18 Blast from the Past
Jang Bo-go and the Rise and Fall of Unified Silla blast from the past
This month’s Blast from the Past takes us deep into Korean history almost to the time “when tigers smoked pipes” (호랑이 담배 피던 시절), back past the Joseon Dynasty, past the Goryeo Dynasty, past the Later Three Kingdoms era, and back to the Unified Silla period. Jang Bo-go was the naval officer protecting the coastline and waters of the Jeolla region. This article is from a two-part series penned by Won Hea-ran, “Jang Bo Go and the Sea Kingdom” and “Zen Buddhism in Unified Silla,” which appeared in the June 2015 and July 2015 issues, respectively, of the Gwangju News. — Ed.
JANG BO-GO, THE COMMONER COMMANDER In ancient times, it was very unlikely for a commoner to obtain the power and status of a general. Jang Bo-go went much further than that. As a general, he eliminated Chinese pirates attacking Korea’s coast and made his country prosperous through active trade. Ultimately, Jang rose to be an important political figure in the Unified Silla period.
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
December 2021
Jang was born in the late 700s AD. It was about a century after Silla had won its fight with rivaling states and finally unified the peninsula. Unified Silla, however, still had many problems. Chinese pirates were plundering coastline villages and trade ships. They captured the people of Silla and sold them as slaves in Tang China. Jang was born in a hard time to be alive.
▲ Portrait of the “Emperor of the Sea,” Jang Bo-go. (Portrait of Jang Bogo, https://namu.wiki/w/장보고 is licensed under Creative Commons 2.0 Korea (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 KR)).
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Jang originally did not have a given name. (Historical records however do record his given name variably as Gung-bok or Gung-pa.) Although there is not much known about his family or birth, Jang must have been from a commoner family because only noblemen could possess given names. Historians assume that he gave himself the given name Bo-go when he moved to live in Tang China for a few years. Because everyone in China had a given name, it would have been easier for him to work in China with a given name. During his stay, Jang proved his talent as an able soldier and commander. He worked as a military officer in a coastal region of China called Seoju and reached the status of high commander when he was still in his 30s.
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