(ruled
901 –
918 ) was the king of a short-lived
State (see
Later Three Kingdoms ) on the
Korean Peninsula .
Gung Ye was known as a bastard son of King Heonan or of King Gyeongmun. A soothsayer prophesied that the new-born baby would bring disaster to
Silla , so the king ordered his servants to kill him. However, his nurse hid Gung Ye and raised him secretly.
He joined Yang Gil's rebellion force in 892. Silla, after nearly a millennium as a centralized kingdom, was quickly declining, and Gung Ye instigated his own rebellion in present-day
Kaesŏng in 898. He eventually defeated Yang Gil and other local lords in central Korea to proclaim himself king of Hugoguryeo in 901. He changed the state's name to Majin in the same year, and eventually to
Taebong in 911.
In his later days, Gung Ye proclaimed himself a Buddha and became a tyrant who sentenced death to anyone opposing him, including his own wife Kang. As a result, in 918 four of his own generals – Hong Yu (홍유; 洪儒), Bae Hyeongyeong (배현경; 裵玄慶), Shin Sunggyeom (신숭겸; 申崇謙) and Bok Jigyeom (복지겸; 卜智謙) – overthrew Taebong and installed
Wang Geon as king. Soon thereafter, the
Goryeo dynasty was proclaimed.
