Biryu- Korean FigureMortal
Also known as: 비류 and 沸流
Description
Salt wind and brackish marshes greeted the prince who chose the sea over the river. Biryu led his followers to Michuhol hoping to found a kingdom, but the land refused him, and he died of shame while his brother Onjo built Baekje at Wiryeseong.
Mythology & Lore
Departure from Goguryeo
The Samguk Sagi preserves two accounts of Biryu's parentage, reflecting the complexity of Baekje's founding traditions. In one version, Biryu and his younger brother Onjo are the sons of Jumong, founder of Goguryeo, by his second wife Soseono, the daughter of a powerful Jolbon chieftain whose wealth had helped Jumong establish his kingdom. In another tradition, the brothers are sons of Soseono's first husband Wutae (Yutae), making them Jumong's stepsons rather than his biological heirs. In either account, the crisis arrives when Yuri, Jumong's son by his first wife from Dongbuyeo, travels south and presents himself at the Goguryeo court. Jumong names Yuri his heir, and Soseono, recognizing that her sons will never hold power in Goguryeo, gathers her followers and departs southward with Biryu and Onjo and ten ministers who had served under Jumong.
The two brothers disagreed about where to settle. Onjo's ministers counseled him to establish his capital at Wiryeseong, south of the Han River, where the terrain offered natural defenses and fertile land. Biryu, however, insisted on Michuhol, drawn to its coastal position near the western sea. Despite his ministers' objections that the marshy coastal ground was unsuitable for agriculture, Biryu led his own followers westward toward the shore.
The Failed Kingdom at Michuhol
At Michuhol, identified with the area around modern Incheon, Biryu's settlement quickly foundered. The saltwater marshes could not sustain crops, the ground was waterlogged and inhospitable, and the community could not achieve the stability needed to grow into a kingdom. Meanwhile, word reached Biryu that Onjo's settlement at Wiryeseong was prospering, its people well-fed and its defenses secure. Confronted with the consequences of his choice, Biryu died of shame and regret, a prince undone not by enemies but by the land itself. After his death, the people of Michuhol abandoned their failed settlement and migrated to join Onjo's community, merging into the population that would become the kingdom of Baekje. The Samguk Sagi thus frames Biryu's tragedy as the necessary counterpart to Onjo's success, the failed branch whose people ultimately strengthened the kingdom founded by his younger brother.