Wi Man (in Korean) or Wei Man (in Chinese) was a Chinese military general and monarch. He was originally a military leader of the Chinese
Kingdom of Yan.[note 1] When king
Lu Wan of Yan was defeated by the Han in 195 BCE, Wi Man fled to
Gojoseon in north-western
Korea and later usurped power from its king in 194 BCE, establishing
Wiman Joseon. Recorded in the Records of the Grand Historian and the Book of Han, Wiman was the first ruler in the history of Korea to have been recorded in documents from the same time period.
Biography
After
Emperor Gaozu of Han suppressed the rebellion of
Zang Tu, king of
Yan, he appointed general
Lu Wan as Yan's new king. In 196 BC, Emperor Gaozu suspected Lu Wan of plotting rebellion and ordered an attack against Yan. Lu Wan fled to the
Xiongnu while his general Wiman (Wei Man) led a thousand followers east to
Gojoseon.[1] He was initially ordered to fortify Gojoseon's northwestern border by
King Jun of Gojoseon, however with the help of Yan refugees, Wiman usurped the throne (194~180 BCE). King Jun fled to
Jin and called himself the "King of Han."
Wiman's capital of Gojoseon was
Wanggeom-seong, generally identified as
Pyongyang.[2] Since the
Han dynasty was not completely stabilized yet, the governor of
Liaodong appointed Wiman as an outer subject, provided that he did not prevent natives going up to the empire. The appointment is dated at 191 or 192 BCE.[3] Having superior military strength,
Wiman Joseon was able to subjugate the state of
Jinbeon (진번, 眞番) and
Imdun (임둔, 臨屯), vastly extending its borders. His kingdom was eventually conquered by
Emperor Wu of Han in 108 BCE during the reign of
Ugeo of Gojoseon.
Family
Son and successor: name not recorded, second king of Wiman Joseon
^Lee, Ki-baik: Walled-Town States and Confederated Kingdoms. The New History of Korea, page 16-17. Harvard University Press, 1984
^Concerning controversy over the location of
Lelang Commandery, there is a minority view that Wiman's domain was located in Liaoning instead of north-western Korea. However, it is generally accepted that the river referred to as "Majasu" (마자수, 馬訾水) refers to the
Yalu River and "Paesu" (패수, 浿水) refers to the
Yalu River or
Ch'ongch'on River or
Daling River, and that Wiman's territory was bordered on the north by the Han dynasty. P'yŏngyang is the most likely site for the capital Wanggeom-seong but lacks archaeological evidence. For more information, see (Tani:1987).
"The earliest documented event in Korean history involves China. After an unsuccessful rising against the first Han emperor Gaozu, the defeated rebels sought refuge beyond the imperial frontier and one of them Wiman, took control of Choson, a Korean state in the north of the peninsula."
"For instance, Wiman, a refugee from the Yan dynasty, which then existed around present-day Beijing, led his band of more than 1,000 followers into exile in Old Chosŏn in the early second century bc."
"Retaliation by the Han then brought in refugees from Yan, the most notable of whom was a war lord, Weiman ('Wiman'in Korean), who somewhere about 200 BC led his followers into the territory held by Choson."
"Here, Wiman was described as a "Gu Yanren 故燕人"or a person from former Yan. It is confusing because there were two Yans around this period. The first was the Yan state, which was one of the seven states during the Warring States period, and the second was the vassal state of Yan of the Han dynasty."
Sources
Mikami Tsugio 三上次男: Kodai no seihoku Chōsen to Ei-shi Chōsen koku no seiji, shakaiteki seikaku 古代の西北朝鮮と衛氏朝鮮国の政治・社会的性格, Kodai Tōhoku Ajiashi Kenkyū 古代東北アジア史研究, pp. 3–22, 1966.
Ibaragi Kazuo 荊木計男: Ei Man Chōsen ō Sakuhō ni tsuite 衛満朝鮮冊封について, Chōsen Gakuhō 朝鮮学報 (Journal of the Academic Association of Koreanology in Japan) Vol. 113, pp. 1–25, 1984.
Tani Toyonobu 谷豊信: Rakurō-gun no ichi 楽浪郡の位置, Chōsen shi kenkyūkai ronbunshū 朝鮮史研究会論文集 (Bulletin of Society for Study in Korean History), No 24, pp. 23–45, 1987.