Post by ajk on Mar 4, 2017 21:59:34 GMT -5
In Episode 2 we learn that Musang's father was a runaway slave who was involved in something called the Manjok Insurrection of 1198. I didn't know what that was so I did some digging and came up with some good information from a history book. I learned that one result of the 1170 military rebellion that overthrew the monarchy was that plenty of high positions in government were given to people who weren't aristocrats or from powerful families. This gradually led to slaves throughout the country wanting more opportunity for themselves to better their own lives. From Lee Ki-baik's A New History of Korea:
That explains the concern about Musang's father specifically and it also explains generally why we're seeing so much tension about suppressing dissent. As for the monks, another section of the book says that monks had staged a revolt of their own around eighty years earlier (for different reasons; long story). So there was good reason for the government to be wary of them too.
The trend toward peasants abandoning the land for a life of wandering already had appeared at the beginning of the twelfth century...These rootless people from time to time formed gangs of brigands and caused disturbances in local areas. Thus already in a state of unrest, the peasants now were further agiated by the social upheaval brought about by the military revolt...large-scale popular insurrections now came to break out in many parts of the country.
...These uprisings occurred not only in the courtryside but in [the capital] as well. One such was the revolt planned by Manjok in 1198, just two years after Choe Chungheon seized power. Its principal significance lies in the fact that it involved the entire slave population in the capital and frankly aimed both at emancipation and at the seizure of power. Although the plot came to light before the rising actually got underway, it is famous for the stirring words uttered by Manjok to the government and private slaves he had assembled at Kaesong's North Mountain:...Many high officials have arisen from among the slave class...when the time is right anyone at all can hold these offices. Why then should we only work ourselves to the bone and suffer under the whip?...If each one kills his master and burns the record of his slave status, thuse bringing slavery to an end in our country, then each of us will be able to become a minister or a general.In the end all of these popular uprisings were suppressed, but they remain of great significance. This is because they demonstrate that the very foundation of the Koryo social order had been shaken. The masses who shouldered the burden of economic production had given expression to their demand for improvement in their status.
That explains the concern about Musang's father specifically and it also explains generally why we're seeing so much tension about suppressing dissent. As for the monks, another section of the book says that monks had staged a revolt of their own around eighty years earlier (for different reasons; long story). So there was good reason for the government to be wary of them too.
