ng an important role in re-establishing the diplomatic relationship between Goryeo and the Chinese Song Dynasty, which had been broken off over a decade earlier.
Negotiations with Liao
According to the story, after Xiao captured Pongsan county in 993 and forced Goryeo's forces to retreat behind the Taedong River, he wrote to demand Goryeo's surrender: "[O]ur great country is about to unify land on all four directions" and to justify the expedition by charging: "your country does not take care of the people's needs, we solemnly execute heaven's punishment on its behalf". King Seongjong of Goryeo initially accepted Liao's demands, planning on the advice of his negotiators to give up the land north of Pyongyang to Xiao and drawing the Liao-Goryeo border in a straight line between Hwangju and P'aryŏng.
Seo Hui, however, was convinced that the Liao were acting from a position of "fear of us" and begged the king to "return to the capital and let us, your officers, wage one more battle". Seo rhetorically referred to the land that King Gwangjong had conquered from the Jurchens and which the Khitans (Liao) now held as "former Koguryŏ territory". After Xiao's forces were repulsed from further advances at the Battle of Anyung Fortress, Seo went to the Liao encampment to negotiate a settlement. Part of their conversation is excerpted:
Seo reported to his king that he forged an agreement with Xiao to jointly "exterminate the Jurchens" and to seize their land so that Goryeo and Liao would have a closer land border and commensurate tributary relations. He lamented that the Jurchens would only allow Goryeo the land south of the Yalu River, but envisioned a future in which this situation of confinement would change.
This story in which Seo Hui supposedly stemmed a "Chinese" invasion of "Korean" territory by referencing a past regime's occupation of the disputed territory has become popular in South Korea in recent years with the advent of the Northeast Project, which claimed the ancient state of Goguryeo (Koguryŏ, 37 BCE–668 CE) was part of the Chinese empire. The South Korean online activist group VANK, for example, has posted a video in 2012 calling on "young Koreans" to become "the next generation of Seo Hui", by turning "this crisis of the loss of Korean history into another opportunity" for Korean territorial expansion, as it argues was the result of Seo's rhetoric.
Later life and death
- 서희장군묘(徐熙將軍墓) [The tomb of General Seo Hui] (in Korean and English). Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation. Retrieved 2009-08-07.
- 서희 (徐熙) [Seo Hui] (in Korean). Nate / Encyclopedia of Korean Culture. Retrieved 2009-08-06.
- Lee, Peter H; Baker, Donald; Ch'oe, Yongho; Kang, Hugh H W; Kim, Han-Kyo, eds. (1997). "Sŏ Hŭi: Arguments on War [from Koryŏ sa chŏryo 2:49b-52b]". Sourcebook of Korean Civilization 1. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 298–301.
- Northeast Project -- Seo Hui posted by prkorea (VANK) on YouTube on March 11, 2012
- "General Seo’s skills are needed today". JoongAng Daily. June 9, 2004. Retrieved 2009-08-07.
- Kang, Jae-eun; Lee, Suzanne. (2006) The land of scholars, Homa & Sekey Books, pp. 100 – 101, ISBN 1-931907-37-4
- Kim, Chun-gil, (2005), The history of Korea, p. 57, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 0-313-33296-7
- Lee, Ki-baek; Wagner, Edward W. (1984) A new history of Korea, p. 125, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-61576-X
- Lee, Peter H.; William Theodore De Bary, (2000), Sources of Korean Tradition: From early times through the sixteenth century, Columbia University Press, pp. 171 – 174, ISBN 0-231-10567-3
- Rossabi, Morris. (1983), China among equals, University of California Press, pp. 154 – 157, ISBN 0-520-04562-9