Joseon Dynasty Founded (1392): Yi Seong-gye Remakes Korea

The Joseon dynasty was founded in 1392, when the general Yi Seong-gye deposed the last king of Goryeo and took the throne in Kaegyeong, the old capital. The new state, which soon moved its capital to Hanyang (modern Seoul), was built on Neo-Confucian principles and ruled Korea for more than five hundred years, making it one of the longest-lived dynasties in world history.

Background: Goryeo in crisis

By the mid-fourteenth century the Goryeo dynasty, which had ruled Korea since 918, was in deep trouble. After the Mongol invasions of Korea, Goryeo had spent about eighty years as a subordinate ally of the Yuan dynasty. Its kings married Mongol princesses, and powerful families with ties to the Yuan court built up huge private estates that escaped taxation.

King Gongmin (reigned 1351–1374) tried to break free as Yuan power collapsed, but he was murdered in 1374. Meanwhile the kingdom faced invasions by the Red Turban rebels from China in 1359 and 1361 and almost constant raids by Japanese pirates, known as wakō, along its coasts. The state was short of revenue, the army depended on a handful of successful commanders, and a new class of Confucian-educated officials resented the great landholding families.

The rise of the Ming dynasty in China after 1368 added a diplomatic dilemma. Part of the Goryeo court wanted to keep ties with the remnant Mongol rulers in the north, while reformist officials favoured recognising the Ming.

Yi Seong-gye: a frontier general

Yi Seong-gye (1335–1408) came from a military family in the north-east, an area that had been under direct Mongol administration until Goryeo recovered it in 1356. He made his name fighting the Red Turbans, Mongol forces and Japanese raiders. His victory over a large pirate army at Hwangsan in 1380 made him a national hero.

Unlike the old aristocracy, Yi had a loyal private army of mounted archers from the frontier. He also gained the support of reform-minded scholars, above all Jeong Do-jeon, a Neo-Confucian thinker who wanted to rebuild the state on Confucian lines and limit the influence of Buddhist monasteries.

The Wihwado retreat of 1388

The decisive turn came in 1388. When the Ming announced that it would take over territory in Goryeo’s north-east, the senior commander Choe Yeong and King U decided to strike first and attack Liaodong, the Ming-controlled region across the Yalu River. Yi Seong-gye was appointed one of the commanders, although he opposed the plan.

According to the official histories, Yi argued that a small country should not attack a large one, that a summer campaign would disrupt farming, that Japanese pirates would exploit the army’s absence, and that the monsoon rains would loosen the glue in the bows and spread disease. When the army reached Wihwa Island (Wihwado) in the Yalu and was held up by flooding, he turned it around and marched back on the capital.

Yi’s forces took Kaegyeong with little resistance. Choe Yeong was exiled and later executed, and King U was deposed. Yi and his allies placed two short-lived kings on the throne, first King U’s young son Chang and then, in 1389, a distant royal relative who became King Gongyang. Real power, however, now lay with Yi Seong-gye.

Land reform and the end of Goryeo

Between 1389 and 1392 Yi’s faction carried out sweeping reforms. In 1390 the old land registers were publicly burned, and in 1391 a new land law, the Gwajeon law, redistributed the right to collect rents from farmland to officials who supported the new order. This broke the economic base of many great families and rewarded Yi’s followers.

Not all reformers wanted to end the dynasty. The respected scholar and minister Jeong Mong-ju supported change but remained loyal to the Goryeo royal house. In the spring of 1392 he was murdered on the Seonjuk Bridge in Kaegyeong by men acting for Yi’s fifth son, Yi Bang-won. With the main obstacle gone, officials petitioned Yi Seong-gye to take the throne, and in the seventh lunar month of 1392 (August by the Western calendar) King Gongyang was deposed and Yi was enthroned. He is known to history by his temple name, Taejo, meaning “Great Progenitor”.

Building a Neo-Confucian state

Taejo moved quickly to secure recognition from the Ming. In 1393 the country took the name Joseon, recalling the ancient kingdom of Gojoseon, after the Ming emperor approved it. In 1394 the capital was moved to Hanyang on the Han River, where a new city wall, royal shrines and the Gyeongbokgung Palace were built.

Jeong Do-jeon drafted the founding legal and administrative plans, and the new government promoted Neo-Confucianism, the philosophy of the Song scholar Zhu Xi, as the guide for politics, family life and ritual. Buddhist monasteries lost much of their land and influence over the following decades. Government posts were increasingly filled through civil service examinations, which favoured the educated aristocracy later known as the yangban.

In foreign policy, Joseon adopted a stance known as sadae, “serving the great”, towards Ming China. Korean kings accepted Ming investiture and sent regular tribute missions, which in return brought trade, security and cultural exchange. Much of what we know about the founding comes from the official Veritable Records (Annals) of the Joseon Dynasty and the History of Goryeo, both compiled under the new dynasty, so historians read their favourable portrait of Yi Seong-gye with some caution.

Key people

• Yi Seong-gye (King Taejo, 1335–1408): general and founder of Joseon, reigned 1392–1398.
• Jeong Do-jeon (1342–1398): chief ideologist of the new state, killed in a succession struggle in 1398.
• Jeong Mong-ju (1337–1392): Goryeo loyalist scholar murdered on the Seonjuk Bridge.
• Choe Yeong (1316–1388): veteran commander who led the Liaodong plan and was executed after the coup.
• Yi Bang-won (King Taejong, 1367–1422): Taejo’s ambitious son, who seized power in 1398 and reigned 1400–1418.

Succession struggles

Taejo’s choice of his youngest son, Yi Bang-seok, as crown prince angered his older sons. In 1398 Yi Bang-won launched a coup known as the First Strife of Princes, killing Jeong Do-jeon and the crown prince. Taejo abdicated in favour of his second son, who reigned briefly as King Jeongjong, and in 1400 Yi Bang-won himself became King Taejong. Taejong strengthened royal authority, abolished private armies and laid the foundations on which his son, Sejong the Great, would build, including the creation of the Korean alphabet, Hangul.

Taejo spent his last years in retirement and died in 1408. He was buried at Geonwolleung, in the royal tomb cluster of Donggureung near Seoul. By tradition, his burial mound was covered with reeds brought from his home region in the north-east, a custom still maintained today.

Timeline

• 1380: Yi Seong-gye defeats a large Japanese pirate force at Hwangsan.
• 1388, fifth lunar month: the Wihwado retreat; Yi turns back from the Liaodong campaign and seizes Kaegyeong.
• 1389: King Gongyang is placed on the throne.
• 1391: the Gwajeon land law redistributes land rights.
• 1392, spring: Jeong Mong-ju is killed on the Seonjuk Bridge.
• 1392, seventh lunar month: Yi Seong-gye is enthroned; Goryeo ends.
• 1393: the state name Joseon is adopted.
• 1394: the capital moves to Hanyang (Seoul).
• 1398: First Strife of Princes; Taejo abdicates.
• 1408: death of King Taejo.

Why it matters

The founding of Joseon created the framework of Korean society for the next five centuries: a centralised monarchy, a bureaucracy recruited by examinations and a culture shaped by Neo-Confucian values. Seoul’s role as Korea’s capital, many of its palaces and much of traditional Korean family custom go back to the state that Yi Seong-gye founded in 1392.