고려 태조대의 대외정책

King Taejo’s Foreign Policy in Koryo Dynasty - Related to the Palhae Descendents -

King Taejo’s foreign policy to include Palhae descendents has been thought of as one of the excellent decisions in the Korean national history. The inclusion of Palhae into Koryo by the King has been recognized a historic event that Koryo had succeeded to Koguryo’s legitimacy. But we have no evidence that King Taejo thought that he had successfully derived Koguryo’s tradition. His positive cognition of Palhae seem to appear rather late in his government. In the beginning of his rule, Taejo preferred to maintain Kungye’s friendly foreign policy towards Khitan. This policy continued to be pursued after the fall of Palhae. About 938 A.D., Taejo changed his policy, from friendly to hostile, towards Khitan. By the coalition with the late Chin dynasty, Taejo wanted to conquer Khitan to save a king of Palhae, who was arrested as a captive there. The biggest reason for Taejo’s change of mind seems that he had highly esteemed the power of Palhae descendents. Around this time, more than 50,000 Palhae descendents immigrated into Koryo. Among them, lots of noble men were included, such as Dae Gwanghyun, prince of Palhae. Their influence was so great that King Taejo wanted to assimilate them by giving them various types of advantages, giving King’s family name, large estates, much salary, and so forth. With this policy of favour, Palhae descendents had increased their political and economic power in Koryo society. The power growth of Palhae descendents led an inevitable change of diplomatic policy in Koryo. With this abrupt change, the relations of Koryo with Khitan became worse and worse. In 942 A.D, there occurred a tragic incident, what is called the Manbugyo-bridge event; King Taejo ordered to hang the 50 camels, gifts from Khitan, upon the columns of the stone bridge, to be starved to death. This was an incident to symbolize that King Taejo’s anti-Khitan policy. Since then, after the bridge event onwards, Koryo kept on its hostile policy towards Khitan so that a war broke out in the late 10th century between the two nations.