During the 30 years from 1231 to 1260, the Mongol Empire launched seven consecutive attacks on the Korean Peninsula against Goryeo, and the Mongol army trooped all over the territory of Goryeo, and the whole country of Goryeo was destroyed, and countless people were killed and captured. Although the Goryeo army and civilians also fought stubbornly, the difference in strength was huge, and the Mongol Empire only depleted Goryeo's troops and finances with only partial divisions, and was unable to resume the war. It was really impossible to defeat, and the king of Goryeo took refuge in Ganghwa Island, and the land of projectiles was in danger. Mong Won repeatedly forced the king to leave Ganghwa Island and return to the capital, but Goryeo had to submit to the pressure of Yuan and leave Ganghwa Island in 1270 A.D. (the seventh year of Yuan Sejo), and Goryeo finally entered a period of peace.
King Goryeo (Wonjong) was the first to request an intermarriage with the Yuan royal family at this time. In fact, the king of Goryeo began in 1170 A.D. (the twenty-fourth year of Goryeo Yizong), and the royal power was sidelined, and the military ministers ** had reached a hundred years. In particular, the Wuchen Choi clan was in power for 60 years, and in 1258 AD (the 45th year of Gojong Gojong of Goryeo), although the Choi clan was wiped out, the new military ministers Jin Jun and Lin Yan immediately took power one after another. Wuchen Lin Yan was dissatisfied with the submission of King Yuanzong to the Yuan Dynasty, so he forced Yuanzong to abdicate in 1269 AD and supported the king's younger brother. Later, because the Yuan Dynasty sent troops to help, Yuanzong was able to be reinstated.
Although the powerful minister Lin Yan was forced to restore Yuanzong to the throne, his power was still there, and he secretly instructed the ministers to oppose the return of the capital to the land. And if the king is not close to the dynasty and does not return to the capital without land, the army of Mengyuan will inevitably attack again. In order to protect himself, the king of Goryeo, Yuanzong, rushed to Dadu in February 1270 A.D. to express his willingness to return to the capital to the capital of Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan dynasty, and proposed marriage to the prince Chen (that is, the later Zhonglie King), and asked the Mongolian princess to marry Goryeo.
The ancestor Kublai Khan was very clear about the true purpose of the Goryeo king Yuanzong's initiative to ask for marriage, and did not immediately agree, but said euphemistically: I know the purpose of your trip, and it is a good thing to marry and kiss, but you should hurry back to China, deal with the mess of your own family, and then come back." ”
In May of the same year, with the support of the Mongol army, the forces of the military minister Lin Yan were cleared, and the land returned to the capital, and he took the initiative to send troops to cooperate with the Mongol army to extinguish the anti-Mongolian forces in the country.
In the second year (1271 AD), Wonjong of Goryeo sent an envoy to Yuan to ask for the marriage of the prince of Goryeo again, and at the same time simply let the prince Chen Jinyuan as a hostage.
At this time, Yuan Shizu saw that the Goryeo royal court had indeed obeyed, so he agreed to the marriage proposal of the king of Goryeo, and put his 13-year-old young daughter, the eldest princess of Qi, Kudulu. Jieli Mifu married the prince Wang Chen. Because the eldest princess of Qi was young, the two officially got married three years later. Yuan.
The marriage of the princess Qi and the prince of Goryeo, Wang Chen, symbolized Goryeo's complete submission to the Yuan Dynasty and the Yuan court's trust and support for the Goryeo royal family.
Goryeo in 1300.
In short, from then on, the king of Goryeo no longer had to worry about the domineering of the military ministers, and the royal power was strengthened, and it seemed that he could govern as he pleased.
But it turned out that the kings of Goryeo ushered in an even more miserable life, and it was a life history of "tracheitis" that lasted for more than a hundred years.
The marriage of the eldest princess of Yuanqi and Wang Chen, the prince of Goryeo (later King Chungyeol), opened the prelude to the intermarriage between the royal families of the two countries. Yuan strengthened his control over Goryeo through intermarriage between the two royal families, driving him to be the pioneer of the attack on the Southern Song Dynasty and the conquest of Japan. After that, the intermarriage of the Yuanli royal family has become customized, as long as a century, starting with King Zhongyeol, a total of five kings and Yuan Dynasty princesses have married:
Among the princesses who married the king of Goryeo in the Yuan Dynasty, only the eldest prince of Qi was the daughter of the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, and the rest were the daughters of the princes of the Yuan Dynasty, but the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty never married the daughter of the king of Goryeo. This also fully shows the unequal relationship between Yuanli up and down, strong and weak. Therefore, the princess of the Yuan Dynasty, who married the king of Goryeo, had a special status in the Goryeo court and even above the imperial court.
For example: Princess Yuan must be the queen of the main palace: After the princess Yuan marries the king of Goryeo, regardless of whether the king of Goryeo was originally married to a concubine or not, the princess must be canonized as the main palace. When the eldest princess of Qi married King Chungyeol of Goryeo, King Chungyeol already had a princess who married more than 10 years ago, called the lord of Zhenxin Mansion. However, after the eldest princess of Yuan Qi Kingdom got married, she immediately became the main palace, and the lord of Zhenxin Mansion was forced to move to another palace, and he never saw the king Zhonglie again.
and when the eldest princess of the Yuan Dynasty married King Zhongxuan of Goryeo, King Zhongxuan had also accepted Concubine Jing and Concubine Zhao before. After the princess of Jiguo married to Goryeo, she was established as a concubine.
In addition, the prince born to Princess Yuan must be given priority to be established as the prince: the eldest son of the king born to the former concubine of King Chungyeol, King Chungyeol, the eldest princess of the Kingdom of Qi, who is not born as the princess of Yuan, cannot be established as the prince. The youngest son born to the eldest princess of Qi was immediately made the prince, and then ascended the throne as King Zhongxuan. The king of Goryeo must be the son of the prince of the Yuan Dynasty, and he must go to the Yuan Dynasty as a proton before ascending the throne, and he must personally go to the Yuan court to receive the canonization when he ascends the throne.
The princesses also dominated everything in the court: the princess of Won, who married into Goryeo, relied on the power of Emperor Yuan to dominate everything in the Goryeo court, and the king of Goryeo and other concubines were forced to submit. The first Zhonglie King, who married the princess of the Yuan Dynasty, often did not dare to prohibit or prohibit what the eldest princess of the Yuan Qi Kingdom did to marry him, and he was miserable, and he could only hide and cry secretly after being wronged. And the daughter of Kublai Khan, the eldest princess of Qi Kingdom, often met King Zhonglie with sticks, chasing the king in the palace while scolding and beating. The king of Goryeo who married the princess, almost all of them had the experience of being beaten and scolded by the princess, and the mistress they secretly looked for was driven away or killed directly by the princesses, and they could only cry secretly.
The eldest princess of the Qi Kingdom.
The princesses of Yuan would cry to the Yuan court about matters in the court, which would immediately lead to direct intervention by the court. The eldest princess of Wonjiguo, who married King Chungxuan of Goryeo, was jealous of Concubine Zhao, and wrote to Empress Dowager Yuan in 1296 AD (the second year of Won Sungjong Wonjeong, the twenty-second year of King Chungyeol of Goryeo) and said: "Concubine Zhao cursed the princess and made the king not love." The Yuan court immediately sent an envoy to Goryeo to intervene and ordered King Chungseon to abdicate and appoint another king. This also shows that the Yuan Dynasty directly held the power to depose the king of Goryeo.
The princesses of the Yuan Dynasty also had the power to participate extensively in the government of Goryeo, and the actual power was much higher than that of the kings: the princesses of the Yuan Dynasty widely participated in the politics of the Goryeo Dynasty, such as court meetings, banquets, patrols, hunting, meeting envoys, etc., the princesses of the Yuan Dynasty all participated, and they were on the throne above the king of Goryeo, and the appointment and dismissal of Goryeo officials were also arbitrarily decided by him. Princess Qinghua of Yuanzhi and Princess Dening were in the late period of King Zhonghui and King Zhongmu and King Zhongding, respectively, as the widow of the first king and the queen mother.
In short, for more than a hundred years during the Yuan Dynasty, the kings of Goryeo were completely controlled, oppressed, and enslaved by their own Yuan Dynasty princess wives. Of course, the intermarriage between the royal families of Yuan and Goryeo made the king of Goryeo and the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty a relative, and the king of Goryeo went to the Yuan pilgrimage to become a provincial relative, so he was received more cordially by the Yuan court. The Goryeo king also used the "provincial relatives" to carry out some diplomatic activities, and achieved some results, recovering some of the occupied territories. For example, in 1289 A.D. (the second year of King Chungyeol of Goryeo), King Chungyeol of Goryeo took back more than 50 cities of Xijing Province when he was related to the eldest princess of Qi State. For another example, the Yuan set up the Tamna State Recruitment Division on Jeju Island, which was later changed to the Military and Civilian Capital Daru Hwachi Governor's Office and the Military and Civilian Pacification Division, and opened a horse farm on Tamna Island to raise horses, implementing the direct jurisdiction of the Yuan Dynasty. In 1294 A.D. (the 31st year of Won Sejo), Won Sejo died of illness, and King Chungyeol of Goryeo also took advantage of his special status as a son-in-law to ask Won Song for the land of Tamna (Jeju Island). The newly enthroned Sungjong said: "This small matter can be made to belong to Goryeo." ''So Tamna returned to Goryeo--- although Goryeo officially garrisoned Jeju Island to drive out the Mongols after the fall of the Yuan Dynasty.
It can be seen that the kings of Goryeo got rid of the powerful ministers, but attracted the more high-flying princess wives, and their lives were very aggrieved. However, they managed to keep the throne and reclaim some of their ancestral property.
Reference: (Korea) History of Goryeo, History of the Yuan, History of Sino-Korean Relations