Ganghwa is the big island at the mouth of the Han and Imjin, a day's march or a sail from Gaegyeong.
On 1 January 1200 it is an island county of fishermen, salt-makers and rice farmers with a magistrate. It is also a place of confinement: the deposed Myeongjong's heir Wang O (b. 1152), the future Gangjong, was sent here in 1197 (Chinese Wikipedia), with his small son Wang Cheol, the future Gojong (b. 1192 [not yet checked against the source]). The mountain Mani-san, with the altar later called Chamseongdan and tied to Tangun, is on the island's south: the Tangun connection is legend and the first recorded rites there are of the 1260s [not yet checked against the source], so it is not a state cult in 1200.
The court moves here in 1232 to escape the Mongols; that is the future.
Who holds it
- Title
- County magistrate (name not known); the captive Wang O
- Confidence
- low
No source we could read names the holder in 1200
Lord in 1200
A county magistrate; name not known; Wang O is held here
Overlord
the king at Gaegyeong, in fact Choe Chung-heon
How things stand that morning
A quiet county with a royal prisoner.
Council
Magistrate and local clerks.
Communities
Fishing villages; Buddhist temples (Jeondeungsa is traditionally of the 4th century, not checked).
Militia
Island garrison for the captive; no numbers.
Trade and crafts
Salt, fish, rice; the Han estuary pilots [not yet checked against the source].
Places of note
- Mani-san altar (legend): Later called Chamseongdan; Tangun tie is legend, first rites recorded in the 1260s [not yet checked against the source]
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Chinese and English Wikipedia (Wang O sent to Ganghwa); the rest recollection.
On the map: Whole island by seeds.
Primary sources for Goryeo
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- Essentials of the History of Goryeo, Kim Jong-seo (金宗瑞) and the Joseon history office (1452). The chronological companion to the Goryeosa, finished a year after it and drawing on the same lost records, sometimes with entries the Goryeosa omits. Read online
- Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Bi Yuan (畢沅), completed by Feng Jiwu after his death (late eighteenth century, finished after 1801, from Song and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's continuous month-by-month chronicle of the Song and Yuan centuries, compiled from the Song shi, the Liao, Jin and Yuan histories, Li Tao, Li Xinchuan and other Song sources. Read online
- History of Goryeo, Jeong Inji (鄭麟趾), Kim Jong-seo (金宗瑞) and the Joseon history office (completed 1451, from the Goryeo veritable records and earlier drafts). The official history of Goryeo, compiled by the Joseon state from the lost Goryeo veritable records. Read online
- History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
- History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
- Draft Compilation of the Collected Statutes of the Song, Various; the Song huiyao were compiled by the Song state, the surviving draft reassembled by Xu Song from the Yongle dadian in the nineteenth century (the original Song compilations date from the eleventh to the thirteenth century; the surviving extracts were recovered in 1809 to 1820 and printed in 1936). Dated extracts from the Song government's own statute collections, arranged by office. Read online
- Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200. Read online
- Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country (Yi Gyu-bo), Yi Gyu-bo (李奎報) (poems and prose from the 1190s to 1241; collected and printed by his son in 1241, with a supplement in 1242). The collected poems, letters, memorials and essays of a Goryeo scholar who was thirty-two and still seeking office in 1200. Read online
2 more in the sources library for Korea and Japan.
Sources and studies
- Gangjong of Goryeo (English Wikipedia)
- Goryeo Myeongjong 高麗明宗 (Chinese Wikipedia)
- Goryeosa, Goryeosa jeoryo, Samguk yusa, Lee Ki-baik, Shultz: not opened in this run (Wikisource could not be reached); facts marked recollection come from these as remembered
- Sheet brief KJA_BRIEF.md and the OMNIA board notes (leads, not sources)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.