Joseon

• 1. Introduction

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  Joseon, officially Great Joseon and also romanized as Chosun, was a Korean kingdom that ruled for 505 years. In the 19th century, Western writers gave it a name that stuck: the hermit kingdom. The label came from an increasingly harsh policy of keeping foreigners out. Yet the same kingdom left a deep mark on the Korea of today. Its administrative divisions, its bureaucracy, its etiquette, its social attitudes and the modern Korean language and dialects all descend from Joseon. How did a general turned back from a border campaign build a state that lasted this long? What did its kings do to each other, and to their own ministers? How did the kingdom survive foreign invasions that nearly toppled it, and then enjoy a long peace? And what finally pulled it apart?

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• 2. A Borrowed Name

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  In 1388, a Ming messenger arrived at the court of Goryeo with a demand for the territory of the former Ssangseong Prefecture. Mongol forces had seized that land, and Goryeo had reclaimed it in 1356 as the Yuan dynasty weakened. The demand caused an uproar. General Ch'oe Yŏng seized the moment to argue for an invasion of the Ming-controlled Liaodong Peninsula, and General Yi Sŏnggye was chosen to lead the attack.

  Yi Sŏnggye revolted instead. He swept back to the capital Kaegyŏng, now Kaesong, and overthrew King U in favor of the king's son, Chang. Chŏng Tojŏn, a friend of Yi and a Neo-Confucian scholar, saw an opening to reform the corrupt nobles and the Buddhist community. After a failed restoration, Chŏng killed U and Chang. He then forced a royal named Wang Yo onto the throne as King Gongyang.

  In 1392, Yi eliminated Chŏng Mong-ju, a highly respected leader of the Goryeo loyalists. He dethroned Gongyang, exiled him to Wonju and took the crown himself. Goryeo had lasted 474 years.

  At first, Yi meant to keep the name Goryeo and simply swap in his own royal line. The Gwonmun nobles, weakened but still influential, kept threatening mutiny and kept swearing allegiance to the House of Wang. The reformed court concluded that a new dynastic title was needed. Yi, now known as Taejo, weighed two names: Hwaryeong, his birthplace, and Joseon. The emperor of the neighboring Ming endorsed the second. Taejo chose Joseon as a tribute to the ancient Korean state of Gojoseon, and he moved the capital to Hanseong, modern Seoul.

  Yi Pangwŏn, Taejo's fifth son by Queen Sinui, had done the most to carry his father to power. Even so, in 1392 Chief State Councillor Chŏng Tojŏn and Nam Ŭn used their influence to have Yi Pangsŏk named crown prince. Pangsŏk was Taejo's eighth son and the second son of Queen Sindeok. The quarrel was also about the shape of the state. Chŏng Tojŏn, who laid down more of Joseon's ideological, institutional and legal foundations than anyone, pictured ministers appointed by the king running the country. Yi Pangwŏn wanted an absolute monarchy ruled directly by the king. With Taejo's support, Chŏng kept trimming the royal family's power, barring princes from politics and trying to abolish their private armies.

  Queen Sindeok died suddenly, and Taejo was still mourning when Yi Pangwŏn struck first. In 1398 he raided the palace and killed Chŏng Tojŏn and his supporters. He also killed Sindeok's two sons, his own half-brothers, including the crown prince. The episode is remembered as the First Strife of Princes. Appalled that his sons would kill each other, and worn down by grief, Taejo abdicated and crowned his second son Yi Bang-gwa as King Jeongjong. Jeongjong moved the capital back to Kaegyŏng, where he is believed to have felt far more comfortable.

  Taejo refused to hand over the royal seal that marked the legitimacy of a king, but Taejong went ahead anyway. He ended the right of high officials and aristocrats to keep private armies, which cut off their ability to raise large revolts and swelled the national military. He revised the laws on land taxation and on recording subjects, and the discovery of hidden land doubled national income. In 1399 he had played a part in scrapping the Dopyeong Assembly, the council that had dominated court power in Goryeo's last years. In its place stood the State Council, a body centered on the king and his edicts. A new decree then made every State Council decision valid only with the king's approval. Ministers could no longer settle matters among themselves by debate.

  Taejong also created the Sinmun Office to hear complaints from subjects who felt exploited by officials or aristocrats. He left most of Chŏng Tojŏn's reforms intact. He executed or exiled many of the supporters who had helped him to the throne. To limit the influence of in-laws, he killed all four of his wife's brothers. He also killed Sim On, father-in-law of his own son Sejong.

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• 3. Alphabet and Purges

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  In August 1418, Sejong ascended the throne, two months after Taejong abdicated. In May 1419, advised by his father, he launched the Gihae Eastern Expedition against the waegu, coastal pirates operating from Tsushima Island. By September the daimyō of Tsushima, Sadamori, had capitulated. A generation later, the Treaty of Gyehae of 1443 let Tsushima send fifty trading ships per year to Korea. In exchange, the daimyō sent tribute and helped stop pirate raids on Korean ports.

  On the northern frontier, Sejong set up four forts and six posts to protect his people from the Jurchens of Manchuria, who later became the Manchus. In 1433 he sent the official Kim Chongsŏ north. Kim's campaign captured several castles and pushed Korean territory out to roughly the present border between North Korea and China. The reign also saw advances in natural science, agriculture, literature, traditional Chinese medicine and engineering, and these earned him the title Sejong the Great.

  The contribution people remember most is Hangul, the Korean alphabet, created in 1443. The scholarly elite rejected it at the time and kept writing with Hanja. Only in the latter half of the 20th century did Hangul overtake Hanja in everyday writing.

  Sejong's son Munjong carried on the work but died of illness in 1452, two years after his coronation. His successor was Danjong, aged twelve. Princess Gyeonghye served as his guardian alongside two regents, and she and Kim Chongsŏ tried to strengthen royal authority. Danjong's uncle, Grand Prince Suyang, gained control of the government. In 1455 he deposed his nephew and became the seventh king as Sejo. Six ministers loyal to Danjong tried to assassinate Sejo and restore the boy. Sejo executed them and had Danjong killed in exile.

  Sejo did build things. He let the government count the population exactly and mobilize troops effectively, revised the land ordinance and encouraged the publication of books. He also compiled the Grand Code for State Administration, the first written form of constitutional law in Korea. Yet he dismantled much of what Sejong and Munjong had laid down, including the Jiphyeonjeon. The favor he showed to the ministers who helped him take the throne fed corruption in the higher ranks.

  Seongjong came to the throne after Sejo's weak son Yejong died in 1469, only two years into his reign. Seongjong's reign brought a growing economy and brought in the Sarim, Neo-Confucian scholars he encouraged to enter court politics. He founded Hongmun'gwan, a royal library and advisory council, and published many books on geography, ethics and other fields. In 1491 General Heo Jong led a campaign against the Jurchens. The defeated Udige clan retreated north of the Yalu River.

  Seongjong's son Yeonsangun took the throne in 1494 and is often counted the worst tyrant in Joseon's history. His literati purges ran from 1498 to 1506. His behavior turned erratic when he learned that his biological mother was not Queen Junghyeon but the deposed Queen Yun. She had been forced to drink poison after poisoning one of Seongjong's concubines out of jealousy. Shown clothing said to be stained with her blood, he beat two concubines who had accused her and pushed his grandmother, Grand Queen Dowager Insu, who died afterward.

  He executed officials who had backed Queen Yun's death, along with their families. He also executed Sarim scholars for writing phrases critical of Sejo's seizure of the throne. He seized a thousand women from the provinces to serve as palace entertainers and took over the Sungkyunkwan as a pleasure ground. He abolished the Office of Censors, whose job was to criticize the king, and abolished Hongmungwan too. When commoners used Hangul on posters to mock him, he banned it. After twelve years, a coup removed him in 1506 and put his half-brother Jungjong on the throne.

  Jungjong was weak because of how he came to power, but his minister Cho Kwangjo, charismatic leader of the Sarim, drove real reform. Cho created a local self-government system called hyangyak. He proposed a land reform that would spread land among farmers more equally and cap how much land and how many slaves a person could own. He spread Confucian writings in vernacular translation and sought to shrink the bureaucracy. According to the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, no official dared take a bribe while he was Inspector General, because he applied the law strictly.

  The people liked the reforms. The conservative officials who had helped place Jungjong on the throne hated them, and they plotted to make the king doubt Cho's loyalty. Cho Kwangjo was executed in the third literati purge, and most of his measures died with him. For nearly fifty years afterward, court politics were scarred by bloody struggles among factions backing rival consorts and princes.

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• 4. Factions and Invasions

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  In 1589, Chŏng Yŏrip, an Easterner, was accused of conspiring to start a rebellion. He had formed a society whose members also received military training to fight the waegu. Historians still dispute the group's real nature, since it reflected a desire for a classless society and spread throughout Honam. Chŏng Ch'ŏl, head of the Westerner faction, led the investigation. He used it to purge any Easterner with the slightest tie to Chŏng Yŏrip, and about 1000 Easterners were killed or exiled. It was one of the bloodiest purges of the dynasty.

  The Easterner and Westerner factions had grown out of the Sarim, who took control of the government under King Seonjo after years of defeats. Easterners mainly followed Yi Hwang and Jo Sik, while Westerners followed Yi I and Song Hon. Within decades the Easterners split into Southerners and Northerners. In the 17th century the Westerners permanently divided into the Noron and the Soron. The factions differed over interpretations of Confucian philosophy, depending on whose teaching they followed. Each change of regime brought treason charges and a new cycle of revenge.

  The Joseon navy had a narrow job: securing maritime trade against the waegu. It used gunpowder weapons such as cannons and singijeon fire arrows launched from hwacha. In the 1590s Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who was plotting the conquest of Ming China with Portuguese guns, invaded Korea as a stepping stone. A divided court, a misjudgment of Japanese strength and failed diplomacy left Joseon poorly prepared. Superior Japanese firearms put most of the south under occupation within months, and Hanseong and Pyongyang both fell.

  Admiral Yi Sun-sin slowed the invasion by destroying the Japanese invasion fleet. His decisive naval victories left the sea routes in Korean hands and hurt Japanese supply lines. Guerrilla resistance on land helped as well. In 1593 Ming China sent a large force that pushed the Japanese back together with the Koreans. During the war the Koreans developed powerful firearms and the turtle ships. Victory came at a deep price, and relations between Korea and Japan stayed fully suspended until 1609.

  Nurhaci, chieftain of the Jianzhou Jurchens, was uniting the tribes of Manchuria into a coalition that his son Hong Taiji would rename the Manchus. After Nurhaci declared the Seven Grievances against Ming China in 1618, he and the Ming fought several times. Both sides asked Gwanghaegun, who reigned from 1608 to 1623, for help, and he tried to stay neutral. Most of his officials opposed him for not backing the Ming, which had saved Joseon from Hideyoshi. In 1623 Gwanghaegun was deposed, and Injo took the throne and banished his predecessor's supporters.

  Injo reversed course and openly supported the Ming. In 1624 a rebellion by the military commander Yi Kwal wrecked Joseon's northern defenses, and afterward Injo kept forces near the capital for stability. In 1627 a Jurchen army of 30,000 under Nurhaci's nephew Amin overran the border. Northern yangban who had supported Gwanghaegun assisted the campaign. The resulting treaty forced Joseon to accept brotherly relations with the Jurchen kingdom.

  Injo persisted in his anti-Manchu policy, so in 1636 the Qing emperor Hong Taiji sent a punitive force of 120,000 men. Defeated, Injo had to break with the Ming and recognize the Qing as suzerain. His successor Hyojong, who reigned from 1649 to 1659, tried to raise an army to keep his enemies at bay and even to conquer the Qing for revenge. He never managed to act on his plans.

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• 5. Famine and Learning

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  In 1666, the Dutchman Hendrick Hamel left Korea after more than thirteen years of captivity. His departure came during the reign of Hyeonjong, whose chief minister Kim Yuk carried out reforms that proved highly advantageous both to state revenues and to the peasants. Those reforms drew on Silhak, or Practical Learning. Its early scholars called for overhauling the civil service examination and taxation, advancing natural sciences and improving farming methods. Their aim was to rebuild a society devastated by two invasions.

  From 1670 to 1671, cold weather and poor harvests brought a devastating famine. The death toll is hard to measure, but hundreds of thousands of Koreans may have died. Scholars estimate that the Kyŏngsin Famine and the Eulbyeong famine of 1695-1696 together may have killed 23-33% of the population. The countryside stayed scarred, and population growth remained depressed for most of the 18th century.

  Under the kings Sukjong and Gyeongjong, factional conflict grew especially fierce after the Yesong debate. Rapid reversals of the ruling faction, called hwanguk, became commonplace. Early in his reign, Sukjong let the Southerners push the Westerners from power. Believing that factions weakened the king, he then began flipping the ruling faction again and again, and the flips produced bloody killings. After three bloody hwanguk, the Southerners lost their influence at the center. The ruling Westerners then split into the hard-line Noron, who rejected the Southerners, and the moderate Soron, who were friendly to them. Each side now viewed the others as people to eliminate.

  Yeongjo, who reigned from 1724 to 1776, and then his grandson Jeongjong's namesake-free successor Jeongjo, who reigned from 1776 to 1800, answered with the Tangpyeongchaek, a policy of balance and equality between the factions. Together the two kings led a second renaissance of the kingdom. Jeongjo founded Kyujanggak, a royal library meant to raise Joseon's cultural and political standing and to recruit gifted officers. He opened government posts to people who would once have been barred by social status. Many Silhak scholars supported him, and popular culture grew during his reign. Silhak scholars also urged individuals to reflect on state traditions and lifestyle. That began studies of Korea's own history, geography, epigraphy and language.

  In the 18th and 19th centuries, Korean envoys known as Yeonhaengsa carried Qing culture back home. Progressive intellectuals argued that Joseon should adopt Qing and Western culture by way of the Qing. They were drawn to Chinese construction techniques, wagon use and the ondol heating system. Brick fascinated them most, and in the end they succeeded in popularizing it. Pak Chiwŏn was among the first to build brick Chinese-style buildings, in Anui in Gyeongsang Province and in Gyedong, Seoul, near the close of the 18th century. After the Suwon Hwaseong Fortress went up under Qing influence, Qing-style architecture spread more widely.

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• 6. How Joseon Governed

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  More than 1,300 accounts in the Ilseongnok record commoners who struck a gong or drum in front of the palace, or along a royal procession, to appeal directly to the king. This oral petition system, the gyeokjaeng, let even illiterate subjects be heard. A written petition system called sangeon also existed. The king held absolute authority on paper, but tradition, earlier kings' precedents, the Kyŏngguk taejŏn and Confucian teaching bound him in practice. Officials were expected to steer him back if he erred. Natural disasters were taken as signs of the king's failings. During a severe drought or a run of disasters, the king often formally invited criticism, and critics were generally immune from prosecution.

  Government officials held one of 18 ranks, from first senior down to ninth junior. Those of first to third senior rank wore red robes, those from third junior to sixth junior wore blue, and the rest wore green. Holding such a post brought yangban status, a hereditary nobility lasting three generations. The route was the gwageo examination, which came in literary, military and miscellaneous kinds. The literary route was the most prestigious, and many key posts, including all Censorate posts, were open only to those who took it.

  The literary route involved four tests, and passing all of them was required. Thirty-three candidates then sat a final exam before the king. The top scorer was appointed straight to sixth junior rank, a jump of six ranks. The next two went to seventh junior rank, and the next seven to eighth junior rank. The remaining 23 were given ninth junior rank, the lowest.

  At the top sat the State Council, the highest deliberative body, led by the Chief, Left and Right State Councillors, all of first senior rank. Its power ran inversely to the king's. Under it, the Six Ministries formed the chief executive body, and the Ministry of Personnel often acted as de facto head as the council faded. The ministry offices stood where Gwanghwamun Plaza stands today, so the road was nicknamed Yukjo Street.

  The Three Offices acted as the press of the era, checking the king and officials. They had no authority to decide policy, but their voice in debate carried weight. Their officials tended to be young and low in rank, yet they enjoyed special privileges and prestige. Censors, for instance, were allowed to drink during working hours because their job was to criticize the king. The Office of the Inspector General watched officials for corruption, with 30 largely independent officers under its head. The Office of Censors, with five officials, could ask the king to withdraw a decree it judged improper. Together the two were called Yangsa, meaning Both Offices.

  The third office, Hongmun'gwan, ran the royal library and held daily lessons called gyeongyeon, where officials discussed history and Confucian philosophy with the king. Those talks often turned to current politics, which gave its officials real influence. Serving in the Three Offices was the fastest route to high posts.

  Hong Guk-yeong under Jeongjo and Han Myŏnghoe under Sejo both served as Chief Royal Secretary, the official closest to the king, and were the most powerful officials of their times. At the Sungkyunkwan, classes of usually 200 students lived in a residential hall under strict rules. Their collective statements and demonstrations could sway policy. To watch the provinces, the king sometimes sent a secret royal inspector, the Amhaengeosa, traveling incognito. Such inspectors were generally young, low-ranking officials who could dismiss corrupt local officers. The eight provinces they toured kept the same boundaries from 1413 to 1895.

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• 7. Ming Fathers and Qing Neighbors

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  Joseon joined the Imperial Chinese tributary system in 1401. Taejo's new regime lacked a royal bloodline and wanted outside recognition, and accepting the system was the only path to diplomatic and trade relations with China. China played the big brother, and Korea held the highest position among the tributary states in return for accepting the role of younger brother. The policy of serving the great, called sadae, treated China as the center of a Confucian moral universe. By the early 1500s, Joseon elites had begun to see the Ming emperor as a ritual father figure. Because filial piety was considered irrevocable, this bond was held to be firmer than loyalty to any ruler. The historian Choe Bu called his country and the Ming one family.

  Joseon kings sometimes sent more tribute missions than required, since China was bound to answer with gifts worth more than the tribute. They also held memorial services for deceased Ming emperors to bolster their legitimacy at home. The Qing received a very different welcome. One Korean envoy refused to deliver a letter in which the Qing called their ruler emperor, and another was beaten for refusing to attend the Qing emperor's coronation. After the Ming fell, in 1704, Joseon built the Taebodan, the Altar of Great Gratitude, in a palace courtyard. The Mandongmyo, an Eastern Shrine, honored selected Ming emperors at a private academy.

  A text of 1636 attributed to King Injo called the Ming "the mother and father of our country". Joseon, he said, would not abandon its loyalty even if the country disappeared. The Qing watched Korea closely for signs of disloyalty, and they sent envoys to investigate even slight disturbances. Yet Korea never took substantial action against them, and it stayed inactive even during the Revolt of the Three Feudatories of 1673-1681. The Qing eased their early pressure with a policy called Dehua, moral transformation. It meant returning hostages, cutting the annual tribute set in 1637 and treating the Korean king and envoys with great courtesy. The Kangxi Emperor appreciated Joseon's extreme respect in diplomatic etiquette.

  Then, during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, the Northern Learning School arose in Joseon, arguing that Korea should learn from the Qing to become prosperous and powerful. Its rise marked a turning point. In the later years of Jeongjo's reign, the Veritable Records began calling the Qing Zhongguo, meaning China, instead of Qing state. Jeongjo himself referred to the Siku Quanshu of Zhongguo. By the First Opium War of 1839-1842, Korean envoy reports commonly used the same term.

  A treaty with Britain in 1883 shows how far this had gone. It was signed in the 492nd year of the founding of Great Joseon, which it equated with the 9th year of China's Guangxu Emperor's reign.

  Japan was handled under a different principle, gyorin, meaning neighborly relations. Joseon sent a diplomatic mission to Japan in 1402, and the shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was reportedly impressed. Not fewer than 70 missions went to Japan before the Edo period began. The shoguns held real power while Japan's emperors were figureheads, so Joseon's communications presented the shoguns as Tycoon of Japan. That kept clear of conflict with a Sinocentric system in which only the Chinese emperor was emperor.

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• 8. The Last Decades

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  In 1800 the young Sunjo succeeded his father Jeongjo, and the Noron seized power under the regency of Queen Dowager Jeongsun. They began a persecution of Catholics. After the dowager died, the Norons were gradually ousted and the Andong Kim clan, led by Kim Jo-sun, father of Queen Sunwon, rose. The Andong Kims came to dominate the court, and the era of Sedo Politics, government by royal in-laws, began. Kings in this era had no monarchic authority. The in-law lineage monopolized vital positions and even intervened in the succession. Bribes bought nominally high ranks, and even low posts were bought and sold. The period lasted 60 years and brought severe poverty and ceaseless rebellions.

  Gojong took the throne in 1863, and his father, Heungseon Daewongun, ruled for him until he reached adulthood. The regent drove the policy of isolation and persecuted native and foreign Catholics. That led directly to the unsuccessful French Campaign against Korea in 1866. The regent also pushed a major effort to restore the dilapidated Gyeongbokgung, the seat of royal authority. From 1862 to 1864 the Donghak leader Cho'e Cheu gathered a peasant army to take over parts of the south until he was executed in 1864. In 1871 American and Korean forces clashed when the United States tried gunboat diplomacy after the General Sherman incident of 1866.

  In 1873 Gojong announced he would rule himself, and the Daewongun retired. Queen Min, later called Empress Myeongseong, became a power at court and placed her family in high posts. Japan, having acquired Western military technology after the Meiji Restoration, forced Joseon to sign the Treaty of Ganghwa in 1876. It opened three ports to trade and gave the Japanese extraterritoriality. The Royal Navy briefly occupied Port Hamilton in 1885.

  Many Koreans despised foreign influence and the corruption and oppression of their own court. In 1881 the Byeolgigun, a modern elite unit, was formed with Japanese trainers. Other soldiers had their salaries held back, and in 1882 they rioted, attacked the Japanese officers and forced the queen to flee to the countryside. That was the Imo Incident. China abandoned its hands-off policy afterward and stationed troops in Seoul. The Qing sent two advisers, the German Paul Georg von Möllendorff and the diplomat Ma Jianzhong. Von Möllendorff headed a new Korean Maritime Customs Service, and Yuan Shikai trained a new unit, the Chingunyeong. In October 1882 the China-Korea Treaty left Gojong unable to appoint diplomats without Chinese approval. In 1884 China gained a concession at Incheon.

  On the 11th of January 1894, the peasant leader Jeon Bong-jun defeated the local ruler Jo Byong-gap at the battle of Gobu, and Jo's properties were handed out to the peasants. By May the Donghak Peasant Revolution had reached Jeonju. The Joseon government asked the Qing for help, and the Qing sent 3,000 troops. The rebels negotiated a truce. Japan saw the Qing presence as a threat and sent 8,000 troops of its own. On the 8th of June 1894 they seized the Royal Palace in Seoul and installed a pro-Japanese government. The Sino-Japanese conflict became a war in 1894-1895, fought largely in Korea.

  In 1895 Japanese agents killed Empress Myeongseong in Gyeongbokgung. She had tried to counter Japanese interference and was considering turning to Russia and China for support. The Japanese minister to Korea, Lieutenant-General Viscount Miura Gorō, almost certainly orchestrated the plot. That year the Qing accepted defeat in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which guaranteed Korea's independence from China. It was also a step toward Japanese dominance in Korea.

  In 1897 the court declared the Korean Empire and launched the Gwangmu Reform, and Gojong took the title of Emperor. Technically that year ended the Joseon period, though the same dynasty still reigned. Japan pushed back the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in 1904, and the Treaty of Portsmouth ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Korea became a Japanese protectorate that year, with Prince Itō as first Resident-General. The Korean independence activist An Jung-geun assassinated Itō at the train station in Harbin in 1909. In 1910 the Japanese Empire annexed Korea.

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