Chairman
"Cavalrymen occupied a large proportion in the army of Koguryo, and its soldiers were skillful at cavalry battles. It is not accidental that books from olden times portrayed the cavalrymen of Koguryo, charging forward clad in armour with their spears or swords raised, as very formidable beings."
Among the cavalrymen of Koguryo, the power with the history of 1 000 years in the East, there were warriors, who were heavily armoured both men and the horses.
In Koguryo period, the horse clad in armour was called "Kaema" and the soldier who rode that kind of horse was called "Kaema" warrior.
On the mural painting of Koguryo tomb, there painted a picture of a hero who is trying to ride the horse and the writing next to the picture that says "the hero of the tomb trying to ride Kaema".
Koguryo tomb murals that have armoured cavalryman are King Kogukwon Tomb, Masongu Tomb No.1, Thonggu Tomb No.12, Yaksuri Mural Tomb, Three-room Tomb, Tokhungri Mural Tomb, Kaema Tomb etc.
Among them, King Kogukwon Tomb is the earliest one as it dates back to the 4th century AD. The weapons of armoured cavalryman in this painting are already fully equipped, therefore, the emergence of the armoured cavalrymen dates far earlier than that.
In the history book "the Chronicles of Three States ", the one that tells the stories of Koguryo dynasty, tells that in 246 AD, King Tongchon deployed 5 000 armoured cavalrymen (cavalry that is comprised of Kaema warriors) to the battle against invading army. ("the Chronicles of Three States" Volume17, Koguryo dynasty 5, King Tongchon)
So it is believed that armoured cavalryman first appeared in the 3rd century AD.
The warrior riding an armoured horse, covers his entire body with strong equipment like a helmet, a suit of armour and shoes made from gold and copper.
The helmet is designed to protect the top, back and both sides of head.
The suit of armour is comprised of long necked and sleeved top and the trousers that cover the ankle.
The shoes are made from gold and copper and the sole has many iron spikes.
The equipment for armoured cavalryman were most well-portrayed in the mural tomb of armoured cavalry.
The equipment for the horse of Koguryo are largely comprised of horse helmet, horse armour and horse ornament.
The horse helmet is largely divided into the main body and the protection board which is attached to the main body. The main body of the helmet is specially designed and assembled into its shape to cover the top and both sides of the horse head. The protection board is designed to protect the face of the rider and the ears of the horse. It is usually semi-circle or three leafed shape which has a broad board in the middle and small boards at both sides. In the three leafed protection board, the middle part is for protecting the face of the rider and the small boards on both sides of it is for protecting the ears of the horse.
The horse armour is comprised of several different parts and each part can be worn individually.
It is comprised of neck armour, chest armour that cover the chest and shoulder, body armour which covers the back and the hip armour which covers the back part.
The horse ornament is at the back part of the saddle and it's for decoration. They were usually fixed in iron frames on the saddle with several shapes like flag, fan, the branch of bamboo and the tails of animals. The horse ornament served the function of decoration as well as the practical function of covering the rear of the rider at the battle.
The materials used in making horse helmet and horse armour were leather and iron.
In the murals of Koguryo tombs, the horse helmet made of leather was designed to cover the top and sides of horse as a whole as the leather is such a elastic material. But the iron helmet had many curves since it was specially designed according to the shape of the horse head.
Horse armour is also divided into the one that is made of leather and the one made of iron and we can distinguish them in the mural clearly. Leather armour is made up of somewhat large pieces and therefore each piece is drawn relatively bigger than the iron armour and sometimes the whole armour is painted in unicolour. For example the leather horse armour painted in the mural of the tomb of King Kogukwon, the boundaries of neck armour, chest armour, body armour are drawn and each piece is painted in unicolour.
On the other hand, in the picture of the iron armour, small metal scales on a piece of armour relics are vividly drawn and we can even identify the decoration line around each metal scale and the air holes at the centre of each piece.
Horse helmet and armour were made of iron and leather in the early period and gradually they were made entirely iron.
Until the 4th century AD leather and iron were equally used as the material for making armour and helmet and by the 5th century AD, iron became the main material for making them. In the picture of a long procession drawn in the tomb of King Kogukwon and the picture of armoured cavalryman picture of Yaksuri tomb mural that were drawn in the middle of the 4th century, the proportions of leather armour and iron armour are about the same. Meanwhile in the picture of armoured cavalrymen procession of Tokhungri tomb mural, which was drawn in the early 5th century, only iron armoured cavalrymen are drawn.
In the mural paintings of Koguryo tombs the battle scenes of cavalrymen equipped with armoured weapons are vividly portrayed.
For example, in the mural of Three-room tomb there portrayed the fighting scene of two armoured cavalrymen.
The main mission of armoured cavalrymen in the battle was to play the role of armoured forces which is similar to tanks and armoured vehicles in the modern warfare.
In most cases, battles in the medieval period were fought in certain arrays and it was crucial to protect men and horses from the showering of arrows and spears in order to attack enemies' arrays.
In the battles, thickly armoured cavalrymen with long spears first shattered the enemy arrays breaking through the showering of arrows and spears in the van and light cavalrymen with swords and short spears followed sweeping the enemies in chaos. This was their tactics.
Koguryo people defended hundreds of thousands or millions of invaders relying on the impregnable castles built on the mountains but in crucial moments, they organized attack forces with strong armoured cavalrymen as the core and dealt severe blows to the enemies.
Therefore armoured cavalrymen of Koguryo charging forward clad in armour with their spears or swords raised were formidable beings to the enemy.
Koguryo displayed its might as a power with a history of 1 000 years in the East since it had patriotic people who regarded fighting for their motherland risking their lives as an honour together with strong cavalry equipped with the most developed armoured weapons at that time.
