The king dies.... seeds of discord sown.... the new king.... extensive reforms.... party changes.... strife.... a great reformer.... the ajuns checked.... abuses remedied.... a convent broken up.... various reforms.... revenue.... forestry.... memorialists rebuked.... honest examinations.... the people cared for.... the census.... numerous reforms.... qualities of a good prefect.... the king dies.... a noble record.... the new king.... a bad outlook.... party strife.... census.... Japanese settlement at Fusan.... ceaseless quarrels.... a minister falls.... wholesale execution.... plot and counter-plot.... reforms in the navy.... calamities.... reign of terror.... Roman Catholics.... trouble brewing.... change of party.... unutterable cruelty.... the queen deposed.... concubine made queen.... a great statesman dies of poison.

In the tenth year of his reign, 1659, having exposed himself to the sun and rain while sacrificing to heaven to secure the cessation of a great famine that was on the land, the king was taken ill, an abscessabscess broke out on his temple and after a short illness he expired. In connection with his death arose a contention that was destined to cause the death of many men. The mother of the dead king was still living. She had worn mourning for three years after the death of her elder son, and now the question was whether she should assume it for an equal length of time for this her second son. Song Si-ryul and Song Chun-gil argued that one year only was sufficient. The other side was taken by Yun Hyu and the debate was fierce and long. The classics were ransacked for proof texts in support of either contention. The Prime Minister decided in favor of the shorter term and the Queen Mother wore mourning for but a year. Song Si-ryul also laid up wrath against himself by neglecting to have the king’s body wrapped tightly in bandages, until it had swollen so that it required two planks joined together to form the bottom of his coffin. This was considered a great misfortune and ere a year had passed Song was obliged to retire precipitately to the country to avoid beingbeing mobbed for the offense.

The new king entered upon the duties of his exalted position as a mere lad, in 1660. His posthumous title is Hyon-jong Ta-wang. His first duty was to give his father burial. The geomancers said he ought to be buried on a site near the town of Su-wun, but the courtiers thought that was too near the main road, so a place was selected outside the East Gate. This first year was one of reform. The penalties for murder were too small. If a high class man committed murder he could get off with a hundred blows and ineligibility for office for a short time, but now the king, with the advice of the court, made all high class murderers permanently ineligible for office. It must be borne in mind that the demarcation between the upper and lower classes was much more distinct in those days than it is at present.

Looking carefully into the condition of things, the king found many abuses that required correction. He ordered that the army be better clothed; he examined into the cases of many of the prisoners of state and liberated not a few; he remitted the tax on hemp and ginseng in Ham-gyung Province; he remitted the tax on the gold mines at Tan-ch‘un which had amounted to a thousand ounces a year; he lowered the land tax in Ch’ung-ch’ung Province. These voluntary retrenchments called for economy at the capital and the king discontinued the royal stables, to meet the falling off in revenue.

A word is necessary here as to the complexion of the political parties. The old Tong-in had gone to pieces and in its place we find the Nam-in, the So-ron and the Su-buk parties. We have in all then the

Among these the names of the Nam-in and No-ron were the most prominent and their leaders, Hu Mok and Song Si-ryul were deadly enemies of each other. There was no intermarriage between these different parties. Each had its separate color. The Nam-in was red, the So-ron blue, the No-ron white and the Su-buk black. It was not the men but the women who wore these distinctive colors and even to this day it is common to see the party colors in the collars of women’s coats. The men were distinguished by the shape of the coat collar. The No-rons and Nam-ins had a collar cut square at the bottom; the So-rons had a bulging curve at the bottom and the Su-buk had a plain curve. These things sound childish but in those days they meant life and death. The number of men who have been sacrificed upon the altar of party strife mounts up into the hundreds of thousands. The violent and unreasonable strife between them prevented anything like concerted action when the country was threatened from without. They made it impossible for any man to be judged according to his true merits. They effectually blocked the efforts put forth by honest men to secure a clean and honest government. There is nothing more despicable in political life than the continued excitement of fierce passions when there is no principle at stake and when personal aggrandisement is the only goal.

But at the time of which we write the No-ron party, with Song Si-ryul at its head, was so overwhelmingly predominant that party strife was for a time almost held in abeyance. The remarkable character of this reign is largely due to his efforts. The reign from beginning to end was one grand march of progress, reform following reform with such rapidity that the reign fairly scintillates with them. To realise how great a part Song Si-ryul played in these movements it is necessary to know the enormous power wielded by a Prime Minister in Korea, especially when he enjoys the entire confidence of the king. His power to keep the king informed or misinformed makes him practically the ruler of the land. That Song Si-ryul was a real reformer is shown by the frequency with which, during many a decade after his death, statesmen would break out in panegyrics on his memory. It is shown also in the passionate hatred of political enemies who saw in him a successful rival. We have little evidence that this man ever lowered himself to the plane of common party politics. Let us then review the fifteen years of this reign and see the stamp of his great personalitypersonality upon it.

We have already mentioned some of the reforms inaugurated. First he gained a signal victory over his rival Hu MokHu Mok who tried to have him degraded because of his position in regard to the period of the queen’s mourning. Song Si-ryul went over the whole ground again, cited history in support of his views and silenced by a simple and conclusive argument the captious criticism of his detractors, but he showed his greatness in not using his power to have his enemies killed, an act of generosity which later cost him his life. The following are some of the reforms instituted, and we give them here in full, for they afford a deep insight into the condition of the people.

It had been very common for men to leave their families and go off to some monastery and become monks. Now, the Buddhist monasteries are the poor-houses of Korea. Beggary is uncommon, but often, when a man has no visible means of support, he will shave his head, don the garb of a monk and spend part of the year at some monastery and the remainder in receiving donations from the people in the shape of rice or money. To do this they necessarily desert their families. To counteract this evil the king sent forth anan edict that no more men with family ties should desert them in this way, and furthermore that all monks who had families living should doff their religious garb and come back to the world and support their families like honest men.

The ajun is a peculiar excrescence on the body politic of Korea. He is the prefect’s clerk, or factor, or agent, or pimp, or jack-of-all-trades. He is in a large sense the incarnation of all his master’s vices, to which he adds many of his own. A royal edict was promulgated which brought a host of these men to justice and compelled them to disgorge much of their illgottenillgotten gains, which were given back, so far as possible, to the people from whom they had been extorted. In this case the reform was notable because of the limit which was put to it. Ordinarily in Korea, when a man is caught and made a public example of in this way, the law extends the punishment to the near and remote relatives of the culprit, and many innocent men suffer with the guilty; but in this case only actual offenders were punished. It was strictly forbidden to call to account any man’s relative because of his fault.

For many years all the salt factories and fisheries had been groaning under a heavy tax which went to support an almost unlimited number of the king’s relatives; but now these taxes were entirely remitted. We are not told what the relatives did. Let us hope they went to work.

It had become customary for the tax collectors to demand a poll tax not only from grown men, who alone were taxable according to law, but from children as well. This abuse was likewise remedied.

The king gave up entirely the wild project of assaulting China, which had been a pet scheme of his father, and he likewise found no cause for supporting such a large militarymilitary retinue about his person, and they were discharged.

There was a flourishing Buddhist convent just west of the KyÖng-bok Palace, in ChÁ-kol. The king wished to do away with it, but some objected on the ground that it formed an asylum for aged palace women, and because there were many royal tablets stored there. We may well imagine the consternation of these objectors when the king said concerning the tablets, “Well, dig a hole and bury the whole lot.”

The useless custom of having masked dancers accompany the royal procession when returning from the ancestral temple was done away. The king put an end to the custom of taking girls by force and compelling them to become palace women. It must be only with the free consent of the girl’s father. He consented to send men to various places where sulphur was mined to see that the people of the surrounding country were not ill-used. At the same time he ordered that no more sulphur should be dug at Tal-sung-wi-gung inside the South Gate. He ordered that the tombs of the king of Koryu should be kept in good repair. He quelled a great popular excitement in the south, which arose from the rumor that various Buddhas in the monasteries were sweating, by showing that it was caused by the frost bringing out the moisture which had been absorbed during the rainy season. The rumor was probably false, but how politic it was to take it for granted and turn it off by giving some natural cause rather than merely to deny the rumor. He added however the command that as these Buddhas had caused such a disturbance they must be burned.

At that time the province of Chul-la contained about 190,855 kyul of land, a kyul being supposed to produce forty bags of rice. The revenue was set at thirteen pecks of rice from each kyul. The revenue from 24,084 kyul was set aside for the support of the king’s relatives, royal grave-keepers and for men whom the king particularly desired to honor because of distinguished services. The revenue from the remaining 169,771169,771 kyul, amounted to 147,134 bags of rice, 69,280 of which came up to the capital and 85,916 were stored for use by officials in the country. A certain amount of forest land was customarily set aside for fuel supply for the different palaces, but through maladministration these palaces each had much more forest land that it was entitled to, and as a consequence the people had to suffer. So the king ordered a redistribution of the forest lands and a correction of the fuel bill. He sent twenty bags of cotton seed into Ham-gyung Province, for he desired to see this useful plant grown in every one of the eight provinces. The island of Quelpart being still very wild and the people uncultivated, the king, for the first time in the history of the peninsula, made an attempt to civilize them, by offering them government offices and by establishing schools for them. He also did the same for the river towns along the Yalu. As the wild tribes of Sol-han and Pyul-ha frequently came across the border and looted the people’s houses at and near Chang-jin, a general was sent to take care of Korean interests. When 1403 scholars from the country came to the capital and memorialized the king against Song Si-ryul they were told that they were engaged in a mere party strife and had not the interests of the country at heart, and that if scholars meddled with the affairs of government they would be severely handled. Along the Tuman River the people were utterly ignorant, and scarcely knew whether there was a king at all; so men were sent to found schools among them and teach. Nepotism existed to such an extent, especially in connection with the government examinations, that the king decided that no relative of any of the examiners should be a candidate for honors. He established a criminal court in Seoul and took all criminal cases out of the hands of the prefects, as they often judged from prejudice rather than from the facts. He lessened by half the tax that had been levied for the making of arms. The government seized all common prostitutes and made them government slaves. Being a devout Confucianist the king commanded that the names of Confucius’ four disciples be never pronounced aloud. He diminished the garrison of Su-wun from 6000 to 4000 on the plea of economy. He gave presents of money to all unmarried women over thirty years of age, as some compensation for what, in Korea, is considered the hardest of hard lots. He was so affected by distress which he saw in the country during one of his frequent trips to the hot springs, that when he returned to the capital he laid aside many of the luxuries both of his wardrobe and his table. He made camps for the poor who flocked to Seoul because of utter want in the east country. One was outside the Water Mouth Gate, and the other at A-o-ga. He likewise furnished them food and medicine. When a boatload of Chinese belonging to the Ming dynasty, which had fled southward, was driven by a storm on Quelpart the king promptly forwarded them to Peking rather than lay himself open to any possible charge of bad faith toward the Manchu power.

When some one tried to evade the payment of revenue by claiming that the boat that was bringing it was wrecked, he decided that if this happened again the owner should be decapitated. The king restored the copper types which had been destroyed at the time of the Japanese occupation of Seoul. He built a shrine to the unfortunate Tan-jong Ta-wang. He remeasured the lands in the southern provinces for a proper adjustment of revenue. He decreed that though a traitor’s family must be punished with him, married daughters should be exempt from punishment. He acquiesced in the suggestion of the minister of war that the scaling of the city wall be made a capital offense, but when the courtiers represented that if such a small crime deserved death everybody would be a candidate for the executioner’s sword, he recalled the edict.

One of this king’s most interesting edicts was in connection with the census. Having ordered a numbering of the people, he found that objections were raised, because it would mean a more systematic and thorough collection of taxes. So he put forth the edict that whenever murder occurred, if the murdered man’s name was not on the list of tax payers, the murderer would be immediately pardoned. Of course everybody hastened to get their names on the books and to let it be known.

He forbade marriage between people of the same family name. A commission was appointed to go and break off the point of dangerous rocks that obstructed the channels along the coast and among the islands. No governor was allowed to appoint any relative of his own to any position in the province. A man who came up from the south and charged Song Si-ryul with treason, but could give no evidence to substantiate the charge, was put to death.

It was customary to expose infants born of incest, and they were allowed to die in the streets. The king ordered that the government pay the expense of the rearing of such unfortunates. He gave decent burial to those who died in the mat sheds outside the wall, where contagious cases were carried and left to die. He named nine kinds of men who would make good prefects. (1) Men of good life and conduct. (2) Good scholars. (3) Skillful men and those who fostered trade. (4) Natural leaders. (5) Fearless men. (6) Students of human nature. (7) Men without an itching palm. (8) Men renowned for filial piety. (9) Good authors.

In the fifteenth year of his reign, 1674, he was taken ill. The death of his mother worked upon his spirits and aggravated his disease, and death ensued. He needs no encomiums except the bare list of the great things that were done during his reign. They will go down to posterity as his lasting monument. His genius coupled with that of his great adviser, Song Si-ryul, ranged through every phase of political and social life, revenue, finance, political economy, agriculture, mining, official rectitude, civil service, social ethics, sanitation, education, internal improvement, the army, popular superstition, slavery, penalties, foreign relations, border police, famine relief, consanguineous marriage, publication; these and many other important topics demanded and secured from him careful attention. He put down party strife with a heavy hand, and only once or twice during the whole period of his reign does it raise its malignant head.

His son succeeded to the throne, known by his posthumous title Suk-jong Ta-wang. Party spirit had not been dead but only in abeyance during his father’s strong reign. It now broke out again. Memorials poured in upon the young king urging the evil practices of Song Si-ryul, and the young king thought there must be some truth in them because of their very numbers. He became the center of a very storm of charge and counter-charge, of attack and defense. Being but fourteen years old and of a naturally vacillating temperament, he was first the tool of one party and then of another. His whole reign, which covered a period of forty-six years, was one maelstrom of party strife and was fruitful of more startling than useful events. His leading characteristic was capriciousness. Again and again he turned from one party to another, each turn being accompanied by numberless deaths. But we must not anticipate.

It will be noticed that when his reign began in 1675 the Nam-in party was in power with Hu Juk at its head. The strife over Song Si-ryul had resulted in his banishment to Wun-san. He was the Bismarck of Korea in that when his master died the aged councillor found in the son the same gratitude that the Iron Chancellor did. It would be an endless as well as a fruitless task to describe the party fights that took place. It will be enough to say that the reign was one long fight from beginning to end. During the early part of the reign, in 1677, a complete census of the country was made. It was probably the conclusion of work begun by the former king. It was found that in the whole country there were 1,234,512 houses, containing 4,703,505 people.

Some excitement was caused when it was found that Chinese histories were claiming that Prince Kwang-ha was a good man, and that In-jo Ta-wang had revolted against him. After a sharp party fight the king decided to send an envoy and request the emperor to have the mistake corrected.

In 1678 the Japanese again insisted that their quarters in Fusan be enlarged. Consent was given to move the settlement seven li to the south, to the town of Cho-hyang. This is the present site of the town of Fusan. From east to west its length was 372 tsubo and 4 feet. From north to south it was 256 tsubo. Two official reception halls were built, one called the East Hall and the other the West Hall. The houses were all built by Japanese carpenters from Tsushima and the work covered a period of three years. The Korean government gave 9000 bags of rice and 6000 ounces of silver to cover the expense, and undertook to keep the place in repair. That this colony was kept up in good style is shown by the fact that Korea made repairs on these buildings in 1721, 1724, 1748, 1765, 1780, 1786, 1794, 1801, 1813, 1822, 1831, 1836, 1850, 1853, 1857, 1864.

The most trivial matters were made occasions for party fights. A storm occurred on a day when the king was to go out, and the No-ron party claimed that it was a dispensation of providence to spoil a plot of the Nam-ins to revolt and seize the reins of power. Whoever took a firm position on any point found later that it became the basis for an accusation and a cause for death. So it was with the Prime Minister Hu Juk who advised the building of a fortress near Song-do. This later caused his death. The courtiers accused each other in the royal presence about the most trivial matters, such as quarrels between their concubines, the cutting of fuel timber, the profligacy of the Prime Minister’s son, and such like, while great matters of state seem to have taken care of themselves.

And so we arrive at the year 1680. The Nam-in are still in full power and Hu Juk is still master of the situation. But see how small a thing accomplishes his downfall. The day arrived for ancestral worship in Hu Juk’s house, but it was very rainy. The king thoughtfully ordered the eunuchs to get out the palace awning of oiled paper and carry it to the Minister’s house and let him use it during the ceremony. The eunuch replied that Hu Juk had already taken it. Instantly the king’s kindly feeling was changed to anger and hatred by the insolence of the Minister in thus appropriating the awning. He sent a messenger and discovered that a crowd of the adherents of the Nam-in party had congregated at Hu Juk’s house. They were immediately denounced as traitors. The generals were called and the house was surrounded with troops. All the leading men in the Nam-in party were killed on the spot. The names of the killed are Hu Juk, Hu Kyun, Yu Hyuk-yun, Yi Wun-jung, O Chung-ch’ang, Yi T’a-sÖ, ChÖng Wun-no, Kang Man-ch’ul, Yi Wun-sung and Yun Hyu. The king’s two cousins, Princes Pok-sun and Pak-pyun, and eight others were banished. The No-ron party were then called back to power. The king brought back from exile the great Song Si ryul and also Kim Su-han, whom he made Prime Minister. In twenty-four hours a trusted minister and party were totally overthrown and every place was filled with a member of the opposition. The next few months were spent in hunting down the remaining leaders of the Nam-in party and securing their execution. Some were hung, some poisoned and some decapitated. One instance of this will suffice. Hu Sa and Hu Yung, two influential men lived at Yong-san. There was no valid charge against them, so Kim Suk-ju told the king he would find one. To this end he sent one Kim Whan-go to Yong-san and gave him money to build a fine house adjoining that of the prospective victims. Before long he had them involved in treasonable plans and as soon as enough evidence was collected the two men were seized and put to death, and with them a large number of their immediate friends. Man-hunting was not so much a public necessity as a private pastime.

The newly installed general-in-chief found great abuses in the army and thousands of names on the rolls, of men long since dead. Taxes were being collected in an utterly lawless way. These abuses were done away and others probably as bad or worse took their places, for as power meant spoils the newly victorious party was not likely to forego any of its privileges. We are borne out in this supposition by the fact that about this time the king began the custom of making an annual visit to the temple of heaven to pray for good crops. This indicates that the people were being badly governed. He paid considerable attention to the navy and appointed An-ju, Suk-ch‘un, Sun-an, YÖng-yu, Cheung-san, P’yung-yang, Yong-yang, Kang sÖ, Sam-wha, Ham-jong and No-gang in P‘yung-an Province and Chang-nyun, Eun-yul, P‘ung-ch‘un, Hu-sa and An-ak in Whang-ha Province to be naval stations. It was only at this late date that the second king of the dynasty received the posthumous title of ChÖng-jong Ta-wang.

Attention was paid to the border forts along the Yalu, expenses were curtailed and garrisons were supported out of the land tax of the adjoining districts. It was a time of many severe calamities. A fire in P’yung-yang burned 344 houses and a flood in Ham-gyung Province destroyed 906 more with great loss of life. Song Si-ryul had not forgotten his old master, now some ten years dead, and he suggested to the king that Hyo-jong Ta-wang be honored with the Se-sil, that is, that his tablet be not removed from the ancestral temple after the fourth generation, as was customary, but should remain there permanently. It caused a great commotion, but the aged minister carried the day. It is true that few monarchs of the line better deserved that honor than did Hyo-jong Ta-wang.

The year 1684 beheld a sort of “reign of terror.” It arose in the following manner. A messenger from the Japanese on Tsushima came post haste announcing that a large band of Chinese pirates was about to land on Korean soil. A panic followed in Seoul and thousands fled precipitately to the country. Bands of thieves took advantage of the confusion to commit many lawless acts. They formed a sort of secret society and their principles were anarchistic. They made it an object to raid houses where money was to be found. They seized ladies as they were passing along the streets in covered chairs, and violated them. They seized officials whom they hated, and put them to death. The government found one of their books and in it was written their oath of membership. Three cardinal principles were set forth; (1) To kill as many noblemen as possible, (2) To violate as many women as possible, (3) To steal as much personal property as possible. Seven men who had carried away and ravished a widow of Kong-ju were caught and decapitated. One of them was her own cousin and he belonged to the so-called “knife gang.” After a time the disturbance was suppressed.

One incident of a peculiarly Korean character deserves mention. Some money was stolen from the strong room of a fortress near Song-do. The store-house keeper was suspected but there was no evidence. So the commandant secretly questioned the keeper’s little son and found that the suspicion was correct. The keeper was punished but the commandant was also cashiered from the fact that he had induced a boy to incriminate his own father.

The native records say that in the twelfth year of this sovereign, in 1686, Roman Catholicism entered Korea for the first time. Certain foreigners entered the country and preached the new doctrine. We are not told of what nationality these men were but it was long before any European attempted to enter Korea. We are told that the new doctrine spread rapidly and that some of the highest officials asked the king to send the foreigners out of the country. Whether this was done cannot now be learned. Nothing is said of this in the French work on the Roman Catholic Mission in Korea, and it is somewhat difficult to understand. It would hardly be found in the records, however, were there not some ground for the statement.

The following year beheld events that were to result in another violent revolution and in the driving from the seat of power the No-ron party and the reinstatement of the Nam-in. It all grew from the king’s taking a concubine, Chang, who soon gained complete ascendency over him. A rumor arose that the queen was to be deposed and when Han SÖng-u expostulated with the king, the latter flew into a passion and drove him away. The following year the concubine presented the king with a son, the most unfortunate thing that could have happened, for, the queen being as yet childless, it served to put the king more entirely under the influence of the concubine. Trouble followed immediately. The king said “I am now forty years old and have no son by the queen. The people are getting uneasy. As I have gotten a son by a concubine I intend to make him Crown Prince, and anyone may object at his peril.” In this way he threw as it were a torch into a powder magazine. The No-ron party who were in power, were in arms at once for they knew that the opposition had been using the concubine to undermine their influence. Memorials poured in from all sides reminding the king that he was still young, that there was no need of haste in appointing the queen a successor. These memorials the king answered by banishing the senders. Even Song Si-ryul who had entered a mild protest, was stripped of rank and sent outside the city. The Nam-in party then stepped once more into power. From the Prime Minister down all offices were again turned over to them. Song Si-ryul was banished to Quelpart, but the Nam-in were not content with that, and demanded his death. So he was summoned back to Seoul. Posthumous honors were given to many of the Nam-ins whom the king had ordered killed at the house of Hu Juk.

Not long after this the king began to make preparations to put away his queen. To this end he made the following statement. “For a long time I have been aware of the queen’s jealous disposition and evil mind, and I have borne with it patiently but now I can endure it no longer. Since I have taken the concubine Chang it has been still more unendurable. The queen and the concubine Kim have been putting their heads together in an attempt to frighten me into putting away Chang, but I saw through the plan. Now what shall we do?” Time and again the officials came pleading for the queen, but the king was utterly deaf to all they had to say. He piled unjust accusations upon her without deigning to give a single proof. Large numbers where banished and a few killed outright because of their intercessions with the king. The most notorious case was that of Pak T‘a-bo whose name has passed into a proverb. He with two others memorialized the king begging him to drive away the concubine and retain the queen. The king’s rage knew no bounds. He came out and took his seat in front of the In-jung Gate of the Chang-duk Palace and had the man brought before him. When asked why he had written the memorial he answered, “Because of the treatment the queen has received.” The king then ordered red hot plates to be passed along his limbs. Still he would not express sorrow. Then bowls were broken into small pieces and the fragments were piled up on the mans already burned limbs, a plank was placed across them and men stood on either end of it and jumped up and down. The pieces of pottery were of course ground into the man’s legs. As he still remained firm he was tied with a rope and hoisted to the top of a high pole in a cruelly painful position. As he still remained unmoved he was banished to the south. His aged father accompanied him as far as the river and there he died of his wounds. This, so far from stopping the flood of petitions, only increased it, for immediately 16,000 men with ChÖng To-gyung at their head sent in an appeal and likewise all the country scholars and all the students of the Confucian school. But every petition was returned by the passion-blinded king.

In the fifth moon of the year, 1689, the king deposed the queen, stripped her of all herher titles, degraded her to the level of the common people and sent her back to her father’s house, not by way of the great gate of the palace but by a side gate, in a white sedan chair, the badge of a criminal. Concubine Chang was proclaimed queen and her father became a prince. We will remember that the aged Song Si-ryul had been ordered back from Quelpart to meet his fate at the capital, but even the popular sympathy which a public execution at Seoul would have aroused was denied him, for the king sent a draught of poison to be administered on the way, and so in an obscure country village the grand old man drank the deadly potion and passed away. Some of his followers who afterwards memorialized the king in regard to him were killed or banished, together with the deposed queen’s relatives. The following year the son of the newly appointed queen was made Crown Prince.