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Korea had achieved a fragile peace. The Khitans on their northern border, the Liao Empire, had accepted Korea as vassals and turned their attention to fighting the Song Dynasty. After years of devastating invasions, the Goryeo kingdom of Korea was relatively safe. King Seongjong had agreed to accept the Liao emperor as his suzerain a few years before his death. Abandoning his loyalty to China had been difficult for him as he venerated Chinese culture, but it was the only way to preserve the country. Now, Goryeo was ostensibly ruled by his nephew King Mokjong. But the real power lay in the hands of Seongjong's sister and Mokjong's mother, Queen Heonae.
Heonae was born in 964. Her parents died when she was a child, so she was raised by her grandmother, Queen Sinjeong. Sinjeong was one of the thirty wives of the founder of the Goryeo kingdom, King Taejo, making Heonae his direct descendant. She was an influential force in the Goryeo kingdom and must have showed Heonae the potential of what a queen could be. When Heonae came of age, Heonae and her sister Heonjong both married their cousin Gyeongjong. Gyeognjong had been born in the palace and raised by palace women. His critics at court thought this made him ignorant about life outside the capital city of Kaesong. At the beginning of his reign, he made an attempt to learn the ins and outs of government, but he quickly lost interest. Instead, he began to spend his days indulging in women and music, or playing go all day without getting tired. Perhaps it was her husband's lack of interest in politics that first encouraged Heonae to step in and begin playing a more active role. She was, after all, the mother of his only son, the future king Mokjong. But when Gyeongjong died in 981, Mokjong was too young to take the throne, so Heonae's brother Seongjong came into power instead.
Seongjong was determined to reform Goryeo to make it more like China. He held Confucianism in the highest esteem. While he was also a devout Buddhist, his advisors convinced him that the biggest Buddhist festivals like the Lantern Festival in the spring were an enormous waste of resources, so he abolished them. His decision was not very popular, and when the Khitans started making violent incursions into Goryeo territory, many at the court blamed their predicament on Seongjong's disdain for native traditions. The conflict between sinophilic Confucian scholars and pro-Buddhist factions at court would continue to characterize much of the early Goryeo.
While Seongjong was attempting to remake the country in China's image, Heonae was making her own new alliances. A man from her hometown called Kim Chi-yang began making visits to the palace. Disguised as a Buddhist monk, he was able to access the queen in her own quarters. Under Korea's pre-Confucian marriage norms, there was nothing wrong with a young widow like Heonae pursuing a new love interest. But to Seongjong's Confucian sensibilities, it was an insult to her dead husband, so he had Kim Chi-yang beaten with a cane and banished from the capital. Heonae's sister Heonjong ran into similar issues with Seongjong. After her husband's death, she had an affair with her uncle Wang Uk, which was probably considered unpalatable even without Confucian influence. Heonjong died in childbirth and Seongjong banished Wang Uk, assigning a foster mother to take care of the child, Wang Sun. Although Soengjong eventually relented and let Wang Uk raise his own son, the ignominious circumstances of Wang Sun's conception would haunt him throughout his life.
But Seongjong's attempts to mold Goryeo into a perfect Chinese vassal were in vain. The Khitan invasions forced him to accept the Liao Emperor as his suzerain instead. Seongjong had no sons, so he made his nephew Mokjong his heir. When he died in 997, Mokjong was eighteen years old and should have been able to rule in his own right. But one of his first acts on the throne was to bestow a special honorary title on his mother Queen Heonae. She would be known henceforth as Queen Dowager Cheonchu, or Queen Dowager of the Thousand Autumns. The name emphasized her connection to her brother, the late King Seongjong, since Cheonchu had been the name given to his own birthday celebrations. While Mokjong held the throne in name, all the real power was in the hands of his mother.
One of Heonae's first orders of business was to bring Kim Chi-yang back to the capital. In addition to the Cheonchu Palace which she lived in, he built himself an enormous mansion which they spent much of their time in. It was known for its beautiful gardens, pavilions, terraces and ponds. According to the official chronicles, "Day and night he caroused with the queen, without restraint or fear." Heonae gave him a high office, and he had great sway over other appointments within the palace. Mokjong longed to banish him but feared angering his mother. On the other hand, letting other people run the government for him did seem to suit Mokjong. He enjoyed outdoor pursuits such as archery, horse riding and hunting. In the evenings he loved nothing more than to drink with some of his male favourites. Mokjong had wives but no children and seems to have reserved his affections for certain beautiful men in his entourage. One of these was Yu Haenggan, of whom the chronicles say "the king loved him for his male physique". Mokjong was said to issue no edicts without consulting Yu Haenggan, to the point where the palace ministers had to consider Yu Haenggan almost as a second king.
Unlike Seongjong, Heonae was committed to state support of Buddhism in her son's government. In the year 999, Mokjong ordered the construction of a memorial temple for her just south of the capital. Heonae also seems to have unofficially brought back some of the most ostentatious Buddhist festivals that her brother had banned, such as the Lantern Festival in the first month. To celebrate the Buddha's birthday and the coming of spring, red gauze lanterns were lit all over the capital. Troupes of performers acted out stories from Korea's past dynasties. While Seongjong's advisors had discouraged the king from enlisting the labour of the people to arrange these spectacular displays of Buddhist piety, Heonae seems to have had no such qualms. She wasn't completely against her brother's pro-China policies, however. In 999 or 1000, she had an envoy sent to the Song Emperor. The envoy reported to Emperor Zhenzong that the Koreans "greatly admired Chinese customs, yet were suppressed and restricted by the Khitan." Like other Goryeo monarchs, Heonae was keen to play the Song and the Liao off each other in order to achieve the best outcome for Korea. She also continued fortifying the Korean border with the Liao and another nomadic group, the Jurchens, ordering the construction and repair of fortresses during her reign.
Perhaps Heonae's greatest support of Buddhism came in the commission of a massive printing project. In 1006, she and Kim Chi-yang made a joint inscription stating that they were disciplies of the bodhisattvas and had vowed to have the entire Tripitaka written out in the kingdom. A Tripitaka was a collection of the Buddhist canon, so this was no small undertaking. And the very next year, the second oldest sample of printing in Korea ever found was created. An anonymous commission of the Baoqieyin tuoluoni jing sutra was printed in 1007 so that it could be distributed to all the kingdom's pagodas. Scholar Sem Vermeersch has suggested that Heonae may have been behind this commission since it does not name King Mokjong at all and she had vowed to carry out a massive Buddhist printing project the year before. While the sutra was not actually distributed to all the temples of Goryeo, it marks an important moment in the history of printing. Vermeersch also suggests that Heonae may have been looking to the 8th century Chinese empress Wu Zetian as a model: Wu Zetian had commissioned Buddhist printing projects as one strategy to legitimize her rule as China's only female emperor, and at least one other empress, the 8th century Japanese Empress Shōtoku, had followed her example and done the same. While a few centuries had passed since Wu Zetian's controversial reign, perhaps Heonae looked to her use of woodblock printing of Buddhist texts as a model for how to cement a woman's rule.
For Heonae was certainly concerned with consolidating her own power. In 1003, she gave birth to a son fathered by Kim Chi-yang. From that point onward, the chronicles say that she became determined to put that son on the throne. Her motivations are not recorded, leaving us only speculation. Perhaps she had realised that Mokjong was clearly gay and was not going to father any children with his wives, meaning an alternative heir would have to be chosen. She was, after all, a direct descendant of King Taejo through both of her parents, so while Kim Chi-yang was a commoner, their son had royal blood in the maternal line. She may have thought that having an even younger son meant that she would be able to extend her time as queen dowager even after Mokjong's death. Although Mokjong was only in his twenties, her brother and husband had both died of natural causes in their thirties, so she may have not expected Mokjong to live very long. Whatever her reasons, she apparently made it her new mission to eliminate the only other rival to the throne: Her sister's illegitimate son, Wang Sun.
Wang Sun had had an uneasy childhood, shuffled between foster parents and his disgraced father. When Heonae had her son, she forced him to become a monk. He was sent to various monasteries, but Heonae was not content to leave him alone there. On multiple occasions, she sent out assassins to kill her nephew. Each time, however, the assassins were thwarted. Once, an elderly monk hid Wang Sun when the executioner came to call. Another time, the poisoned food meant for the prince was fed instead to crows and sparrows, who died immediately upon eating it. As these assassination attempts continued and Mokjong still produced no sons of his own, certain factions at court became increasingly alarmed at Heonae and Kim Chi-yang's aspirations for the throne. Between his fear of his mother and his fawning over his favourites, Mokjong was considered too weak to do anything about it, so some men in the government and military decided to take matters into their own hands.
The year was 1009, and it was the middle of the first month, which meant the Lantern Festival was being held in Kaesong. As usual, Mokjong went out to watch the festival and marvel at the lights and performances. Suddenly, a fire broke out in the oil storehouse in the Palace Treasury. The fire quickly spread to Cheonchu Hall, Heonae's personal residence, and burned it to the ground. The king was stunned to see his mother's house reduced to ashes. He apparently came down with a sudden illness and retired to his quarters. Heonae herself was unharmed, but her son did not take counsel with her, instead communicating to the outside world through Yu Haenggan. Ministers anxiously tried to visit the king in his quarters, but Yu Haenggan turned them away until the king personally requested a few select ministers to attend him. Mokjong was concerned about rumours that his sudden illness and the inauspicious fire were encouraging factions that wanted to usurp his throne. He had letters warning him that Kim Chi-yang wanted to commit treason and that Heonae had been attempting to have Wang Sun murdered. He told his advisors that he wanted to name Wang Sun as his heir in order to stop any attempt by Kim Chi-yang to take over the throne.
The advisors agreed, and plans were swiftly made to bring Wang Sun to the palace. Yu Haenggan, however, was believed to be against Wang Sun succeeding Mokjong, so he was kept out of the plans. The extent to which Heonae was kept in the loop is unclear. In fact, many of the events of the coup are unclear in the official record, despite the unusually long section of the chronicle devoted to it. A key figure with unclear motivations was Gang Cho, the Chief Military Inspector of the Northwest who was normally stationed in the western capital of Pyongyang. Gang Cho was led to believe that Mokjong had already died and that Heonae and Kim Chi-yang were about to put their son on the throne. He headed out to the capital with a large army. Heonae tried to block the Cheol Pass so that he could not enter the capital, but her efforts were thwarted. Even when Gang Cho found out that the king was still alive, though, he decided that since the "project had already been set in motion", he was going to depose Mokjong anyway. And again, even when Mokjong told him that he had already picked Wang Sun as a successor, Gang Cho marched on Kaesong in order to forcibly install Wang Sun as king.
On the third day of the second month, Gang Cho arrived at the capital. The annals say that the sun looked as if it had been veiled by a red curtain. Shortly after his arrival, the general sent his soldiers storming into the palace. Heonae was with the king now: Together, they looked up to heaven and cried. When the carnage began, the two of them led a group of palace ladies, eunuchs, and officials to a nearby temple to take shelter. Not everyone in the palace was so lucky. Kim Chi-yang, Yu Haenggan, and several others were killed. Worst of all for Heonae, however, was the murder of her six-year-old son. While her reaction to this death is not recorded in the chronicles, it must have been devastating. With the boy out of the way, Gang Cho was free to install Wang Sun as the new king Hyeonjong. Shellshocked by the events, Mokjong did not contest the coup. He blamed himself for what had happened and made only one request of the new rulers: "All I wish for is to grow old in the countryside."
Sadly, this was not to be. Mokjong and Heonae fled the capital on horseback. It's said that he took special care of her during this time: Whenever she wanted to eat, he offered his plates to her, and whenever she rode her horse, he held the reins. They had both suffered devastating losses and were each other's only comfort. But it was not to last: Gang Cho sent the Chief Intendant of the Royal Pharmacy, Kim Kwangbo, to meet them, armed with poison. Why Gang Cho was not content to let Mokjong live out his life in exile is unclear: Perhaps he thought that Hyeonjong's reign would not be secure if Mokjong was still alive for his allies to rally around. Mokjong knew better than to trust Kim Kwangbo and refused to drink the poison. Kim Kwangbo then targeted the king's personal guard, threatening to kill their families if they did not assassinate the king. The guards had little choice: That night, they killed the king in his sleep, reporting that Mokjong had taken his own life.
Heonae must have been beside herself with grief. In the space of a few days, she had lost her home, both of her sons, the love of her life, and all the power she had built up for herself. The soldiers made a makeshift coffin out of door panels for Mokjong, and Heonae returned to her hometown of Hwangju. She never returned to Kaesong or had any further influence on politics. Her surviving family and allies at court were exiled to sea islands, a common punishment for political enemies in Goryeo. For the next twenty years she remained at home, until she died in Hwangju in 1029 at the age of sixty-five.
The official histories of the Goryeo were written by Hyeonjong's supporters, who worked hard to legitimize his reign. Their job was made all the more difficult by the fact that the Liao decided the coup gave them an excellent excuse to invade Goryeo again on the pretense of punishing the Koreans for regicide. Hyeonjong spent much of his early reign on the run and only got the Khitans to agree to a peace by faking his own death in 1022. The coup of 1009 therefore broke the tenuous peace that Seongjong and Heonae had maintained with their northern neighbours. Historians of later Korean dynasties painted Heonae in the worst possible light, blaming her for the invasion because she let her lust and personal ambition for power get in the way of the kingdom's safety. But was the coup really Heonae's fault? Was she really planning to depose Mokjong herself, or would she have been content to wait until Mokjong was on his deathbed and could be persuaded to name her new son as his heir? Why did she have so many supporters - were there some in the government who preferred the idea of a new king who was descended from Taejo in the female line to one who had been born of a father who was so disgraced by an unsavoury affair that he requested to be buried face down?
We will never have the answers to these questions. The records of Mokjong's reign were destroyed in the Khitan invasion, and the compilers of the new record were keen to depict Hyeonjong's rule as legitimate. Hyeonjong built temples for his parents and declared official periods of mourning for them, and he commissioned his own Tripitaka that would end up being far more famous than the project Heonae had initiated. He and his advisors embarked on a campaign to rebuild the image of Goryeo as a kingdom with a distinct identity, even as they were forced yet again to pay homage to the Khitans. He was even given credit for the restoration of the Lantern Festival, even though the same chronicles record Mokjong attending it in 1009. Heonae, meanwhile, lived out the last twenty years of her life in obscurity. The details of her motivations are not easy, perhaps even impossible, for us to recover. What information we do have paints the picture of a woman who was born to power and eager to use it. Faced with a husband and a son who both disdained the nitty-gritty of politics, she stepped in and tried to remake the dynasty in her image.
I have drawn her here astride a Khitan horse at the Lantern Festival, surrounded by red lanterns rising to the sky. Only queens were allowed to wear a red coat, and she wears hers proudly. A black riding hat with a long veil trails behind her. One day, lanterns like these will set her palace and all her hopes for power ablaze. But today, she is at the apex of her power, ruling Goryeo with the force of her will. At a time when her enemies-turned-allies, the Khitans, are also ruled by a powerful Empress Dowager, she seeks to keep Goryeo strong by fortifying its borders and invoking the Buddhist protections of its founders. Although she will one day be blamed for the collapse of the peace, it was her reign that held it together before the murder of her sons brought the Khitans hammering down on Goryeo in revenge.
Heonae was born in 964. Her parents died when she was a child, so she was raised by her grandmother, Queen Sinjeong. Sinjeong was one of the thirty wives of the founder of the Goryeo kingdom, King Taejo, making Heonae his direct descendant. She was an influential force in the Goryeo kingdom and must have showed Heonae the potential of what a queen could be. When Heonae came of age, Heonae and her sister Heonjong both married their cousin Gyeongjong. Gyeognjong had been born in the palace and raised by palace women. His critics at court thought this made him ignorant about life outside the capital city of Kaesong. At the beginning of his reign, he made an attempt to learn the ins and outs of government, but he quickly lost interest. Instead, he began to spend his days indulging in women and music, or playing go all day without getting tired. Perhaps it was her husband's lack of interest in politics that first encouraged Heonae to step in and begin playing a more active role. She was, after all, the mother of his only son, the future king Mokjong. But when Gyeongjong died in 981, Mokjong was too young to take the throne, so Heonae's brother Seongjong came into power instead.
Seongjong was determined to reform Goryeo to make it more like China. He held Confucianism in the highest esteem. While he was also a devout Buddhist, his advisors convinced him that the biggest Buddhist festivals like the Lantern Festival in the spring were an enormous waste of resources, so he abolished them. His decision was not very popular, and when the Khitans started making violent incursions into Goryeo territory, many at the court blamed their predicament on Seongjong's disdain for native traditions. The conflict between sinophilic Confucian scholars and pro-Buddhist factions at court would continue to characterize much of the early Goryeo.
While Seongjong was attempting to remake the country in China's image, Heonae was making her own new alliances. A man from her hometown called Kim Chi-yang began making visits to the palace. Disguised as a Buddhist monk, he was able to access the queen in her own quarters. Under Korea's pre-Confucian marriage norms, there was nothing wrong with a young widow like Heonae pursuing a new love interest. But to Seongjong's Confucian sensibilities, it was an insult to her dead husband, so he had Kim Chi-yang beaten with a cane and banished from the capital. Heonae's sister Heonjong ran into similar issues with Seongjong. After her husband's death, she had an affair with her uncle Wang Uk, which was probably considered unpalatable even without Confucian influence. Heonjong died in childbirth and Seongjong banished Wang Uk, assigning a foster mother to take care of the child, Wang Sun. Although Soengjong eventually relented and let Wang Uk raise his own son, the ignominious circumstances of Wang Sun's conception would haunt him throughout his life.
But Seongjong's attempts to mold Goryeo into a perfect Chinese vassal were in vain. The Khitan invasions forced him to accept the Liao Emperor as his suzerain instead. Seongjong had no sons, so he made his nephew Mokjong his heir. When he died in 997, Mokjong was eighteen years old and should have been able to rule in his own right. But one of his first acts on the throne was to bestow a special honorary title on his mother Queen Heonae. She would be known henceforth as Queen Dowager Cheonchu, or Queen Dowager of the Thousand Autumns. The name emphasized her connection to her brother, the late King Seongjong, since Cheonchu had been the name given to his own birthday celebrations. While Mokjong held the throne in name, all the real power was in the hands of his mother.
One of Heonae's first orders of business was to bring Kim Chi-yang back to the capital. In addition to the Cheonchu Palace which she lived in, he built himself an enormous mansion which they spent much of their time in. It was known for its beautiful gardens, pavilions, terraces and ponds. According to the official chronicles, "Day and night he caroused with the queen, without restraint or fear." Heonae gave him a high office, and he had great sway over other appointments within the palace. Mokjong longed to banish him but feared angering his mother. On the other hand, letting other people run the government for him did seem to suit Mokjong. He enjoyed outdoor pursuits such as archery, horse riding and hunting. In the evenings he loved nothing more than to drink with some of his male favourites. Mokjong had wives but no children and seems to have reserved his affections for certain beautiful men in his entourage. One of these was Yu Haenggan, of whom the chronicles say "the king loved him for his male physique". Mokjong was said to issue no edicts without consulting Yu Haenggan, to the point where the palace ministers had to consider Yu Haenggan almost as a second king.
Unlike Seongjong, Heonae was committed to state support of Buddhism in her son's government. In the year 999, Mokjong ordered the construction of a memorial temple for her just south of the capital. Heonae also seems to have unofficially brought back some of the most ostentatious Buddhist festivals that her brother had banned, such as the Lantern Festival in the first month. To celebrate the Buddha's birthday and the coming of spring, red gauze lanterns were lit all over the capital. Troupes of performers acted out stories from Korea's past dynasties. While Seongjong's advisors had discouraged the king from enlisting the labour of the people to arrange these spectacular displays of Buddhist piety, Heonae seems to have had no such qualms. She wasn't completely against her brother's pro-China policies, however. In 999 or 1000, she had an envoy sent to the Song Emperor. The envoy reported to Emperor Zhenzong that the Koreans "greatly admired Chinese customs, yet were suppressed and restricted by the Khitan." Like other Goryeo monarchs, Heonae was keen to play the Song and the Liao off each other in order to achieve the best outcome for Korea. She also continued fortifying the Korean border with the Liao and another nomadic group, the Jurchens, ordering the construction and repair of fortresses during her reign.
Perhaps Heonae's greatest support of Buddhism came in the commission of a massive printing project. In 1006, she and Kim Chi-yang made a joint inscription stating that they were disciplies of the bodhisattvas and had vowed to have the entire Tripitaka written out in the kingdom. A Tripitaka was a collection of the Buddhist canon, so this was no small undertaking. And the very next year, the second oldest sample of printing in Korea ever found was created. An anonymous commission of the Baoqieyin tuoluoni jing sutra was printed in 1007 so that it could be distributed to all the kingdom's pagodas. Scholar Sem Vermeersch has suggested that Heonae may have been behind this commission since it does not name King Mokjong at all and she had vowed to carry out a massive Buddhist printing project the year before. While the sutra was not actually distributed to all the temples of Goryeo, it marks an important moment in the history of printing. Vermeersch also suggests that Heonae may have been looking to the 8th century Chinese empress Wu Zetian as a model: Wu Zetian had commissioned Buddhist printing projects as one strategy to legitimize her rule as China's only female emperor, and at least one other empress, the 8th century Japanese Empress Shōtoku, had followed her example and done the same. While a few centuries had passed since Wu Zetian's controversial reign, perhaps Heonae looked to her use of woodblock printing of Buddhist texts as a model for how to cement a woman's rule.
For Heonae was certainly concerned with consolidating her own power. In 1003, she gave birth to a son fathered by Kim Chi-yang. From that point onward, the chronicles say that she became determined to put that son on the throne. Her motivations are not recorded, leaving us only speculation. Perhaps she had realised that Mokjong was clearly gay and was not going to father any children with his wives, meaning an alternative heir would have to be chosen. She was, after all, a direct descendant of King Taejo through both of her parents, so while Kim Chi-yang was a commoner, their son had royal blood in the maternal line. She may have thought that having an even younger son meant that she would be able to extend her time as queen dowager even after Mokjong's death. Although Mokjong was only in his twenties, her brother and husband had both died of natural causes in their thirties, so she may have not expected Mokjong to live very long. Whatever her reasons, she apparently made it her new mission to eliminate the only other rival to the throne: Her sister's illegitimate son, Wang Sun.
Wang Sun had had an uneasy childhood, shuffled between foster parents and his disgraced father. When Heonae had her son, she forced him to become a monk. He was sent to various monasteries, but Heonae was not content to leave him alone there. On multiple occasions, she sent out assassins to kill her nephew. Each time, however, the assassins were thwarted. Once, an elderly monk hid Wang Sun when the executioner came to call. Another time, the poisoned food meant for the prince was fed instead to crows and sparrows, who died immediately upon eating it. As these assassination attempts continued and Mokjong still produced no sons of his own, certain factions at court became increasingly alarmed at Heonae and Kim Chi-yang's aspirations for the throne. Between his fear of his mother and his fawning over his favourites, Mokjong was considered too weak to do anything about it, so some men in the government and military decided to take matters into their own hands.
The year was 1009, and it was the middle of the first month, which meant the Lantern Festival was being held in Kaesong. As usual, Mokjong went out to watch the festival and marvel at the lights and performances. Suddenly, a fire broke out in the oil storehouse in the Palace Treasury. The fire quickly spread to Cheonchu Hall, Heonae's personal residence, and burned it to the ground. The king was stunned to see his mother's house reduced to ashes. He apparently came down with a sudden illness and retired to his quarters. Heonae herself was unharmed, but her son did not take counsel with her, instead communicating to the outside world through Yu Haenggan. Ministers anxiously tried to visit the king in his quarters, but Yu Haenggan turned them away until the king personally requested a few select ministers to attend him. Mokjong was concerned about rumours that his sudden illness and the inauspicious fire were encouraging factions that wanted to usurp his throne. He had letters warning him that Kim Chi-yang wanted to commit treason and that Heonae had been attempting to have Wang Sun murdered. He told his advisors that he wanted to name Wang Sun as his heir in order to stop any attempt by Kim Chi-yang to take over the throne.
The advisors agreed, and plans were swiftly made to bring Wang Sun to the palace. Yu Haenggan, however, was believed to be against Wang Sun succeeding Mokjong, so he was kept out of the plans. The extent to which Heonae was kept in the loop is unclear. In fact, many of the events of the coup are unclear in the official record, despite the unusually long section of the chronicle devoted to it. A key figure with unclear motivations was Gang Cho, the Chief Military Inspector of the Northwest who was normally stationed in the western capital of Pyongyang. Gang Cho was led to believe that Mokjong had already died and that Heonae and Kim Chi-yang were about to put their son on the throne. He headed out to the capital with a large army. Heonae tried to block the Cheol Pass so that he could not enter the capital, but her efforts were thwarted. Even when Gang Cho found out that the king was still alive, though, he decided that since the "project had already been set in motion", he was going to depose Mokjong anyway. And again, even when Mokjong told him that he had already picked Wang Sun as a successor, Gang Cho marched on Kaesong in order to forcibly install Wang Sun as king.
On the third day of the second month, Gang Cho arrived at the capital. The annals say that the sun looked as if it had been veiled by a red curtain. Shortly after his arrival, the general sent his soldiers storming into the palace. Heonae was with the king now: Together, they looked up to heaven and cried. When the carnage began, the two of them led a group of palace ladies, eunuchs, and officials to a nearby temple to take shelter. Not everyone in the palace was so lucky. Kim Chi-yang, Yu Haenggan, and several others were killed. Worst of all for Heonae, however, was the murder of her six-year-old son. While her reaction to this death is not recorded in the chronicles, it must have been devastating. With the boy out of the way, Gang Cho was free to install Wang Sun as the new king Hyeonjong. Shellshocked by the events, Mokjong did not contest the coup. He blamed himself for what had happened and made only one request of the new rulers: "All I wish for is to grow old in the countryside."
Sadly, this was not to be. Mokjong and Heonae fled the capital on horseback. It's said that he took special care of her during this time: Whenever she wanted to eat, he offered his plates to her, and whenever she rode her horse, he held the reins. They had both suffered devastating losses and were each other's only comfort. But it was not to last: Gang Cho sent the Chief Intendant of the Royal Pharmacy, Kim Kwangbo, to meet them, armed with poison. Why Gang Cho was not content to let Mokjong live out his life in exile is unclear: Perhaps he thought that Hyeonjong's reign would not be secure if Mokjong was still alive for his allies to rally around. Mokjong knew better than to trust Kim Kwangbo and refused to drink the poison. Kim Kwangbo then targeted the king's personal guard, threatening to kill their families if they did not assassinate the king. The guards had little choice: That night, they killed the king in his sleep, reporting that Mokjong had taken his own life.
Heonae must have been beside herself with grief. In the space of a few days, she had lost her home, both of her sons, the love of her life, and all the power she had built up for herself. The soldiers made a makeshift coffin out of door panels for Mokjong, and Heonae returned to her hometown of Hwangju. She never returned to Kaesong or had any further influence on politics. Her surviving family and allies at court were exiled to sea islands, a common punishment for political enemies in Goryeo. For the next twenty years she remained at home, until she died in Hwangju in 1029 at the age of sixty-five.
The official histories of the Goryeo were written by Hyeonjong's supporters, who worked hard to legitimize his reign. Their job was made all the more difficult by the fact that the Liao decided the coup gave them an excellent excuse to invade Goryeo again on the pretense of punishing the Koreans for regicide. Hyeonjong spent much of his early reign on the run and only got the Khitans to agree to a peace by faking his own death in 1022. The coup of 1009 therefore broke the tenuous peace that Seongjong and Heonae had maintained with their northern neighbours. Historians of later Korean dynasties painted Heonae in the worst possible light, blaming her for the invasion because she let her lust and personal ambition for power get in the way of the kingdom's safety. But was the coup really Heonae's fault? Was she really planning to depose Mokjong herself, or would she have been content to wait until Mokjong was on his deathbed and could be persuaded to name her new son as his heir? Why did she have so many supporters - were there some in the government who preferred the idea of a new king who was descended from Taejo in the female line to one who had been born of a father who was so disgraced by an unsavoury affair that he requested to be buried face down?
We will never have the answers to these questions. The records of Mokjong's reign were destroyed in the Khitan invasion, and the compilers of the new record were keen to depict Hyeonjong's rule as legitimate. Hyeonjong built temples for his parents and declared official periods of mourning for them, and he commissioned his own Tripitaka that would end up being far more famous than the project Heonae had initiated. He and his advisors embarked on a campaign to rebuild the image of Goryeo as a kingdom with a distinct identity, even as they were forced yet again to pay homage to the Khitans. He was even given credit for the restoration of the Lantern Festival, even though the same chronicles record Mokjong attending it in 1009. Heonae, meanwhile, lived out the last twenty years of her life in obscurity. The details of her motivations are not easy, perhaps even impossible, for us to recover. What information we do have paints the picture of a woman who was born to power and eager to use it. Faced with a husband and a son who both disdained the nitty-gritty of politics, she stepped in and tried to remake the dynasty in her image.
I have drawn her here astride a Khitan horse at the Lantern Festival, surrounded by red lanterns rising to the sky. Only queens were allowed to wear a red coat, and she wears hers proudly. A black riding hat with a long veil trails behind her. One day, lanterns like these will set her palace and all her hopes for power ablaze. But today, she is at the apex of her power, ruling Goryeo with the force of her will. At a time when her enemies-turned-allies, the Khitans, are also ruled by a powerful Empress Dowager, she seeks to keep Goryeo strong by fortifying its borders and invoking the Buddhist protections of its founders. Although she will one day be blamed for the collapse of the peace, it was her reign that held it together before the murder of her sons brought the Khitans hammering down on Goryeo in revenge.
Artist's Comments
Wow, I have spent a month doing so much reading about Queen Heonae, so it is great to finally bring her story out there! (Much of it was read while binging Star Trek: Voyager... J/C forever!) I was really surprised how hard it was to find good information about her - and the Goryeo in general - in English. This is not an era of history that is very accessible to the Anglophone world. For this reason, I'm especially grateful to the scholar Sem Vermeersch whose work made it possible for me to recreate Heonae's life in such detail. Not only has he written and translated more about Goryeo into English than anyone else, he also very kindly answered my questions over email about Heonae and even sent me several reading materials. I've linked to several of his works in the Resources section. There is a historical Korean drama about Cheonchu called Empress Cheonchu or The Iron Empress - I tried watching the first episode, but found it rather inaccurate and nationalistic, and kind of boring!
How incredible is it that Goryeo and Liao were both ruled by queen dowagers at the same time? I have wanted to draw Heonae for a long time, ever since I first learned about her by reading about her enemy Empress Chengtian. This is exactly the sort of thing I love about doing this project: Seeing the ways that women held power in unexpected places, contrary to popular ideas of the history of places like medieval Asia. I hope more people learn Heonae's story and learn about the Goryeo kingdom in general since it's a fascinating and important time in world history. It was particularly interesting for me to think about how this picture is set in North Korea: You don't normally think of the medieval period when you think of that country. As a US citizen, it's impossible for me to visit the places that Heonae knew in her life, which adds a strange fascination to the project.
I really like how this picture came out! It's only the third night scene in the series. The clothing was a little tricky to reconstruct. Her veil is a neoul: Queens wore ones that trailed all the way down their backs while riding horses. Her reign was so early in the dynasty that I based her clothing on a reconstruction of a Silla queen, rather than the styles influenced by the Song or later Yuan depicted here. As for the lanterns, sky lanterns aren't specifically mentioned as being part of the Lantern Festival in the Goryeo period, but they did have lanterns made of red gauze, and sky lantern technology did exist in China by this time, so I made a little creative leap there. Thank you for joining me on this journey to learn more about medieval Korea and the extraordinary life of Queen Heonae! ~ January 31, 2022
How incredible is it that Goryeo and Liao were both ruled by queen dowagers at the same time? I have wanted to draw Heonae for a long time, ever since I first learned about her by reading about her enemy Empress Chengtian. This is exactly the sort of thing I love about doing this project: Seeing the ways that women held power in unexpected places, contrary to popular ideas of the history of places like medieval Asia. I hope more people learn Heonae's story and learn about the Goryeo kingdom in general since it's a fascinating and important time in world history. It was particularly interesting for me to think about how this picture is set in North Korea: You don't normally think of the medieval period when you think of that country. As a US citizen, it's impossible for me to visit the places that Heonae knew in her life, which adds a strange fascination to the project.
I really like how this picture came out! It's only the third night scene in the series. The clothing was a little tricky to reconstruct. Her veil is a neoul: Queens wore ones that trailed all the way down their backs while riding horses. Her reign was so early in the dynasty that I based her clothing on a reconstruction of a Silla queen, rather than the styles influenced by the Song or later Yuan depicted here. As for the lanterns, sky lanterns aren't specifically mentioned as being part of the Lantern Festival in the Goryeo period, but they did have lanterns made of red gauze, and sky lantern technology did exist in China by this time, so I made a little creative leap there. Thank you for joining me on this journey to learn more about medieval Korea and the extraordinary life of Queen Heonae! ~ January 31, 2022
Resources
Want to learn more about Queen Heonae and other Goryeo women? Here are some recommended resources.
Koryosa choryo Ia: Essentials of Koryo History translated by Sem Vermeersch
This medieval chronicle offers a full account of the coup in 1009, as well as the other known events of the reigns of early Goryeo kings. I used it to fill out information about Gyeongjong, Seongjong, Mokjong and Hyeonjong - and of course, Queen Heonae. It's the primary source with the most information about her. I'm very grateful to Sem Vermeersch for sending me his translation of the earliest sections. The other major chronicle about the period is the similarly-named Koryosa/Goryeosa, which is available in modern Korean translation here and in Chinese here. A partial English translation of that one is being prepared for University of Hawaii Press.
"Royal Ancestor Worship and Buddhist Politics: The Hyonhwa-sa Stele and the Origins of the First Koryo Tripitaka" by Sem Vermeersch
My information about Heonae's commission of a copy of the Tripitaka and the dedicatory inscription featuring her and Kim Chi-yang comes mainly from this article. The paper is primarily about Hyeonjong's reasons for commissioning his own Tripitaka. Vermeersch elaborates on the possibility that Heonae sponsored a major Tripitaka printing project in his book The Power of the Buddhas: The Politics of Buddhism During the Koryo Dynasty (918-1392). Veermersch also kindly recommended to me an article to read about Empress Wu Zetian's example inspiring a medieval Japanese empress's printing project for comparison: "The Hyakumantō Darani and the Origins of Printing in Eighth-Century Japan" by Peter Kornicki.
"Forging the Truth: Creative Deception and National Identity in Medieval Korea" by Remco Breuker
This paper asserts that the Ten Injunctions, long said to be instructions handed down from Goryeo founder King Taejo, were actually forged during the reign of Hyeonjong. Breuker offers a very close analysis of how the text of the Injunctions matches the circumstances of Hyeonjong's reign much better than Taejo's. Of particular interest to me is how Breuker argues that Hyeonjong and his advisors were desperate to legitimize his family's reign in the wake of Kim Chi-yang's near-usurpation of the throne.
"A Study on Koryo Women's Hairstyle Reproduced in Visual Media" by Na-Young Choi, Un-Mi Choi, Jung-Sun Yang, Un-Jin Lee, and Ki-Young Kim
In this survey of women's hairstyles in Korean historical dramas, the authors conclude that the hairstyles in the Queen Cheonchu drama are anachronistic. They argue that the queen's hair in that show reflects the later Goryeo hairstyles rather than earlier ones. In Cheonchu's time, women would have had hair like in the late Silla dynasty, with some influence too from the Song Dynasty in China. The article is in Korean but I was able to get the gist with Google Translate (and the abstract in English). One interesting bit is that these authors seem to agree with more recent pop culture evaluations of the queen (like this one) which see her as a misunderstood defender of Korea who was unfairly judged by later Confucian standards.
A Chinese Traveler in Medieval Korea: Xu Jing's Illustrated Account of the Xuanhe Embassy to Koryo trans. Sem Vermeersch
Although this travel report was written in the 12th century, after Queen Heonae's time, it's the only account we have of medieval Goryeo everyday life and customs. Details such as the queen's red coat and the style of women's horse riding come from this text. It's really a delightful read giving you a glimpse into the world of medieval Korea like no other text does.
"North Korea's Full Moon Tower: A joint project between the two Koreas searches for their shared history" by Hyung-eun Kim
Kim's online article for the magazine Archaeology details the historic excavation of the Korean palace Manwoldae, carried out jointly by archaeologists from North and South Korea. Since most major Goryeo sites are located in what's currently North Korea, archaeological evidence for the period has not always been readily available to the outside world. And at the same time, North Korean excavators often use outdated archaeological techniques when working in isolation. Although this project wasn't without its bumps along the road, it marks a historic collaboration between the two estranged countries. The article includes a photo of a model of what Manwoldae looked like during its prime.
"Nuns, Donors, and Sinners: Images of Women in Koryo Buddhist Paintings" by Cheeyun Kwon
This paper mostly deals with the later Goryeo period. But given how important Buddhism was to Queen Heonae, it still illuminates a lot about how she and others might have construed her role within Korean Buddhism. The article is art historical in focus, looking at how Korean women were portrayed both as lay patrons and as nuns in Buddhist art. To see some Goryeo Buddhist paintings, check out the dedicated website from the National Museum of Asian Art.
"The P'algwanhoe: From Buddhist Penance to Religious Festival" by Sem Vermeersch
A really good description of the Lantern Festival is provided in this article. The Lantern Festival in spring was the twin festival to the P'algwanhoe in winter. Vermeersch discusses how Hyeonjong moved the Lantern Festival from the first month to the second month in 1010. Various reasons have been proposed, such as aligning with a different Buddhist festival or better accommodating the Korean agricultural year which has a later spring than central China does. However, I can't help but wonder if the previous date in the first month was considered inauspicious for Hyeonjong since it was the day that the coup against Mokjong began. Another curiosity of mine is that the Goryeosa says that Hyeonjong reinstated the festival after Seongjong had abolished it, but earlier in the text it also says that the fire in Heonae's palace started while Mokjong was watching the Lantern Festival in the middle of the first month, so clearly it was going on during his reign.
"Rhetoric and Reality of the Tribute System: Interstate Relations in the 10th-11th Century East Asia" by Peter Yun
If you'd like more background on the way Korea played the Song and the Liao against each other, rather than being a passive tributary pawn, this article gives a really good overview. This includes a discussion of the military back-and-forth during Hyeonjong's reign. For more in this vein, check out Michael C. Rogers's "National Consciousness in Medieval Korea: The Impact of Liao and Chin on Koryo". That one focuses more on the intellectual ramifications of these power struggles in Korea.
Koryosa choryo Ia: Essentials of Koryo History translated by Sem Vermeersch
This medieval chronicle offers a full account of the coup in 1009, as well as the other known events of the reigns of early Goryeo kings. I used it to fill out information about Gyeongjong, Seongjong, Mokjong and Hyeonjong - and of course, Queen Heonae. It's the primary source with the most information about her. I'm very grateful to Sem Vermeersch for sending me his translation of the earliest sections. The other major chronicle about the period is the similarly-named Koryosa/Goryeosa, which is available in modern Korean translation here and in Chinese here. A partial English translation of that one is being prepared for University of Hawaii Press.
"Royal Ancestor Worship and Buddhist Politics: The Hyonhwa-sa Stele and the Origins of the First Koryo Tripitaka" by Sem Vermeersch
My information about Heonae's commission of a copy of the Tripitaka and the dedicatory inscription featuring her and Kim Chi-yang comes mainly from this article. The paper is primarily about Hyeonjong's reasons for commissioning his own Tripitaka. Vermeersch elaborates on the possibility that Heonae sponsored a major Tripitaka printing project in his book The Power of the Buddhas: The Politics of Buddhism During the Koryo Dynasty (918-1392). Veermersch also kindly recommended to me an article to read about Empress Wu Zetian's example inspiring a medieval Japanese empress's printing project for comparison: "The Hyakumantō Darani and the Origins of Printing in Eighth-Century Japan" by Peter Kornicki.
"Forging the Truth: Creative Deception and National Identity in Medieval Korea" by Remco Breuker
This paper asserts that the Ten Injunctions, long said to be instructions handed down from Goryeo founder King Taejo, were actually forged during the reign of Hyeonjong. Breuker offers a very close analysis of how the text of the Injunctions matches the circumstances of Hyeonjong's reign much better than Taejo's. Of particular interest to me is how Breuker argues that Hyeonjong and his advisors were desperate to legitimize his family's reign in the wake of Kim Chi-yang's near-usurpation of the throne.
"A Study on Koryo Women's Hairstyle Reproduced in Visual Media" by Na-Young Choi, Un-Mi Choi, Jung-Sun Yang, Un-Jin Lee, and Ki-Young Kim
In this survey of women's hairstyles in Korean historical dramas, the authors conclude that the hairstyles in the Queen Cheonchu drama are anachronistic. They argue that the queen's hair in that show reflects the later Goryeo hairstyles rather than earlier ones. In Cheonchu's time, women would have had hair like in the late Silla dynasty, with some influence too from the Song Dynasty in China. The article is in Korean but I was able to get the gist with Google Translate (and the abstract in English). One interesting bit is that these authors seem to agree with more recent pop culture evaluations of the queen (like this one) which see her as a misunderstood defender of Korea who was unfairly judged by later Confucian standards.
A Chinese Traveler in Medieval Korea: Xu Jing's Illustrated Account of the Xuanhe Embassy to Koryo trans. Sem Vermeersch
Although this travel report was written in the 12th century, after Queen Heonae's time, it's the only account we have of medieval Goryeo everyday life and customs. Details such as the queen's red coat and the style of women's horse riding come from this text. It's really a delightful read giving you a glimpse into the world of medieval Korea like no other text does.
"North Korea's Full Moon Tower: A joint project between the two Koreas searches for their shared history" by Hyung-eun Kim
Kim's online article for the magazine Archaeology details the historic excavation of the Korean palace Manwoldae, carried out jointly by archaeologists from North and South Korea. Since most major Goryeo sites are located in what's currently North Korea, archaeological evidence for the period has not always been readily available to the outside world. And at the same time, North Korean excavators often use outdated archaeological techniques when working in isolation. Although this project wasn't without its bumps along the road, it marks a historic collaboration between the two estranged countries. The article includes a photo of a model of what Manwoldae looked like during its prime.
"Nuns, Donors, and Sinners: Images of Women in Koryo Buddhist Paintings" by Cheeyun Kwon
This paper mostly deals with the later Goryeo period. But given how important Buddhism was to Queen Heonae, it still illuminates a lot about how she and others might have construed her role within Korean Buddhism. The article is art historical in focus, looking at how Korean women were portrayed both as lay patrons and as nuns in Buddhist art. To see some Goryeo Buddhist paintings, check out the dedicated website from the National Museum of Asian Art.
"The P'algwanhoe: From Buddhist Penance to Religious Festival" by Sem Vermeersch
A really good description of the Lantern Festival is provided in this article. The Lantern Festival in spring was the twin festival to the P'algwanhoe in winter. Vermeersch discusses how Hyeonjong moved the Lantern Festival from the first month to the second month in 1010. Various reasons have been proposed, such as aligning with a different Buddhist festival or better accommodating the Korean agricultural year which has a later spring than central China does. However, I can't help but wonder if the previous date in the first month was considered inauspicious for Hyeonjong since it was the day that the coup against Mokjong began. Another curiosity of mine is that the Goryeosa says that Hyeonjong reinstated the festival after Seongjong had abolished it, but earlier in the text it also says that the fire in Heonae's palace started while Mokjong was watching the Lantern Festival in the middle of the first month, so clearly it was going on during his reign.
"Rhetoric and Reality of the Tribute System: Interstate Relations in the 10th-11th Century East Asia" by Peter Yun
If you'd like more background on the way Korea played the Song and the Liao against each other, rather than being a passive tributary pawn, this article gives a really good overview. This includes a discussion of the military back-and-forth during Hyeonjong's reign. For more in this vein, check out Michael C. Rogers's "National Consciousness in Medieval Korea: The Impact of Liao and Chin on Koryo". That one focuses more on the intellectual ramifications of these power struggles in Korea.