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PersonAD 785

King Seondeok (Kim Yang-sang)

37th king of Silla, who put down Kim Ji-jeong's revolt and succeeded Hyegong, opening Silla's Late Period

He was sangdaedeung under King Hyegong. When Kim Ji-jeong rebelled in 780 he suppressed the revolt with Kim Gyeong-sin (later King Wonseong), and took the throne after Hyegong died in the fighting. A tenth-generation descendant of King Naemul, he began the line of Naemul’s true-bone descendants, displacing King Muyeol’s direct line. In Late Silla true-bone nobles fought so fiercely over the throne that twenty kings reigned in 155 years.

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1 related event

  1. 1
    AD 780Death of King Hyegong and the Start of Late Sillaleader

    King Hyegong died during Kim Ji-jeong’s revolt and Kim Yang-sang, who crushed it, became King Seondeok; the direct line of King Muyeol ended and Silla’s Late Period began.

People who appear alongside

  • King HyegongAD 780

    36th king of Silla, enthroned at eight and killed amid aristocratic revolts, ending the direct line of King Muyeol

  • King WonseongAD 798

    38th king of Silla (Kim Gyeong-sin), who created the Dokseo Sampumgwa to select officials by their reading of the Confucian classics

  • Kim Ji-jeongAD 780

    Silla true-bone noble whose revolt of 780 besieged the palace, in the course of which King Hyegong was killed