like you have no faith in the power of a hot girl. Uh-huh. Like, just like face guard doesn't decline type girl. Uh-huh.

Anyway, moving on from that here. So, yeah, not only did lack of opportunity to, you know, actually rise above one's rank and class and birth create stagnation of ideas and innovation, but the aristocracy also at the same time began to resent the power of the king. Because here's here's the thing. Here's the thing. We're talking about people from the lower classes not being able to rise up and how bad that is. This system ends up also being bad for the nobility.

Because check it, you could be middle of the rung nobility. You could have a fantastic education, right? Because you could afford it because you're a noble. So your child gets like the best education. And not only that, your child is freaking brilliant. There's no difference between their education at that point and what the upper, upper, upper nobility get. But.

It doesn't matter how skilled your child is. It doesn't matter how great they are. They will never get that high minister position because that belongs to the guy whose family has controlled that position for the last 120 years. And that's just how it works. Landed aristocrats became more difficult to control. Peasants grew more uppity. And from there, the state began to fall apart from within. Peasants grew more uppity.

It makes me think of an EU4 event where it says, like, the serfs are getting a bit uppity. And then you have two options of, like, pacify them and, like, lose the respect of your nobility or tell them to F off, basically, and cause a revolt. Which happens.

In particular, when we talk about this time, there were two individuals that would cause a lot of trouble for the Silla kings. One was a guy by the name of Gyeonhwan, who was a peasant leader who took advantage of the political unrest in 892 AD, and he formed a revival of the old Bacchic kingdom in the southwest. And meanwhile, you had another aristocratic Buddhist monk leader called Gungye, who would go and declare a new Goguryeo state in the north in 901, known as Lugang.

leader Goguryeo. There then followed another messy power struggle for control of the peninsula, just as there had been in the Three Kingdoms period, and it all kind of goes to shit. Now, Geun-hye lost the support of his people while trying to exert control over local leaders and strengthening his claim to the throne, and so in 918, he gets driven away by Wang Gyeon, who was a local leader from Songhae. Now, Wang changes the name of the country to Goguryeo,

which then announces the country was going to inherit Goguryeo and moves the capital to Songkang. Goguryeo would remain hostile to the later Buk-je while actively promoting a policy of fighting and engaging with Silla.

In 935, Silla was peacefully incorporated into Goryeo as one state, and following a power struggle among the leaders in later Bapchae, Gwonhon would surrender to Wang Gyeon in 936, and later Bapchae would fall to Goryeo. Thus, Wang Gyeon would rise from a humble leader to once more the ruler of all Korea, unifying it.

Now, here's the funny thing. Does that name sound familiar at all? Choreo? No. Does it sound like anything? Choreo? Choreo? Choreography? Choreo? Choreo? Choreo? Choreo? No, no, no. Think of it more literal. Don't think of it as sounding like something else. Think of it just exactly sounding the way that it already kind of is. Say it again. Choreo. Choreo? Mm-hmm. Choreo. Choreo.

Okay, you're just saying it in different ways and I have no clue what I'm supposed to be getting from this. Korea. So where the modern name Korea comes from is from the state of Goryeo. I feel like you're saying that wrong because there's no way. It's Goryeo or Goryeo. That would create Korea.

I, okay, so is this like a trust me bro situation? No, that's just straight up the origin of it. I feel like if your pronunciation was better, I would have gotten it. Korea would rule the country from 918 all the way to 1392. And that is the name which would create the modern English name for Korea. That's what it's based off of. So...

Wang Gyan would then select the northern city of Songdo as his new capital, and he declared himself king. And for his contribution to creating the new state, he was given the title after his death of King Taejo, or the Great Founder.

Now, this new state was not without its own kind of problems and external threats, and the Khitan tribes to the north would attack Oryo twice. In 1033, they were finally defeated, and a defensive wall was built stretching right across the northern Korea border, and from there, you have pretty much the establishment into what would be the Kermit Kingdom.

Goryeo would engage in trade with many countries, including the Song Dynasty of China at this time, and would get rich. Many traders from Song, Central Asia, Arabia, Southeast Asia, and Japan would travel to Korea in search of riches. Traders from Song would sell some satin, silk, and medicinal herbs, while traders from Goryeo would sell hemp cloth and ginseng and more.

Gems such as ivory, crystal, and amber were imported from Arabia. And then from all this, the Goryeo dynasty sees a huge cultural boom. Especially the Goryeo celadon, which is made by the inlaying technique that was unparalleled anywhere else in the world, creating beautiful pottery. Also, funny enough, the world's first metal printing type was also invented during the Goryeo period.

According to records, the people of Goryeo invented the metal printing type over 200 years earlier than Johannes Gutenberg did in Europe. Like we think of the Germans as having invented the metal printing press and technically they did to the point of popularizing it. But the Koreans appear to have done it as an early prototype first.

A book entitled Jikji, which is the Anthology of the Great Buddhist Priests Zen Teachings, was printed in 1377 with metal printing type, 78 years before the Europeans did so in 1455. This is actually a document that is kept at the National Library of France and was registered as a memory of the world in 2001. So fun fact, which is awesome. But...

Prosperity also has its downsides, and this resulted in a steady increasing decadence among the ruling elite, corruption, social unrest, and more. Open rebellions would break out in 1126 and 1135, which ultimately were quashed, but matters would come to a head during the reign of King Zhong, who was criticized for building lavish palaces and water parks at the expense of the state. Because, guys, get gabbing, gabbing, gabbing.

You talk about all the time what you do as a president. All right. Yeah. He just needed being a ruler is stressful. He just really needed to build a water park to play it. Honestly, valid. And so the military, which didn't really have much to do at this time, because years upon years upon years of peace means that there is no one to fight, which means that the high ranking officials within the military don't have any opportunity to do anything.

So they go and stage a coup in 1170. Ujong was replaced by his brother, Myeongjong, but he only remained as basically a puppet ruler. Decades of infighting then between all levels of Goryeo society would ensue with more coups, more assassination, slave rebellions, and more. Worst to come, though, was the Mongols.

Genghis Khan, who had unified all the Mongol tribes, would sweep across China, and his son, Ogedai Khan, would turn his attention to Korea in the year 1231. Goryeo was forced to move its capital to Gwanghwamun Island the following year. While the ruling elite were safely hiding on their little island, the rest of the population had to face six Mongol invasions over the next three decades and be conquered.

By the year 1258, the people had had enough, and a military ruler was assassinated, the king was reinstalled with full powers, and peace was made with the Mongols. Korea would not be independent again, instead they were a puppet state, until General Yi Songye would form the new state of Joseon in 1392, becoming King Taejo.

This is where things get interesting. And this is where we studied actually a lot of that stuff when we were out there viewing the varying different government museums today. One of the first acts of Taejo that he made as king was to move the Korean capital from Kaesong in present day North Korea to Hanyang, present day Seoul, South Korea. And the move of capitals at the start of a new Korean dynasty became that was just the tradition of what you did.

The first few kings of Joseon would move quickly to expand the borders and fortify the land. Invasions of Mongols in the north and Wako pirates from Japan on the coast of the Korean peninsula would mark the final decades of Goryeo and the first decades of Joseon.

Joseon kings would take advantage of the receding Mongols to claim and fortify more land in the north, and Sejong the Great, who ruled from 1418 to 1450, would invade the Wako pirates' primary base of Tsushima in order to reduce their attacks, because they had to deal with all kinds of crap. Even though they made this success, internal struggles would also mark the early years of Joseon, namely between Taijo's sons.

And you ready for this? You ready for the drama? Ready for the bullshit? Always ready for the drama. Okay. So after becoming king,

Taijo tried to decide which of his sons was going to be his heir. Classic problem for a monarch to have, of course. Wait, which dynasty? Joseon? Yeah, the Joseon dynasty. Well, actually, if he died, his wife could do it because they were super progressive. Did you know that if the daughters, like the princesses got married and then the princess died, the husband was forbidden from remarrying, actually? Yeah.

And honestly, that's the type of energy I need my family to have. Like if I died, they'd be like, you think you're getting married? No. I'm into that. They were very progressive. Like they were very...

I liked it. I liked learning about it. From everything that we describe within society, especially considering what we talked about with Scylla and the bone rank system, progressive is not what I would use to describe, but an interesting caveat for royal prestige is certainly valid. Well, yeah, for the women. The women had like decent amount of sway comparatively in the royal family.

In the royal family. We got to emphasize that, I guess. Yeah, I do have to emphasize that because that does not apply anywhere else. Okay, well, you know what? They didn't say anything about how non-progressive they were with the bone structure at the museum. So this then brought about what was called the Strife of Princes, where his sons would go and raise their own armies and fight each other to be their father's heir. You know, there's worse ways to do that. There's better ways, but there's also worse ways.

After one son was killed in combat and Tai Zhou's wife died suddenly, Tai Zhou would go and name his son Yibangguo as heir and would abdicate to mourn in 1398. A second strife of princes would take place in 1400 and Zhongzhong would name his brother, Bongwan, as heir before quickly abdicating. Bongwan then became King Tai Zhong and ruled for 18 years before passing the throne to his son, King Sejong the Great.

Now, Sejong brought about a much needed period of stability and peace, considering what the kind of bullshit that was happening in the previous years. And he ushered in all kinds of advances. See, he ruled from 1418 to 1450, 32 years, which is a decent amount of time. And he had a huge impact on the kingdom. Under his reign, Korea made advancements in medicine, science, law, literature, culture. But his greatest achievement among all that was the creation of the Korean alphabet.

He also brought in Confucian ideas from China and institutionalized them within Korean society and government. And this is just genuinely like this guy was a scholar. In fact, the reports even say like there's there's contentious things about this. Some say he was his ministers, but most of the history say that the king himself made the alphabet like he did it. He came up with all of it. This is like imagine if the president just sat down and went, yeah, I'm going to invent a whole new type of math.

and then just did it. However, the thing is, despite all these advances, shortly after Sejong's death and the death of his successor, King Munjong, Sejong's grandson, King Danjong, assumed the throne at the age of 12. Before his death, and knowing his son Munjong was too ill to rule for very long, Sejong had instructed scholars and counselors to help Danjong rule before he came of age.

With the power of the king minimized, Deng Zhong's uncle, Seizhou, would usurp the throne by force. And Deng Zhong was made to abdicate and he would exile Meng Zhong in 1455. Now, Seizhou's rule was looked down upon by the government officials because it was seen as a violation of Confucian ethics because, you know, he betrayed his nephew, which filial piety, sorry, is a very important thing.

This led to an assassination attempt of Sejo by six ministers. Sejo discovered their plan and he executed some while others would go into hiding. This event became known as the Sayukson or Six Martyrs Ministers. These six ministers would later become idolized in the later Joseon period when other formal officials known as the Sejom who were not part of the assassination plan then came to dominate politics as government officials.

After a period of prosperity under Sejong's successors, you would see more tyranny with King Yongsan-gun. Yongsan-gun killed members of the Sarum when they opposed some of his decisions, which became known as the first literary purge in 1494. He committed a second purge in 1504.

For clarification, the term literati here refers to officials who adhered to Confucian doctrine in Korea and wanted to cultivate virtue and ethics in the political classes. Which, geez, wow. Imagine trying to get politicians to be ethical. These beliefs were opposed by officials whose families had been in power for multiple generations and wanted to keep a hold on their government seats that they had inherited from their grandfathers. As you can probably expect.

Over the course of the 1500s, two more literary purges would take place. The third one occurred in 1519 under King Zhengzhong, when some older established government officials became wary of the new Serum scholar power led by Zhou Guangzhou. Now, even though Zhou Guangzhou was the most trusted advisor to the king, Zhengzhong, the officials successfully managed to convince the king that Zhou's supporters were trying to start a coup.

So Zhongzhong and Zhou and a few other Serum killed, much to the anger of most of the government officials and population, because you don't want your head of secretary of something murdering another secretary. I mean, yeah, that's not ideal. That doesn't help government stability. It's not the best. And so after Zhou's death, many Serum went into hiding or exile.

Zhengzhong's death in 1544 would bring about more political infighting for the throne. His two sons, each from different women, and their relatives fought for the throne. Each family member would identify with a different political faction, like the Serum or the Hungu, and first, his eldest son, Inzhong, became king in 1544, when Zhengzhong died.

Injeong and his family, especially his uncle Yoon Im, were of the Taeyun faction, who closely would associate with Jo Gwang-jo from the serum from before. However, just because they were in power now did not mean that things were going to last, and Injeong ends up dying a year later in 1545, which leads Jeongjong's younger son, Yeongjong, and his family to win the throne.

Problem was, as Myung Jong was only 12 years old at the time when he took power, his mother and uncle, Yoon Wong-hyeong, would rule for him. The Soyun faction then killed Yoon Im and many of the other Taeyun officials that ruled from the previous ruler in the Fourth Literati Purge, ensuring that their faction was basically going to dominate things with way less opposition. And so it was after that, that relative stability increased,

of the early Joseon period would be cemented. No, it was not. Things were about to get worse. Things may have been stable from the very beginning, but also this would be followed by purges and political instability. The middle Joseon period was marked by more political troubles. The Japanese would invade Korea in something known as the Injin Wars. You'd have the Jin go and invade in 1627. The Qing would invade in 1636.

And all of this led to Korea basically cutting itself off and adopting isolationism as just the standard political thought. But that, my friends, would be a story that we are going to continue here on Patreon, where we're going to be covering everything else that happens to Korea. And oh, boy, is there going to be a lot.

With that, my friends, we're going to be ending things here today. I did technically, and I know I mentioned this in the next segment on this, I technically did do an episode already that was on the Imjin War. I covered the full Japanese invasion of Korea. If you have not heard that, you can definitely go back and check that out because that should be a regular episode. Yeah, I think it is. I don't think I was on that one. Or I might have been. I don't...

necessarily remember everything so we are going to be covering it but we aren't going to be doing everything we're just going to be explaining a little bit of the setup for what happens before moving on because we have another 400 years of history that we're going to need to cover in this case we did more like 6 000 right there but hey you know time flies when you're having fun

And you're not a Korean oppressing other Koreans for 1500 years. Oh, so that was a slavery thing. Oh, no, slavery was going on during this whole thing. Like, again, when they say unbroken chain of slavery, that means like slavery was outlawed in Korea. And I think what was it? 1890 something? You know, when better than never? Question mark. Slavery outlawed Korea.

1894. You were so close. You were off by four years. So yeah, either way, that is the end, my friends. Thank you all very much for listening. I will see you all here next time. Goodbye, everyone.

Hello, and welcome to History Dispatches. We are the father-son duo, bringing you the weird, the wild, the wacky, and the craziest tales from across time. From the Ice Bull, to the Great Heathen Army, and the head of Oliver Cromwell. The same head they kept on a pike for three years? Yep, all here on History Dispatches. New episodes every weekday. Find out more at historydispatches.com or wherever you get your podcast app.