According to legends from Korea, the first Korean state was founded by the hero Tan'gun, whose father was a god, and mother was a bear. Another legend says that it was founded by a royal descendent of the Chinese Shang Dynasty, which seems a little more realistic. The Koreans were distinct people who developed their own traditons. Their culture was also shaped by Chinese influences from earlier dynastic times. Korea is located on a peninsula that juts out from the Asian mainland. Korea kept quite a lot of distance and isolation from their neighbors. In 108 B.C., the Han Empire conquered much of Korea and established their military government. Through the Chinese, Koreans learned about the ideas of a centralized government, Confucianism, Buddhism, and writing. During the Han rule, Koreans began to gather into federations. These federations developed three rival kingdoms and in the 600s, one of the kingdoms, Silla, defeated the other kingdoms, drove out the Chinese, and gained control of the whole peninsula of Korea.

 

Under the Silla rule, Koreans built Buddhist monasteries and produced elegant stone and bronze sculptures. They wre able to develop a writing system suitable for writing Korean phonetically though still using Chinese characters. By the tenth century, the Silla rule weakened. Around 935, a rebel officer named Wang Kon gained control of the country and became king.

 

He named his new dynasty the Koryu Dynasty. This dynasty lasted four and a half centuries from 935 to 1392. They modeled their central government after China's, and established a civil service system. This system did not work and provide the social mobility that the Koreans needed. Their society was harshly divided between landed aristocracy and everyone else. Koryu faced a major threat in 1231, when the Mongols swept into Korea. They demanded 20,000 horses, clothing for one million soldiers, and many children and artisans to use as slaves. This harsh period of Mongol occupation had lasted until the 1360s, when the Mongol Empire collapsed. In 1392, a group of scholar-officals and military leaders overthrew the Koryu Dynasty and instituted land reforms.

 

They established a new dynasty called the Choson (Yi), which would rule for 518 years. The Koryu produced many great achievements in Korean culture. They were inspired by Song porcelain artists, and the Chinese. The Buddhist world thanks Korea for producing one of their greatest treasures, wooden blocks for printing their scriptures.