Policies of Taejo and the Ten Injunctions

Wang Geon both embraced and checked the regional lords, pursued a northward policy, and left his successors the Ten Injunctions before he died.

After reunifying the peninsula, Wang Geon bound the regional lords to the throne. He married the daughters of many lords, taking 29 queens, granted his own surname Wang to loyal lords, and in 940 distributed merit land (yeokbunjeon). At the same time he kept them in check through the sasimgwan system, which made lords answerable for their home regions (beginning with the former Silla king Gyeongsun at Gyeongju in 935), and the giin system, which kept lords’ sons in the capital as hostages. He cut the land tax to one tenth of the harvest and set up the Heukchang granary for the poor.

Naming his state Goryeo after Goguryeo, he made the old Goguryeo capital Pyongyang the Western Capital (Seogyeong) and a base for northward expansion. He took in Balhae refugees, including Crown Prince Dae Gwang-hyeon, after the Khitans destroyed Balhae, and in 942 starved to death 50 camels sent by the Khitans under the Manbu Bridge and exiled their envoys. The frontier was pushed to the Cheongcheon River and Yeongheung.

In 943 Taejo left the Ten Injunctions through Bak Sul-hui: honour Buddhism but build no temples rashly, keep the Lantern and Palgwan festivals, do not imitate the Khitans, "a nation of beasts", and value the Western Capital. He also wrote the Jeonggye and Gyebaengnyoseo on the duties of officials.