Hyegong of Silla
ruler of Silla
Hyegong (758–780), personal name Kim Kŏn-un, was the 36th ruler of the Korean kingdom of Silla. Being the only child between King Gyeongdeok and Lady Manwol (Queen Gyeongsu), Hyegong was the last descendant of King Muyeol to sit on the throne. Because of this, Hyegong's reign is often regarded as the end of the middle period of the Silla state.
Hyegong became king at the age of 8, and did not adapt well to the role. According to the Samguk sagi, Hyegong's dissolute life as a young monarch kept the palace in disarray. They faced rebellions led by high officials (Kim Daegong and others) in 768, 770 and 775. Faced in 780 with another rebellion led by his ichan Kim Chi-jŏng, the monarch dispatched sangdaedeung Kim Yang-sang to put down the uprising, but the rebel forces managed to storm the palace and assassinated Hyegong and other royal family members. Kim Yang-sang, who was an eleventh-generation descendant of King Naemul, then took the throne as King Seondeok.
Records show that Hyegong's behaviour was effeminate and showed either homosexual or bisexual tendency. Records have traditionally described the monarch as "a man by appearance but a woman by nature".
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hyegong of Silla” as ruler of Silla. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as ruler of Silla. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q496772. VIAF identifies the subject as 7265151353543252720005. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hyegong of Silla” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.