Balhae

Balhae, also written Parhae or Bohai, was a kingdom of north-east Asia that Tae Choyŏng (Da Zuorong in Chinese) founded in 698 and conquered by the Khitan Liao dynasty in 926. At its height it covered much of today's north-east China, the north of the Korean peninsula and the south of the Russian Far East. A multi-ethnic state of former Goguryeo subjects and Mohe peoples, it is claimed in different ways by Korean, Chinese and Russian historians, and its history remains contested.

After the fall of Goguryeo to the Tang dynasty many of its people and neighbouring Mohe tribes were resettled around Yingzhou, in today's Liaoning. When a Khitan revolt threw the region into turmoil in 696, groups of them moved east. According to the Tang histories, Tae Choyŏng united Goguryeo and Mohe people, defeated a Tang army at Tianmenling and set up his own state, first called Jin. In 713 the Tang granted him the title Prince of Bohai, and the kingdom took that name; in 762 the Tang recognised it as a full kingdom. The accounts differ in detail, and some historians, such as Pamela Kyle Crossley, read the founding quite differently.

Tae Choyŏng's son, Tae Muye, who reigned from 719 to 737, asserted his independence, adopting his own reign title. Fearing an alliance between the Tang and the Heishui Mohe to his north, he sent a fleet to attack Dengzhou on the Shandong peninsula in 732 and raided along the Liao river. A joint Tang and Silla counter-attack in 733 was abandoned after a blizzard. Under his successor Tae Hŭmmu, known as King Mun, who reigned from 737 to 793, relations with the Tang became friendly, and the Tang came to call Balhae the "Prosperous Country in the East".

Balhae kept close ties with Japan, sending envoys there 34 times while Japan sent 13 missions in return. In letters to Japan its kings sometimes presented themselves as heirs of Goguryeo, and at home some used imperial titles such as "great king". Furs, especially sable, went to Japan in exchange for textiles and precious metals. A trade road also linked Balhae with Silla to the south.

Balhae borrowed the Tang system of Three Departments and Six Ministries but renamed the ministries after Confucian virtues. By the mid-ninth century it was divided into five capitals, 15 provinces and 62 prefectures; its capitals included Shangjing Longquanfu. Students and envoys from Balhae studied in Chang'an and some passed the Tang examinations. Farmers grew millet, barley, soy beans and rice, and craftsmen produced iron and copper goods, silk, linen and ceramics. How its society was organised, and whether a Goguryeo elite ruled a Mohe majority, is debated.

From 907 Balhae clashed with the rising Khitans under Abaoji. In early 926 Khitan forces took Buyeo province and then besieged the capital, and after three days the king surrendered. Abaoji set up the vassal kingdom of Dongdan in its place, but its population was later moved and it was absorbed into Liao in 936. Some historians have linked the collapse to an eruption of Mount Paektu, but most now see the Khitan conquest as the decisive cause.

Many Balhae nobles, including the crown prince Tae Kwanghyŏn, fled to Goryeo, where Korean historians estimate that roughly 100,000 to 200,000 refugees eventually settled. Others remained under Liao and later Jin rule as a distinct group for about three centuries before being absorbed. Mohe groups that kept their own way of life, and were not counted as Balhae people by the Liao, became an important source of the Jurchen people. Korean scholars treat Balhae as the northern successor of Goguryeo, Chinese scholars as a regional state of Tang China, and Russian scholars as a mainly Mohe state.

Our 900 map draws the kingdom under the label "Balhae", spanning today's North Korea, north-east China and the Russian Far East. By our 1000 map the region belongs to the Liao.