s like claiming himself as a living Buddha and killing his wife and children.
These prompted him to lose credibility, thus leading Wang Geun to revolt and overthrow him and found Goryeo in 918.
Wang defeated Gyeon Hwon in 936, a year after annexing Silla, which gave up its 1,000 year-old dynasty to Wang, who in turn allowed Silla's royal family to govern their areas in former Silla and keep their dignity.
After the unification, Wang moved the new country's capital to his hometown Gaeseong, which now accommodates an industrial complex set up as a result of Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung's Sunshine Policy of cooperation between the two countries.
The whole story was featured in a drama over the past few years, which had attracted great attention.
Foundation of newly united country
Wang, called King Taejo after his death, came up with three major policies of integrating the entire nation, respecting Buddhism and expanding its territory northward, which continued throughout the Goryeo Dynasty over the next centuries.
Buddhism flourished under Wang and the Goryeo period and produced great Buddhist thinkers such as Uicheon and Jinul and many beautiful temples were constructed.
The name "Goryeo" was derived from the ancient Korean kingdom "Goguryeo", discussed in the first part of this series. Wang expressed his antagonism against the Khitan, which destroyed the northern Korean state of Balhae in 926, the successor of Goguryeo.
In the early 10th century, the Khitan rose to power in Manchuria to set up the Liao Dynasty in 938. Four years later, it sent 50 camels with its envoys in an attempt to set up diplomatic relations with Goryeo, but Wang starved the camels to death and exiled the envoys.
Wang reiterated its anti-Khitan policy in his Ten Injunctions, the special laws and recommendations dedicated to his successors.
By contrast, Wang was very lenient to ethnic Koreans. On top of respecting the Silla aristocracy, Wang left most provincial leaders undisturbed. In addition, the founding king strengthened relationships with them through a host of marriages with daughters of local clans.
Wang also embraced refugees from Balhae. Such an approach offered legitimacy to the Goryeo Dynasty, which enabled Wang's descendants to establish the infrastructure of a Confucian state.
The Ten Injunctions named Buddhism as the state religion, but also insisted on the study of the Confucian classics. While Buddhism exerted great influence on Goryeo, as far as the political system was concerned, the country was built and operated under a strict Confucian model involving civil service exams, Confucian bureaucratic systems and even had a national Confucian academy called Gukjagam.
Understandably, the anti-Khitan policy angered the Liao Dynasty, which invaded Goryeo three times at the dawn of the second millennium, but Goryeo overwhelmed their enemy, finally defeating them and causing them to surrender.
The most outstanding war hero from this period was General Gang Gam-chan who, ordered the destruction of a makeshift dam in order to sweep away the Khitans who were midway across a river.
In recognition of his feats, the Korean Navy named a destroyer after him in 2006.
Under a Confucian-based political system, Goryeo overtly favored civilian bureaucrats over army officials whose time-honored complaints eventually erupted in 1170.
A group of army officials succeeded with a rebellion to start a military dictatorship whose commanders were replaced three times in bloody activities in less than two decades before Choi Chung-heon took power in 1197.
Over the next 60 years, Choi and his offspring controlled the country under a few nominal kings until 1258 when the military dictatorship finished after the death of Choi's grand grandson.
Amid the Choi family's reign, the Mongols attacked Goryeo, which withstood invasions for almost 30 years by even moving its capital to the western island of Ganghwa, before it finally sued for peace in 1259.
In return, Goryeo had to endure a series of humiliating measures including 