A merchant's son founded Goryeo, the dynasty that named Korea
Wang Kon came from a family of seafaring traders in Songak, today's Kaesong. He rose as a general under an erratic warlord, and when that ruler turned tyrant, four senior commanders woke him one night in 918 and offered him the crown. As Taejo of Goryeo, he went on to reunite the Korean kingdoms in 936.
He was born in 877, eldest son of Wang Ryung, into a wealthy clan descended from Goguryeo refugees who had grown rich through generations of sea trade with China. Later court genealogies gave him grander roots: a twelfth-century chronicle claimed his grandfather was a son of a Tang emperor who, on a voyage to find his father, met a dragon king, killed a shape-shifting fox and married a dragon woman. Even the Joseon scholars who compiled Goryeo's official history dismissed the imperial descent, and modern encyclopedias treat it as hagiography.
Silla was falling apart in the late ninth century, with rebels and bandits challenging Queen Jinseong. When the warlord Kung Ye reached Songak in 895, Wang Ryung and the local clans submitted, and his son entered Kung Ye's service. The young commander rose quickly to general, campaigning around Chungju in 900 and leading a celebrated naval assault on the southwestern coast at what became Naju in 903. His generosity toward impoverished conquered people won him popular support, and in 913 he became prime minister.
Kung Ye, meanwhile, had begun calling himself the Buddha and executing critics, including monks and eventually his own wife and two sons. On the night of 24 July 918, the generals Hong Yu, Pae Hyon-gyong, Sin Sung-gyom and Pok Chigyom agreed to overthrow him. Wang Kon at first refused, then relented. Kung Ye was killed near the capital Cheorwon, and at sunrise the new king was installed. He named his state Goryeo and the following year moved the capital to his hometown, Gaegyeong.
He made Buddhism the state religion and presented himself as heir to ancient Goguryeo. Finding the old capital Pyongyang long in ruins and used by raiders as hunting ground, he resettled it, sent his cousin Wang Sing-nyom to guard it and named it the Western Capital. Rather than crush local clans, he preferred alliances with them. He reigned until his death on 4 July 943.
Source: Taejo of Goryeo
