Gwangjong of Goryeo sibling Queen Daemok
Reign
When Gwangjong ascended the throne on April 13, 949, at the age of 25, the kingdom of Goryeo was unstable: to unify the Later Three Kingdoms, his father Taejo made alliances with powerful and influential families through marriages. Keeping them satisfied was paramount, as those families all had their own armies and could rebel at any time. For this reason, Gwangjong felt the need to consolidate the power of the king and made the creation of an absolute monarchy the purpose of his entire government. To avoid an increase in the power and in the influence of noble families, he refused to marry a woman from a noble clan, but instead married into the royal family: Queen Daemok was his half-sister, whose mother came from the Hwangju Hwangbo family, while his second wife, Lady Gyeonghwa, was born by his elder half-brother Hyejong, the second king of Goryeo, and his first wife Queen Uihwa of the Jinju Im clan. Along with studying Taizong of Tang's book Difan (Chinese: 帝範; lit. 'Rules for an emperor') to better understand what to do, as he found many similarities between his situation and that of Taizong, Gwangjong rewarded all those who contributed to the progress of Goryeo, also making much effort to maintain good diplomatic relations with neighboring countries. This allowed him to concentrate power from within and without the court, and, seven years after the start of his reign, enact a series of reforms to promote a stable and royal-centered political system, and to expand economy and military.His first reform was the law of emancipation of slaves (Korean: 노비안검법; RR: Nobi-angeombeop) in 956. The noble families had many slaves, mainly prisoners of war, who served as private soldiers; they numbered more than commoners and didn't pay taxes to the crown, but to the clan they worked for. By emancipating them, Gwangjong turned them into commoners, weakening the noble families' power, and gaining people who paid taxes to the king and could become part of his army. This reform won his government the support of the people, while nobles were against it; even queen Daemok tried to stop the king as the law affected her family, but to no avail.Regarding foreign policy, Gwangjong maintained the close connection between China and Goryeo which was made by Taejo of Goryeo, focusing on the relationship with Later Zhou and the Song dynasty. Many diplomats were sent back and forth between the two countries, as well as many goods. Gwangjong also built diplomatic relationships with Wuyue.In 957, Later Zhou diplomat and scholar Shuang Ji was sent to Goryeo as an envoy. Gwangjong discovered his ability and requested him to stay; Shuang Ji agreed and worked as a Goryeo official: with his advice, Gwangjong instituted the national civil service examination (Korean: 과거; RR: Gwageo) in 958, with the goal to expel officials who gained court positions due to family influence or reputation rather than by merit. The examination, based on the Tang's civil service exam and the Confucian classics, was open to all male free-borns to give everyone, not only the rich and powerful people, the opportunity to work for the state, but in practice only sons of the gentry could gain the necessary education to take the exam; royal relatives of the five highest ranks were, instead, left out on purpose. In 960, the king introduced different colours for court robes to distinguish officials of different ranks.During Gwangjong's reign, medical centers known as Daebi-won (Korean: 대비원; Hanja: 大悲院; lit. "houses of mercy"), which provided free medicines to poor patients, were set up in Kaesong and Pyongyang, later expanding in the provinces as the Hyeminguk (Korean: 혜민국; Hanja: 惠民局; lit. "public health department"). Taejo had established regional granaries (Korean: 의창; Hanja: 義倉; RR: uichang) to face the times of drought, and Gwangjong added jewibo (Korean: 제위보; Hanja: 濟危寶), stores which charged interests on grain loans, which were then used for poor relief. These measures, even if in modified forms, kept on working for the next 900 years, parallel to better cultivation methods to keep up with the growth of population.When emperor Shizong of Later Zhou died in 959, leaving the throne to his six-year-old son, the dynasty fell as the army, who was marching towards the northern border, defected and chose its commander Zhao Kuangyin as emperor. As Zhao decided to return from battlefield to found the Song dynasty, he left the mountains of Manchuria and the northern plains to Khitans and Jurchens. To improve Goryeo's defences, Gwangjong reorganized and expanded military, and built twelve garrisons along the northeast and northwest borders; also, under his reign, the kingdom moved the border beyond the Chongchon river, heading towards the Yalu river.Gwangjong saw the association of religious institutions and the state as an aid to subdue local lords, and chose the abbot of Haeinsa Temple to promote Buddhism among the people. He took capable monks as advisers, and promoted the construction of temples: for example, he built the Yongjusa Temple in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, in 962, and the Cheongpyeongsa Temple in Chuncheon, Gangwon, in 973. The king also created an exam for Buddhist priests, called seonggwa (Korean: 성과), to link the government and the church, and he attempted to make peace between the Zen and textual schools to unify them under a single order, but he didn't have much success.Other actions undertaken to reinforce the royal authority were naming Goryeo an empire and himself Emperor, thus ending tributary relationships with China; calling Kaesong the Imperial Capital and Pyongyang the Western Capital, and adopting the era name Gwangdeok (Korean: 광덕; Hanja: 光德; lit. "shining virtue") from 949 to 951, and Junpung (Korean: 준풍; Hanja: 峻豊; lit. "exorbitant abundance") from 960 to 963. By placing himself in the position of the emperor, he tried to instill in his servants that he had an absolute power.Gwangjong's reforms were not well-received by the nobles, especially by high military and civil officials who helped his father in the foundation of Goryeo. The dissent of the nobles led them to stage a rebellion, but this attempt failed. In his eleventh year of reign, 960, Gwangjong started a series of purges, killing off his opposers: among them, there were his brother Wang Won (ninth prince Hyoeun), who was suspected of treason and poisoned, king Hyejong's son prince Heunghwa, and king Jeongjong's son prince Gyeongchunwon. Gwangjong also mistrusted his eldest son Wang Ju, who was five years old at the time. At the end of the purges, only forty of Taejo's 3,200 meritorious subjects who helped him in unifying the Later Three Kingdoms were still alive.
brother or sister kin