Past Life Story

In the fifteenth year of King Heondeok of Silla, you were born into a commoner family near Cheonghaejin. Your true name was Gungbok. Of low birth as a commoner, yet from your earliest days you were extraordinary. You were tall, you were strong, and above all your heart was wide. At ten you began learning martial arts. Archery, swordsmanship, mounted archery. Whatever you saw, you imitated at once. People called you a genius, but you knew. It was not genius, but only that you had practiced more. Each dawn you ran the mountains, each night you drew the bowstring. At twenty you left Silla for Tang China. In Silla, where status was low, the path of advancement was closed. You enlisted in the Wuning Army of Tang and quickly distinguished yourself. You became a Junior General of the Wuning Army, and there you spent ten years. In your thirtieth year, on the coast of Tang, you witnessed a terrible sight. People of Silla were being sold as slaves. Pirates raided the Silla coast, abducted people, and sold them to Tang as slaves. Your heart boiled with rage. "I shall not let those who sell my own people like beasts go free." In your thirty-fifth year, you returned to Silla. You petitioned the king. "Place a garrison at Cheonghaejin and let me defend the coast of Silla." The king accepted your petition. You became the Daesa of Cheonghaejin. For one of low birth to rise to such a position was a first in Silla history. In your fortieth year, you placed ten thousand soldiers at Cheonghaejin. Your fleet roamed the seas of East Asia. You became a hegemon of the trade connecting Silla, Tang, and Japan. Pirates vanished. The selling of Silla people as slaves ceased. You were not merely a martial officer. You were the one who built East Asia's first maritime kingdom. In your forty-fifth year, your fame spread to Tang and to Japan. Tang envoys bowed before you. Japanese monks crossed to Tang aboard your fleet. You guarded the seas not only for the people of Silla but for all peoples of East Asia. Your heart grew greater and greater. In your fiftieth year, you began to involve yourself in Silla politics. The power of Cheonghaejin had grown too great. The king relied upon you and at the same time feared you. You sought to make your daughter a queen. For the daughter of a commoner to become queen was unthinkable in Silla. All the aristocracy opposed it. In your fifty-fourth year, tragedy came. A nobleman of Silla approached you disguised as a friend. He drank wine with you, and that night assassinated you. Your final words were "My people... my sea..." Even at the moment of your death you thought of the people. After your departure, Cheonghaejin collapsed. Your subordinates scattered, and the maritime kingdom you had built vanished. Silla learned your worth too late. A hundred years after, you were re-evaluated as a hero of Silla. Your name—Jang Bogo—became the most luminous name in the maritime history of East Asia. You were one who became a hero from a commoner, one who broke the wall of status, and above all one who loved his own people. The sea is my path, justice is my sword—that was the whole of your life. Your soul, even now upon some sea, may be running to defend a single person about to be sold into slavery. Your justice continues across time.