Buyeo lay on the plain of the Songhua, north of the Liao country. In the Chinese histories it is the state that Goguryeo came out of. Its place in steppe history rests on three points. It is the eastern limit of Tanshihuai’s realm. It is the state the Murong destroyed on their way to power. And it is the origin the Goguryeo house claimed for itself.[1]

The founding story

The Wei Shu opens its Goguryeo chapter with Buyeo and tells the descent as a birth legend. Goguryeo came out of Buyeo, and its people say their first ancestor was Jumong. Jumong’s mother was a daughter of the Earl of the River. The king of Buyeo shut her in a room, and the sun shone on her. She drew away from it, but the sunlight followed her. She conceived and bore an egg, five sheng in size. The king threw it to the dogs, and the dogs would not eat it. He threw it to the pigs, and the pigs would not eat it. He put it on the road, and the cattle and horses went round it. He put it in the open field, and the birds covered it with their feathers. He tried to cut it open and could not break it, so he gave it back to the mother. She wrapped it and put it in a warm place, and a boy broke out of the shell.[1]

When the boy had grown, he was called Jumong, which in their speech means a good shot. The men of Buyeo said that one not born of men would have strange designs, and they asked that he be got rid of. The king refused and set him to keep the horses. Jumong tried the horses in secret and knew the good from the bad. He underfed the fast ones so that they grew thin and fed the poor ones well so that they grew fat. The king took the fat horses for himself and gave Jumong the thin ones. At a hunt Jumong was allowed one arrow because he shot well, and with few arrows he killed a great many beasts. The ministers of Buyeo then plotted to kill him. His mother learned of it and told him: the state means to harm you, so with your ability go far away.[1]

He left Buyeo with two companions and rode south-east. At a great water with no bridge, with the Buyeo close behind, he called out to the river: I am a son of the sun and a grandson of the Earl of the River. Today I am in flight and the pursuit is on me. How am I to cross? Fish and turtles rose and made a bridge. He crossed and they dispersed, and the horsemen could not follow. He came to the Pushu water and met three men there. He went with them to the fortress of Heulseunggol and settled. He called the place Goguryeo and took it as his surname.[1]

Nothing in the text settles whether this descent is a historical relation or a claim made by the Goguryeo house and copied by the Chinese histories. The text shows that Goguryeo made the claim. It also shows that a sixth-century Chinese historian wrote the claim down as the beginning of the state.

In the steppe record

Buyeo enters the steppe chapters twice, both times as a victim.

The Hou Han Shu names it in the account of Tanshihuai’s expansion. He raided south along the Han frontier, held off the Dingling in the north, drove back Buyeo in the east and struck the Wusun in the west.[2] The text names Buyeo again as the eastern boundary of his realm: more than twenty settlements made up the eastern division, which ran from Youbeiping east to Liaodong and touched Buyeo and the Huimo.[2] Buyeo is therefore the place where a Xianbei empire of the second century stopped.

The second time is the end. The Murong campaigns of the fourth century broke Buyeo as a power, and Goguryeo absorbed what remained of it in 494. The name did not die with the state. Later kingdoms on the peninsula claimed Buyeo descent. This claim is the reason the Chinese histories keep the name in circulation long after the polity has gone.

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wei Shu, juan 100
  2. ^ a b Hou Han Shu, juan 90

Sources

Literature

  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)

Related

What links here3

Persons
Tanshihuai
States
Former Yan
Lineages
Murong

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Buyeo.” Turkic Atlas, revised 20 October 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/polities/buyeo/

Last revised: 20 October 2026