Story 37. Wang Geon's court revolution that overthrew Gung Ye and the escape of Barga Baatar (Misar Uluq, grandson of Bohwalli) and Burte Chino

 

Story 37. Wang Geon's court revolution that overthrew Gung Ye and the escape of Barga Baatar (Misar Uluq, grandson of Bohwalli) and Burte Chino

The Buryat oral history book <Buryaaday Tuukhe Besheguud, Volume 2> states that Barga Baatar lived on the shores of the Kara Sea (Kahara dalay) and left there because of a great war that broke out during the time of Togoon Tumer Khan.

"Barga Baatar was on the shores of the Kara Sea (Khara dalay). There was a great war there. There was a man named Togoon Tumer Khan there. Barga Baatar fled from that war with his three sons, along with his wife and daughter. He left all his belongings and livestock there and escaped. This is because there was a coup and a great fight there. ∙∙∙∙ Those who left that long journey placed the golden seat of Togoon Tumer Khan on the shores of the Kara Sea.”

In the era of that “Togoon Tumer Khan,” Alan Gowa’s grandfather, “Barga Baatar (Misar Uluk),” who lived “on the shores of the Kara Sea (khara dalay),” hastily fled to Bargojin Tokom. That “Togoon Tumer Khan” was a person called “Pyeongjuin (平州人) Du-eun-jeom (豆恩岾, Tokon Temmu) Gak-gan (角干, Ka-an)” in the Goryeo language, not the Buryat language. He was the father-in-law of Jakje-geon (作帝建), the grandfather of King Taejo Wang Geon of Goryeo, and the “Seohae Yongwang (西海龍王)” who was recorded in the <Goryeo World (高麗世系)> and was Wang Geon’s maternal great-grandfather. He was the “Geumhaeng, Golden Jar” who received the secret order of the former king of Balhae and attacked Silla with his sons to recover the Balhae territory.

Then, let’s look for evidence that the “Kara Sea” war was a palace revolution initiated by Wang Geon who worked under Gung Ye’s regime but instead opposed his master, Gung Ye. Here, “Kara Sea” refered to the “Goryeo Sea”, that is, the Balhae (West Sea) Sea. Alan Gowa’s grandfather, “Barga Baatar (Misar Uluk)”, lived in Hwanghae-do, but when the great war initiated by Wang Geon broke out, he fled to “Bargojin Tokom (Balhae-daero)” with “Burte Chino (Buyeo Daesirang), the son of Khan Gung Ye who occupied Hwanghae-do (Paeseo-do) at the time. That war was a battle in which the sound of horseshoes and the sound of spears and swords echoed from Songak (松嶽) in Paeseo-do (浿西道) at the time, which was today Gaeseong (開城) in Hwanghae-do, and headed toward Cheorwon (鐵原), the land of the Malgal that was Gung Ye's capital.

It was Wang Geon's palace revolution that overthrew Gung Ye's regime. In the "First Year of King Taejo Wang Geon" of <Dongguk Tonggam (東國通鑑)>, it was written that "Gung Ye was surprised to hear the news and said, 'I am finished since Wang Geon has taken over the country,' so he fled through the north gate in the shabby clothes of a commoner and hid in a rocky valley, where he stayed tied up for two nights, but was so hungry that he secretly cut off ears of barley to eat, and was killed by the people of Bura (斧壤, Buyang)."

The next day, a group of fugitives hid Gung Ye's miserable body in a procession of hundreds and thousands of monks and headed to Deungju (登州) in Balhae territory, which is today's Anbyeon (安邊) in Hamgyeong Province. Gung Ye, the son of the concubine of the Silla King's second wife, Jang Bogo's daughter, ran away from the Silla royal family at the age of 12 and entered a temple to become a monk.

When he founded the country of Later Goguryeo (後高句麗), many monks helped him establish the country. They stayed by Gung Ye's side until the end, collected the body, and fled to Hamgyeong Province with Barga Bahatra (Misauluk), the grandson of "Golden Jar Geumhaeng." At that time, they took Donggwang (銅光), the youngest of Gung Ye's three sons, who survived, and he was "Burte Chino."

But are the two wars, the “Kara Bada” War and Wang Geon’s court revolution, different wars? There are historical books that give us a clue that the two wars are the same war. These historical books are, surprisingly, Tibetan-Mongolian historical books written by Buddhist monks, such as “The Yellowish Notes on the Roots of the Early Mongol Khans.”

This series of historical books used Buddhist language to reveal historical facts. The reason is simple. The ones who witnessed the court revolution and Gung Ye’s death with their own eyes were the monks who surrounded Gung Ye. They were the ones who moved his cold body to Anbyon, Hamgyeongnam-do, held a funeral for him there, and then left this land and headed northwest. This was because the monks were the ones whom their monarch Gung Ye relied on and made his power base. They later secretly wrote down what they saw and experienced in Chinese characters or Mongolian and Tibetan and kept them in secret places in temples so that future generations could know the truth of history. This history book was thus passed down to later monks, and it seems that it was eventually edited again in Mongolian in the 17th century.

Of course, the rest of the story that this Tibetan-Mongolian history book could not write was already written in our <Samguk Sagi> and <Goryeo History>. Therefore, if we compare these two types of history books, we can see the complete story and secrets that have been hidden from historians until now. Let’s briefly look at the palace revolution that is told in <Yellow History on the Roots of Early Mongol Khans>, one of the Tibetan-Mongolian history books.

“Geumjwahan (金座汗), or ‘Geumjwahaeng (金座幸)’s Long-am (Long-am, Blong-am, Lo Ar) killed Geumjwahaeng and took the position of Khan himself. Then, the youngest son of Geumjwahaeng, Burte Chono, fled to the land of Gunbu (Sgu’nbu) and took a wife named Goo Maral (Gowa Maral) who lived alone, crossed the Tengiz Sea in the east and moved to Mount Borkhan Khaldun. When he arrived there, he met a country called Bide (北狄 북적) and told the people why he had come, and the people of Bide consulted with each other and made him a Noyon. The first Noyon of Mongolia was Burte Chono.”

This is similar to the story in the first verse of the Secret History of the Mongols, “Burte Chino, the root of Chinggis Khan, crossed the Dengis and moved along the Onon River to Borkhan Khaldun.”

Another Tibeto-Mongol history book, Carah Cechen’s <Treasure Reinforcement, 1662>, also has almost the same story. According to this second historical record, “the three sons, Borachu, Shibaguchu, and Bu’rte Chono, fled to different places, and Bu’rte Chono went to a place called Gunbo. He could not adapt to the Gunbo people, so he took his wife, Koo Maral (Gowa Maral), and crossed the sea called Tengiz to the east, reaching Mount Borkan Kaldon on the border of the water called “Baygal”, where he met the people of the country called Bete.”

This story is slightly different from the previous historical record. Let’s unravel these two stories. It is said that they fled because of the “war of the Kara Sea,” and that war was none other than Wang Geon’s court revolution. Like this <Story> and the <Secret History of the Mongols>, there are secret codes mixed in several places in the text.

First, the term “Geumjwahan (金座汗)” means “Emperor Geumjari” and “Jari (座)” is the Goguryeo word “Char (隡山)” or “King (王)”. “Geumjwawang Gimsanwang” means “King of the Kim clan chieftain”. Considering Gung Ye’s paternal surname, it means that he is a king with the surname of the Silla king Kim and is qualified as a chieftain. Next, let’s find out that “an official named Long-am (Long-am Blong-am, Lo Ar) killed Geumjwahaeng and became king.” “Long-nam” is the same as “Long-nam (龍男)” in Chinese, which means “son (男) of Yong (龍).” This means “son (男) of Yongkhan (龍健).” In other words, “Yonggeon’s son, that is, Wangkhan, started a palace revolution, killed ‘Khan=King’, and became king.”

This story is ultimately about Wang Geon killing Gung Ye and usurping the throne. It is because of this war that “Balhae Makhadol Grand Master Lang=Barla Baatar Taisang Noyon” left Later Goguryeo with Gung Ye’s son “Burte Chino” and went east to the land of Hamgyeong-do, namely Jin-guk (震國; Tingui=Tengget=Tengis). After that, as the Buryat <Genealogy Story> says, they came to the land of “Bede (北狄, North. Bida)” in Baikal and made Burte Chino their Noyon (郞)=Nangun (郎君)=Khan (汗)”, and Barga Baatar (Balhae Makhadol) himself became his “official (官員).” Before this, they went from Boga Castle (保架城, Gungpa (弓巴)/Gungbok (弓福), Jang-Bogo Castle) near Cheorwon, Gangwon-do to the land called “Gungba (Skun Ba)’s country (uls)”, which was the hometown of Gung Ye’s maternal grandfather, Jang Bogo (張保皐), and arrived at Anbyon, Hamgyeongnam-do, the administrative name of Balhae at the time, “Dengju (登州)”, where they buried Gung Ye’s body. However, they could not stay long in “Gungpa’s hometown”, the maternal grandfather of their “Gung Ye (弓裔)”, and hurriedly “crossed the sea called Tenggis” again, which is not the “sea” or “Tengis” that scholars generally refer to, but in fact crossed over to the land of “Tengwet” at the time, or today’s “Jinguk (震國) = Balhae”. Hamgyeong-do was already Balhae territory, but they fled further for safety.





This is because the <Garden of Fortune> states that during the time of Alan Gowa’s grandfather Dibun Bayan (a different person from Dobun Bayan in the <Secret History of the Mongols>), there was a man named Khaljidai Khan, the king of all Kongrat, who lived in the “Kula River” of Dongmosan(mountain) today, also known as the “Koro (奧婁, 兀剌 Olal) River.” Khaljidai Khan, the great-grandson of “Geumhaeng, Hwanggeumhangari” who lived in Hwanghae-do and participated in Gung Ye’s construction of Later Goguryeo, and the grandson of Geumhaeng’s first son Ago-rae (Churluk Mergen), had already settled down by leading his family to the “Kula River” of Dongmosan(mountain) when Gung Ye’s camp collapsed due to Wang Geon’s palace revolution.

In the end, if we look closely at the reason why “Burte Chino” went to Bida, as mentioned in <The Great Yellow Saji on the Roots of the Early Mongol Khans>, Sagang Sechen’s <Bo Bae Bo Gang>, and another historical book, <The Roots of the Khans, Golden Sagang>, the coup was clearly a palace revolution between Gung Ye and Wang Geon of Goryeo.

As a result, his party went into exile in Balhae via the transit point described above. To confirm this fact, there is the <Record of the Origin of the House of Tuvet Khan (Tubed Khag’ad un ugsag’aa g’arol un temdeglel)> written by Sodnamjamsu of Tibet, who wrote the history of Chinggis Khan’s ancestors and the history of his descendants after Chinggis Khan at an earlier time. This history book cautiously tells the secret as follows:

“Gri-gum-btsan-po, the son of Sribs-khri-btsan-po, had three sons named Sha-khri, Nya-khri, and Bya-khri.

Gri-gum-btsan-po, being deceived by the trick of the evil spirit (Simnos), suddenly said to an official named Blo-ngam, “Will you be my enemy to fight?” Longnam answered, “What is it that the great Khan has done? I am just a subordinate official, and how can you be hostile to a subordinate? Immediately, the official Longnam shot an arrow at the mirror on the Khan’s forehead, and the Khan was hit by an arrow and died.

It is said that the Khan’s three sons fled to three regions: Rkong-po, Nyang-po, and Shu-po.”

In this story, “Longnam” surprisingly matches the name “Yongnam (龍男)” which is pronounced as “Longnam.” That Yongnam means “son of the dragon (龍男=龍子).” Therefore, when “Yonggeon (龍建)” is seen as “Yong (龍),” the person who becomes the “Yong (龍)’s son (男)”, that is, the “Yonggeon’s son (男)” is none other than King Taejo Wang Geon (王建) of Goryeo. In fact, Gung Ye was possessed by an evil spirit and cruelly suspected and killed those around him. He even killed his wife and two sons.

In the end, these stories tell us why “Bohwali (Bokori, Mokori, Tusbuda)’s grandson Barga Baatar (Misar Uluk, Balhae Makhadol)” and “Agorae (Kagorai, Chulluk Mergen)’s grandson Kaljitai (Ajitae)” participated in Gung Ye’s Later Goguryeo regime and then left this land. The grandson of Bohwal-ri, “Barga Baatar (Misar Ulukg, Balhae Makhadol)”, along with Gung Ye’s third son Donggwang (銅光), also known as “Guri (銅=Goryeo) Khan (光=干)=Gooli (銅=Goryeo) Khan (光=干)”, “Burte Chino”, also known as “Buyeo Daesirang”, and a large group of monks who worked together with Gung Ye, left Cheorwon, Buru (夫如, Buyeo) Bura (斧壤, Buyang), and Gung Ye’s Goguryeo land. After that, they passed the Amnok River Commandery and left for the “Kula (Qula) River” of Dongmosan(Mountain), the early capital of Balhae, where Khaljidai (Ajitae) Khan settled. This story is the story in the first line of the <Secret History of the Mongols>. “Burte Chino” is the name of “Buru (斧如, 斧壤)-Dae (大)-Sirang (氏郞)” where they first settled after fleeing, and it means “chief (patriarch) of the Dae (Go) clan of Burte (斧如) hometown.”

 The story overlaps with the era of the founding of Goryeo Wang Geon and the Balhae era, and Burte Chino uses the same title, and their group crossed the Jin country (震國) [=Tengis] ∙∙∙∙∙ and crossed the Onon water (=Wan’an water = Bokgan water (Hamgyeongdo region)) to Bulham (不咸) Galajeon (曷懶甸) [=Burkhan Khaldun].