The
people of Ko Choson or the oldest kingdom of Korea are
recorded as Tong-i, "eastern bowmen" or
"eastern barbarians." The propagated in
Manchuria, the eastern littoral of China, areas north of the
Yangtze River, and the Korean Peninsula. The eastern
bowmen had a myth in which the legendary founder Tan-gun was
born of a father of heavenly descent and a woman from a
bear-totem tribe. He is said to have started to rule in
2333 B.C., and his descendants reigned in Choson, the
"Land of Morning Calm," for more than a millennium.
When the
Zhou people pushed the Yin, the eastern bowmen moved toward
Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula for better climactic
conditions. They seem to have maintained unity, as
China's great sages, Confucious and Mencius, praised their
consangquineous order and the decorum of their society.
The
eastern bowmen on the western coast of the Yellow Sea clashed
with the Zhou people during China's period of warring states
(475 B.C. - 221 B.C.). This led them to move toward
southern Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula.
There
were other tribes of eastern bowmen, the Yemaek on the
Manchurian area and the Han on the Korean Peninsula, all of
whom belonged to the Tungusic family and linguistically
affiliated with the Altaic. When Yin collapsed, Kija, a
subject of the Yin state, entered Tan-gun's domain and
introduced the culture of Yin around the 11th century B.C.
Then
came invasion of Yen in the northeastern sector of China, and
Ko Choson lost the territories west of the Liao River in the
third century B.C. By this time, iron culture was
developing and the warring states pushed the refugees
eastward.
Among
the immigrants, Wiman entered the service of Ko Choson as
military commander with a base on the Amnokkang (Yalu) river.
He drove King Chun to the south and usurped power. But
in 109 B.C. the Han emperor Wu-ti dispatched a massive
invasion by land and sea to Ko Choson in the estuary of
the Liao River. Ko Choson was defeated after two years
and four Chinese provincial commands were set up in southern
Manchuria and the northern part of the Korean Peninsula.
Not long after the establishment of the four commanderies,
however, the Korean attacks became fierce and the last of the
commanderies, Lolang (Korean: Nangnang) was destroyed by
Koguryo in 313.
Korea
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provided by the Korean Embassy
