East Asia · Fragmentation, Song and the conquest dynasties
Taebong
901–918
Taebong (901–918) was the state of the monk-turned-warlord Gung Ye (c. 869–918) during Korea's Later Three Kingdoms. Allegedly a son of a Silla king (Heonan or Gyeongmun) by a court lady, legend holds a seer prophesied disaster at his birth, a servant saving him accidentally blinded his left eye, and he became a Buddhist monk (dharma name Seonjong).
- Existed
- 901–918
- Shown on the map
- AD 911–921
- Peak area
- 82k km²
- Region
- East Asia
Overview
Taebong (901–918) was the state of the monk-turned-warlord Gung Ye (c. 869–918) during Korea's Later Three Kingdoms. Allegedly a son of a Silla king (Heonan or Gyeongmun) by a court lady, legend holds a seer prophesied disaster at his birth, a servant saving him accidentally blinded his left eye, and he became a Buddhist monk (dharma name Seonjong). Rising amid Silla's collapse, he served the rebels Ki Hwon (891) and Yang Kil (892), then broke away, defeated Yang Kil, and proclaimed himself king in 901. The state's name changed three times: Later Goguryeo/Goryeo (901–904), Majin (904), and finally Taebong (911). Its capital moved from Songak (Kaesong) to the fortress of Cheorwon in 905. Adopting a Buddhist theocratic ideology, Gung Ye proclaimed himself the Maitreya Buddha; but he grew paranoid, claimed to read minds, executed many officials and monks, and killed his own wife (Queen Kang) and two sons. On 24 July 918 four of his generals—Hong Yu, Bae Hyeon-gyeong, Sin Sung-gyeom, and Bok Jigyeom—staged a coup enthroning Wang Geon; Gung Ye fled and was killed. Wang Geon founded Goryeo.
Common questions
- What was Taebong?
- Taebong (901–918) was the state of the monk-turned-warlord Gung Ye (c. 869–918) during Korea's Later Three Kingdoms. Allegedly a son of a Silla king (Heonan or Gyeongmun) by a court lady, legend holds a seer prophesied disaster at his birth, a servant saving him accidentally blinded his left eye, and he became a Buddhist monk (dharma name Seonjong).
- When did Taebong exist?
- Taebong existed 901–918. On this map it is drawn AD 911–921.
- How large was Taebong?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, Taebong covered about 82,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia article for each polity as the basis of these profiles, supplemented by Encyclopaedia Britannica, chinaknowledge.de, the World History Encyclopedia, museum and university sources, and the academic works it lists. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Taebong en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taebong
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
See Taebong in its world
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