Sillans II

676-935 CE

From 676 to 935 CE, the Sillans unified Korea for the first time — having allied with Tang China to destroy their rivals Goguryeo and Baekje, they then pushed Chinese armies back across the Yalu and ruled a peninsula at peace. Gyeongju became one of the world's great cities, its temples glittering with gold, its astronomers charting heavens from the Cheomseongdae observatory, its artisans casting bronze bells whose tones still ring across thirteen centuries, until aristocratic feuding tore the kingdom apart and yielded the throne to Goryeo's founder.