Jaegaseung

Jaegaseung (; 在家僧; monks who live in houses) were descendants of Jurchen people who lived in northeastern Korea. They formed villages of married lay monks and produced oatmeal paper called hwangji (黃紙) which was used to pay their taxes. The monastic identity of the lay monks was seen as anti-socialist by the government of North Korea, and, consequently, the Jaegaseung were forcibly assimilated into Korean culture on the orders of North Korean president Kim Il Sung. The mountains of northern Hamgyŏng Province were traditionally inhabited by the Jurchens, a semi-nomadic Tungusic people. In the mid-fifteenth century, King Sejong conquered the region as far north as the Tumen River, which even today marks Korea's northern border, and established Korean colonies in the area. Many Jurchens accepted Korean hegemony and played crucial roles in frontier defense against other Jurchen tribes more hostile to Korean presence. By the sixteenth century, the Jurchens living under Korean rule were often married to ethnic Koreans and had become increasingly agricultural. They were also economically and militarily linked to the central Korean state. At the same time, they retained close contacts with independent Jurchens across the Tumen. By the late sixteenth century, however, conflicts over land between indigenous Jurchens and Korean settlers were increasingly frequent. The Jurchen chieftain Nitanggae rebelled in 1583, severely undermining the Korean state's control of the area. The crisis was exacerbated by the large-scale Japanese invasion in 1592 during which Katō Kiyomasa conquered large parts of Hamgyŏng, leading to a breakdown of the Korean administration and major conflicts between Jurchens and Koreans. Beginning in around 1590, independent Jurchen chieftains such as Nurhaci and Bujantai were competing for hegemony over their cousins in Korean territory. Having routed Bujantai in 1607, Nurhaci successfully removed most Jurchens in northern Hamgyŏng into his newfound kingdom north of the Tumen between 1607 and 1609.