The adoption of Confucian administrative norms and Silla's closer ties with Tang China demanded a highly educated corps of scholar-officials.

In the early years following unification head rank six students matriculated at Silla's own National Confucian Academy, established in the late 7th century.

By the 9th century, however, ambitious Silla students aspired to seek their education at the very source, in the Tang capital of Chang'an (present day Xi'an).

Within the decade Ch'oe did indeed pass the highest of China's civil service exams, the coveted jinshi (進士) degree, and was duly appointed to a prefectural office in the south.

Ch'oe also won merits for his service under the Tang general Gao Pian in his struggle against the Huang Chao rebellion, a failed uprising which nonetheless ushered in the final years of the crippled Chinese dynasty.

The Samguk Sagi again tells us that Ch'oe - the consummate Confucian - was thinking of his ageing parents when he requested permission from the Tang emperor to return to Silla.

Though in 893 he was appointed chief envoy of a diplomatic mission to Tang China, famine and subsequent upheavals in Silla prevented his journey.

Ch'oe was not the first of the yukdupum Confucian literati to attempt to foster reform in the Silla state, however his case is one of the most prominent to come down to us in recorded Korean history.

As the Samguk Sagi relates, "Living in retirement, Ch'oe took up the free life of a mountain sage, building pavilions along rivers and shores, planting pines and bamboo, reading books and writing history, and composing odes to nature.

Haeundae District of modern Busan takes its name from Ch'oe's pen-name Haeun as he purportedly was enamored of the location and so built a pavilion there overlooking the beach.

Cock Forest (Gyerim) being an ancient sobriquet for Silla and Snow Goose Pass (Gongnyeong) being the ancestral home of Wang Kŏn, and by association the Goryeo Dynasty.

King Hyeonjong (r. 1009–1031), recognizing Ch'oe's Confucian accomplishments, granted him the posthumous title of Marquis of Bright Culture (문창후; 文昌侯).

On the other hand, as time passed Ch'oe also came to be revered as a poet, due in great part to the relatively large number of his poems that have survived, all written in Chinese.

Besides his lost works like Jewang yeondaeryeok (Chronological History of Monarchs) and others, Ch'oe's surviving writings may be divided roughly into four main categories: official prose (to include memorials, dispatches, etc.

during his service both in Tang China and Silla); private prose (on such topics as tea drinking and natural scenery); poetry; and stele inscriptions.

Shortly following Ch'oe's return to Silla in 885 he compiled his various writings, both official and unofficial (to include some poetry) and presented it to King Heongang.

What does survive is one part entitled the Gyeweon Pilgyeong (계원필경, 桂苑筆耕, "Plowing the Cassia Grove with a Writing Brush"), which is ten volumes made up primarily of official letters and memorials composed while in the service of Tang.

[4] Likewise, in the early 20th century Ch'oe was put forward as the author of the Yuseolgyeonghak daejang (유설경학대장; 類說經學隊仗), a Confucian pedagogical work.