Korean Studies Internet Discussion List KOREAN STUDIES REVIEW
Edward J. Shultz, Generals and Scholars: Military Rule in Medieval Korea. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000. Preface, Appendixes, Notes, Bibliography, Index + 254 pages. ISBN: 0-8248-2188-2, cloth; ISBN: 0-8248-2324-9, paper.
Reviewed by James Lewis
Oxford University[This review first appeared in Acta Koreana, 4 (2001): 179-184. Acta Koreana is published by Academia Koreana of Keimyung University.]
Edward Shultz has done us a great service by bringing into print an expanded version of his doctoral dissertation, completed at the University of Hawai'i in 1976. In nine chapters and an introduction, he examines the political history of the Kory_ dynasty from 1170 to 1258, a period usually called the Military Era. His conclusions on the institutional confrontations and their resolutions that developed over these eight decades extend far beyond 1258 and have implications for the founding of the succeeding Chosôn dynasty and even for the political economy of Korea through the late nineteenth century. Studies in English on the Koryô period are few and those in print are even fewer, so we should welcome this elucidation of a complex time when military officials usurped power and ruled in all but name.
In 1170, King Ûijong was dethroned by a military coup, and for the next twenty-five years, the survival of the dynasty was in jeopardy as strong men fought over power. General Ch'oe Ch'unghôn emerged in 1196 as the victor, brought the dynasty back from the brink of ruin, and achieved sufficient stability to pass power to his son. In fact, the Ch'oe House ruled from behind the throne for four generations or until 1258, when civilian officials displaced them and negotiated a peace with the Mongol invaders. The period of Ch'oe rule saw challenges of epochal proportions: rebellions, massive foreign invasions, and the removal of the capital to Kanghwa Island. Ch'oe governance responded with the creation of an elaborate private system of governance that manipulated dynastic institutions and political (Confucian) and religious (Buddhist) ideologies and that relied heavily on retainers and personal loyalties. Ch'oe genius was to retain older political structures while transforming and extending them. The period saw the maintenance of traditional social elites, the extensive use of marriage alliances and kinship ties, the continuation of Buddhism as a significant economic and political factor, the retention of Koryô kingship for its legitimating power, and the promotion of civil ideals and structures for their ability to produce bureaucratic expertise.
The Ch'oe House introduced new trends as well as furthering old. In particular, the military seized power in 1170, because relations between the civil and military branches of government had reached a nadir, but by the end of the Military Era, both halves of the elite had achieved a stable accommodation with the other. Ironically, the Ch'oe support of civil norms and maintenance of the dynastic organs meant that its private system of governance would eventually be displaced as soon as the military leadership appeared weak or was unable to command sufficient personal respect. As long as the military dictators relied on the king for legitimacy and used Confucian education as a qualification for bureaucratic advancement, they left themselves vulnerable to a re-assertion of civilian and royal perogatives. Even Ch'oe House retainers were incorporated into the civil dynastic structure, thereby diluting loyalty to their military masters. Sôn Buddhism was taken up and received sponsorship from the military quarter, but Sôn offers no political philosophy and so could not rival the Confucian establishment with its focus on the king and concern with the international politico-cultural order centered on China. The Ch'oe House suppressed upstart social groups such as slaves and peasants, reasserted a pre-coup social hierarchy, and worked hard to make the older economic structures pay bureaucratic salaries. In so doing, they won support from established clans. In short, the Ch'oe rulers reinvigorated the dynasty, but their very success paved the road to their downfall.
The long-term legacies of Ch'oe rule were multiple. The success of Sôn strengthened a popular Buddhism that emerged as a credible rival to the more elitist Kyo sect. Sôn offered a speculative philosophy that was to assist the introduction of Neo-Confucianism in the late thirteenth century. Buddhist syncretism during this period, typified by Chinul, Hyesim, and Yose was paralleled in secular thought and society by the emerging rapprochement between the civil and military officials. In suppressing peasant revolts and purging the lowborn from high offices, the Ch'oe dictators forestalled social revolution. Ch'oe restoration of a viable dynastic tax structure allowed the land stipend system (prebends for officials) to work, and brought in taxes for the operation of central government, at least until capitulation to the Mongols. Nevertheless, the resurrection and expansion of sigûp (prebends based on the number of households, not land area) as rewards for loyalty and to pay Ch'oe expenses created a trend towards the greater privatization of land and led to the appearance of the great latifundia of the late Koryô period and the eventual impoverishment of the dynasty.
At the risk of misrepresentation and omission, these are the general conclusions of the study, except, that is, for one that is striking in its suggestiveness. To reiterate, the Ch'oe House sponsored Confucian norms and relied on the throne, while simultaneously using private institutions to impose actual rule. The dual public/private structure sowed the seeds of the eventual destruction of private governance at the hands of a reinvigorated civil government. Shultz is convincing in his argument, but perhaps he over-weights his analysis and continues, "[w]ith or without the Mongols, the Ch'oe House and military rule would not have survived Koryô's civil tradition." (p. 186) Of course, Korean politics were determined first and foremost by Koreans, but the impact of the Khitan and Mongol invasions seems short-changed. On the next page, Shultz asserts, "the security of the kingdom became the responsibility of the Ch'oe House ..." Presumably, the Ch'oe House was unable to defend the kingdom against the Mongols and this must have contributed greatly to a loss of legitimacy and ultimate demise, much as the inability of the Tokugawa bakufu to keep foreigners away in the mid-nineteenth century opened the door for a revolt of the domains. More discussion on the Mongols follows below after we link this point to another provocative innovation.
Shultz exposes us to the fresh breeze of comparative history by introducing Japanese military government. He draws a number of interesting comparisons between the character of Ch'oe House rule and the Kamakura government in Japan, even going so far as to write: "[t]hat the rise of the warrior class in Japan dovetails with the rise of the military in Korea highlights the need to study these two cultures in concert." (p. xi) The Kamakura bakufu initiated a series of military governments in Japan that lasted until 1868, and so the obvious question is why Korea followed a different path. The key differences highlighted by Shultz are that the Kamakura situation produced vassals, whereas the Ch'oe House developed only retainers (lacking elaborate ceremony or benefices). The Ch'oe House governed from the dynastic capital, but the Kamakura bakufu located itself away from Kyoto. Finally, the Kamakura situation was one of dispersed, decentralized power, whereas the Koryô kingdom required a strong central army to defend itself from attack.
Returning to the question of the role of the Mongols, the invasion factor seems to relate directly to the comparison with Japan. The Mongols supplied a large and overwhelming imperative for the reassertion of civil authority: Koryô required centralization to survive. This was most easily achieved within the existing dynastic structures. Without the Mongols, it is conceivable that the Ch'oe House or another military successor may have evolved away from the dynastic government and established itself in a similar fashion to the Kamakura bakufu. In this sense, Shultz's comparison with Kamakura may not be as apt as a comparison that might start with institutional developments under the Heian court, leading to the period of Taira Kiyomori following the Hogen and Heiji disturbances of 1156 and 1159, through the Genpei War of 1180, to the establishment of the Kamakura bakufu under Minamoto Yoritomo. Taira Kiyomori, like Ch'oe Ch'unghôn, did not locate his power outside the dynastic establishment, but sought to use the existing structure for his own ends. In institutional terms, Kiyomori may have been no more than a Yi Ûimin-type figure (a lowborn slave with too many ambitions), but Yoritomo's innovations in Kamakura may offer a glimpse of where the Ch'oe House could have gone with the further development of sigûp, private armies, and no Mongol invasion. Of course, Yoritomo did not have the Khitans and the Mongols threatening his country, and Japan could afford the luxury of decentralization. Shultz's argument leads to a conclusion that downplays the impact of the Mongols, but his hypothesis of internal factors being more important than external factors is untestable and, although provocative, must remain only a hypothesis.
Shultz's attempt to introduce comparisons is brave and must be applauded, no matter how modest they are at this initial stage. For example, no comparisons are attempted between the popularity among military elites of Sôn in Korea and Zen in Japan. No comparison is attempted between the two social histories or whether incidences of unrest or problems of social mobility were similar or different. No comparison is made with revenue sources. These are large questions worthy of serious comparative study, and this book cannot be faulted for ignoring them. Interested readers may want to consult Shultz's recent article in Japan Review for more on comparisons between Korea and Japan (see Edward J. Shultz, "Ch'oe Ch'unghôn and Minamoto Yoritomo," Japan Review, no. 11 (1999): 31-53. ). Finally, on the topic of comparisons, we might also consider the Sung military model and its failures for some of the reasons behind Koryô's emphasis on civilian leadership.
Shultz's book is very informative on a number of important matters. For example, the vision of the "young, foolish, and stupid" (and corpulent) Ch'oe Ûi trying to flee over a wall and escape his assassins is priceless for what it tells us about leadership qualities. Of course, the core of the book is its extensive examination of the institutional arrangements for governance. There are a few places where more information on broader circumstances would have helped, or if it is there, this reader overlooked it. For example, there seems to be no summation of how Shultz views the conduct and significance of the Khitan and Mongol invasions. The invaders appear here and there, and although this is not his story to tell, given the very interesting hypothesis mentioned above, a more comprehensive assessment would have helped. We get a few inklings of how the Koryô government continued to function from Kanghwa Island, but one can imagine that eluding and attacking Mongol forces while trying to govern and collect taxes with difficult lines of communica-tions and transport must have consumed a large part of the day-to-day running of the government. A few minor quibbles follow. In 976, King Kyôngjong introduced the chônsikwa "whereby the state granted prebendal rights from paddy land and woodland to officials, military officers, and other government agents." (p. 4) One wonders how much "paddy land" existed in Koryô in the tenth century. Tongnae is not near modern Pusan; it is one of the northern wards of the city and the original core of the city. (p. 14) The Kyôllyong Army is obviously a key player in the coup of 1170, but its position within the list of armies (p. 5) is not clarified, and the reader is left guessing its size and position. It would have been useful to have Ch'oe Ch'unghôn's ten-point proposal in an appendix for easy reference. The final quibble is not with the author, but with the University of Hawai'i Press. There is no glossary with Chinese characters. In fact, there are no characters at all. This is a recurring failure of the Press to modernize itself. Such stubborn refusal to join the modern world of multilingual publishing is now more than an annoyance; it is an embarrassment.
Finally, there are a few last comments I would like to make concerning the points of view that emerge in the book. The scene is surveyed from the sources available, and so it would be surprising if the author's view could have escaped completely from those biases. While reading the book, one has to recall that the subjects of the study are actually a rather narrow group of elites (perhaps no more than a few hundred?) located in the capital. The book is an examination of palace coups among this group. Although there is some consideration given to revolts in various regions, there is little or no concern with the interaction of the regions with the center and how that interaction may create limitations on elite activities. This is apparent in the discussion of the immediate post-coup situation: "[t]o stabilize the peasantry, sound administration was imperative." (p. 39) Sound administration was certainly imperative, but the best laid central plans are still hostage to the mechanisms of local rule, to weather, disease, and invasion. For example, what was the disposition of military forces in the land? How did the center administer provinces and localities? Where were the Mongol forces and what did they control? Were there lean harvest years, years of bad weather, outbreaks of disease? Can we detect the agricultural cycle in the actions of the government and the movement of military forces? In short, what constraints on the center derived from these military, political, and natural forces? The center acts and so goes the country; this is a conceit built on a belief in the efficacy of central government, a conceit that permeates the Koryôsa and the Koryôsa chôryo, products of the age of Chosôn state-building. I have already mentioned the question of the impact of invasion, but other, large contextual and institutional issues that restrict the reach of the center perhaps deserve some treatment.
Another inherent bias in the sources and within political history in general is the common belief in elite qualifications for rule. For example, much is made of individuals' fitness for high office (p. 31); this is linked to experience, and experience would have been available only to those of high social origins. Therefore, fitness for office begins with high social origins. Not to discount experience, but this view is an assumption that underlies an ideology designed to maintain the rule of certain socially connected people, be they fifteenth-century Confucian ideologues (editors of the Koryôsa perhaps?), or even members of the Koryô elite in 1170. Ch'oe Ch'unghôn himself, although the scion of a distinguished lineage, came from a military line, perpetrated a palace coup, and seized power. His acts were highly irregular, and one dares to point out that his experiences did not prepare him for the role of military dictator. His appointments of civil officials from high social origins did not necessarily result in good government; in fact, Shultz tells us that the origins of the 1170 coup lay in the corruption of civil government. The appointments certainly resulted in a cooptation of the elite lineages receiving them, but it is dangerous to assume much more. Shultz offers evidence for better government as a result of the exclusion of slaves and lowborn, but the situation seems ambiguous: were the improvements more than just greater efficiencies in revenue collection or the deft use of the coercive powers of the state, and was the greater stability achieved by the dynastic government or did it stem from the dictatorial power of private Ch'oe rule? If the latter, then we are left with little more than "Might makes right."
None of the points raised above detract from the value of this publication. It is an extremely welcome contribution and opens doors on a period all too often overlooked in English-language scholarship on Korea, so obsessed, as it seems to be, with modern history.
Citation: Lewis, James 2001
Review of Edward J. Shultz, Generals and Scholars: Military Rule in Medieval Korea, (2000)
Korean Studies Review 2001, no. 15
Electronic file: http://koreanstudies.com/ks/ksr/ksr01-15.htm
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