Chapter I.
Beginning of the new kingdom.... name Cho-sŭn adopted.... prophecies.... a man hunt.... a royal dream.... the wall of Seoul built.... capital moved.... diplomacy in the north.... Buddhism.... three ports set aside for the Japanese.... plot discovered.... back to Song-do.... king T‘ă-jo retires.... death blow to feudalism.... Chöng-jong abdicates.... T‘ă-jong’s sweeping reforms.... copper type.... sorcerers’ and geomancers’ books burned.... T‘ă-jong’s claims to greatness.... Se-jong reigns.... his habits.... literary work.... Japanese islands attacked.... gradual suppression of Buddhism.... trials for capital offenses.... numerous reforms.... wild tribe punished.... the far north colonised.... Japanese settlement in the south.... origin of Korean alphabet.... king Mun-jong dies from over-devotion to Confucian principles.
It was on the sixteenth day of the seventh moon of the year 1392 that Gen. Yi ascended the throne of Koryŭ, now no longer Koryŭ. He was an old man, far past the age when he could hope to superintend in person the vigorous “house-cleaning” that the condition of things demanded. He called about him all the officials whom he knew to be personally loyal to himself and placed them in positions of trust and authority. Those who had contributed to his rise were rewarded, and a tablet was erected in the capital telling of their merits. He liberated many who had been imprisoned because of their opposition to the Wang kings and recalled many who had been banished.
It was not long before a message came from the emperor saying, “A man can become king only by the decree of Heaven. How is it then that the people of Sam-han have made Yi king?” In reply the king hastened to send an envoy to explain matters and to ask the emperor whether he would prefer to have the new kingdom called Cho-sŭn, “Morning Freshness” or Wha-ryŭng, “Peaceful Harmony.” The emperor probably thought there was a great deal more morning freshness than peaceful harmony in the peninsula; at any rate he ordered the former name to be adopted. It was the doubtful loyalty of the Wang kings to the Chinese throne that made it easy for king T‘ă-jo to smoothe[smoothe] over the displeasure of the emperor. The seals of the Koryŭ kings were then delivered over to China and new seals received for the new dynasty.
According to unwritten law, with the beginning of a new dynasty a new capital must be founded, and king T‘ă-jo began to look about for a new site. At first he determined to build his capital at Kye-ryŭng Mountain in Ch‘ung-ch‘ŭng Province, and he went so far as to begin work on it; but it was found that in the days of Sil-la a celebrated priest, To-sŭn, had prophesied that in the days to come Yi would found a capital at Han-yang, and one of the Koryŭ kings had planted many plum trees at that place and as fast as they matured had them mutilated, hoping thus to harm the fortunes of the Yi family; for the Chinese character for Yi is the same as that for plum. Tradition also says that the king had a dream in which a spirit came and told him that Kye-ryŭng San was reserved for the capital of a future kingdom which should be founded by a member of the Chöng family. Two commissioners were thereupon sent to Han-yang to make surveys for a palace site. It is said that a monk, Mu-hak, met them at Ha-yang and told them that the palace should face toward Pă-gak Mountain and Mong-myŭk Mountain (the present Nam-san,) but they persisted in making it face the south. “Very well” the monk replied, “If you do not listen to my advice you will have cause to remember it two hundred years from now.” His words were unheeded but precisely two hundred years later, in the year 1592, the Japanese hordes of Hideyoshi landed on the shores of southern Korea. This is a fair sample of Korean ex post facto prophecy.
The courtiers urged the king to destroy the remaining relatives of the last Koryŭ kings that there might be no danger of an attempt at revolt. The royal consent was given and a considerable number of those unfortunates were put in a boat, taken out to sea and abandoned, their boat being first scuttled. The king thought better of this, however, before it had gone far and ordered this man-hunt to be stopped.
As the emperor still seemed to entertain suspicions concerning the new kingdom the king was fain to send his eldest son as envoy to the Chinese court where he carefully explained the whole situation to the satisfaction of his suzerain.
An interesting prophecy is said to have been current at the time. The king dreamed that he saw a hen swallow a silk-worm. No one could explain the meaning of the dream until at last an official more imaginative[imaginative] than discreet averred that it meant that Kye-ryŭng would swallow Cham-du. Kye means “hen” and Cham-du means “silk-worm’s head.” But Kye-ryong was the site of the future capital of the next kingdom according to prophecy, while “silk-worm’s head” is the name of one of the spurs of Nam-san in Seoul. So the interpretation was that the new dynasty would fall before another founded at Kye-ryong, by Chöng. The poor fellow paid for this bright forecast with his life.
Cho Chin was charged with the work of building the wall of the new capital. To this end, in the spring of 1391, 119,000 men were brought from the provinces of P‘yŭng-an and Whang-hă and they worked steadily for two months. In the autumn 89,000 men came from Kang-wŭn, Chŭl-la and Kyŭng-sang Provinces and finished it in a month more. The whole circuit of the wall was 9,975 double paces. At five feet to the double pace this would give us about nine and a half miles, its present length. It was pierced by eight gates, the South Gate, or Suk-nye-mun, the East Gate or Heung-in-mun, the West Gate, or Ton-eui-mun, the Little West Gate, or So-eui-mun, the North-east Gate, or Chang-eui-mun, the Water Mouth Gate, or Kwang-heui-mun, also called the Su-gu-mun, and finally the Suk-chang-mun, a private gate at the north by which the king may pass in time of danger to the mountain fortress of Puk-han. At the same time a law was made that dead bodies could be carried out of the city only by way of the Little West or the Water Mouth Gates. Neither of these “dead men’s gates” were roofed at first but were simply arches.
Immediately upon the completion of the wall the court was moved from Song-do to the new capital and the new palace was named the Kyŭng-bok Palace. By this time the news of the founding of a new dynasty had spread, and envoys came from Japan, the Liu-kiu Islands and from the southern kingdom of Sam-na. It will be remembered that the Mongols had absorbed a portion of the northern territory of Korea, especially in Ham-gyŭng Province. This had never come again fully under Ko-ryŭ control, so that now the new kingdom extended only as far north as Ma-ch’ŭn Pass. Between that and the Tu-man River lived people of the Yŭ-jin tribe. The king sent Yi Tu-ran to give them a friendly introduction to the newly founded kingdom of Cho-sŭn, and he was so good a diplomat that soon he was able to form that whole region into 3 semi-independent districts[districts] and in course of time it naturally became incorporated into Cho-sŭn. The Koryŭ dynasty left a heavy legacy of priest-craft that was not at all to the liking of the new king. The monks had far more power with the people than seemed consistent with good government. Monasteries were constantly in process of erection and their inmates arrogated to themselves large powers that they did not by right possess. Monks were not mendicants then as they are today. Each monastery had its complement of slaves to do all menial work and the law that declared that the grandson of a slave should be free was a dead letter. The first of a long list of restrictions upon the priesthood was a restatement and an enforcement of this salutary law which made hereditary serfdom impossible.
Before his accession to the throne he had succeeded in putting down the Japanese pirates, at least for the time. He now placed high military and naval officials at all the great southern ports, who offered the people still further protection. He also set aside the three ports of Ch’e-p’o, Yŭm-p’o and Pu-san-p’o (Fusan) as places where Japanese envoys and trading parties might be entertained. At these places he built houses for the accommodation of such guests.
King T'ă-jo had a numerous family. By his first Queen, Han, he had six sons, of whom the second and the fifth later became Kings of Cho-sŭn, with the posthumous titles of Chöng-jong and T‘ă-jong respectively. By his second Queen, Kang, he had two sons, both of whom aspired to the crown but without hope. They were named Pang-sŭk and Pang-bon. Their ambition led them astray, for now in the sixth year of the reign they conspired to kill their two rival half-brothers and so prepare the way for their own elevation. They secured the services of two assassins who made the attempt, but being foiled they lost their heads. It was well known that the two princes were at the bottom of the plot, and the king, knowing that even he could not protect them from justice, advised them to make good their escape. They fled but were caught just outside the West Gate and put to death.
The courtiers were all homesick for Song-do and the king himself probably missed many of the comforts which he had there enjoyed. Merchants had not as yet come in large numbers to the new capital and the number of houses was comparatively small. It must be noticed that with the change of dynasty it was taken for granted that the citizens of the old capital were loyal to the fallen dynasty and so the people of Song-do were not allowed to move to Seoul in large numbers. That city was reserved as the residence of the friends of the new regime. Song-do has ever been considered less loyal than any other city in the country and the rule has been that no native of that city could hold an important office under the present government. But at first, the new capital was hardly as pleasant a place to live as the old, and so the king gave the word and the whole court moved back there for a time.
We are told that king T‘ă-jo was heartily tired of the constant strife among his sons as to who should be the successor and he decided to resign the office and retire to his native Ham-heung. His choice of a successor fell upon his oldest living son, Prince Yong-an, better known by his posthumous title Chöng-jong Kong-jŭng Tă-wang. The army and the people all desired that his fifth son, Prince Chöng-an, who is generally known as T‘ă-jong, who had been so active in helping his father to the throne and who was as energetic and enterprising as his brother was slow, should become their[their] ruler. When they heard that they could not have their will there was an angry demonstration at the palace. This led the retiring king to advise that after Chöng-jong had ruled a while he had better resign in favor of his brother, the people’s choice.
King Chöng-jong’s first act was a statesman-like one. He commanded the disbanding of the feudal retainers of all the officials. A few who rebelled at this as an encroachment upon their rights were promptly banished, and the rest submitted. Thus the death blow was struck at feudalism in the peninsula. It never gained the foothold here that it had in Japan, for it was thus nipped in the bud. The weakness of the fallen dynasty had been that one or more of the officials had gathered about their persons such large retinues that they succeeded in overawing the king and making him a mere puppet. But this was not to be a feature of the new regime, for King Chöng-jong by this one decree effectually stamped it out.
The retired king seemed to be determined not to be disturbed in his well-earned rest, for when his sons sent and begged him to come back to the capital and aid the government by his advice, he answered by putting the messenger to death. Later, however, he relented and returned to Seoul.
T‘ă-jo’s third son, Prince Pang, was jealous because his younger brother had been selected to succeed king Chöng-jong, and so he determined to have him put out of the way. To this end he conspired with one Pak-po, but the plot was discovered, Pak Po was killed and the prince banished to T‘o-san in Whang-hă Province. T‘ă-jong himself, the prospective king, seems to have chafed at the delay, for we are told that King Chöng-jong’s Queen noticed his moody looks and advised her lord to abdicate in his favor without delay, before harm came of it. So King Chöng-jong called his brother and handed over to him the seals of office and himself retired to private life with the title Sang-wang, or “Great king.”
THE WHITE BUDDHA.
It was in the centennial year 1400 that T‘ă-jong, whose full posthumous title is T‘ă-jong Kong-jŭng T‘ă-wang, entered upon the royal office. He was a man of indomitable will, untiring energy and ready resource. It was he who really entered upon the work of reform in earnest. T‘ă-jo had been too old and Chöng-jong had lacked the energy. The year 1401 gave him an opportunity to begin these reforms. The land was suffering from famine, and the king said, “Why is so much grain wasted in the making of wine? Let it cease for the present.” When he found that the people would not obey he said. “It is because I myself have not desisted from the use of wine. Let no more wine be served in the palace for the present.” It is said that this practical appeal was successful and the people also desisted. From the earliest times it had been the custom for the monks to congregate and pray for the cessation of drought, but now by one sweep of his pen the king added another limitation to the prerogatives of the monks by forbidding the observance of the custom. Large tracts of land were also taken from the monasteries and given back to the people. The king hung a great bell in the palace gate and made proclamation that anyone who failed to have a grievance righted by the proper tribunals might appeal directly to the throne, and whoever struck the drum was given instant audience. This privilege was seldom abused for it soon became known that if a man did not have right clearly on his side his rash appeal to the king brought severe punishment.
For many a decade letters had languished in the peninsula, and now with a view to their revival the king ordered the casting of copper types and provided that, as fast as new characters were found in the leading Chinese works, they should be immediately cast and added to the font. The authenticity of this statement cannot be called in question. It is attested by all the great historical works both public and private. The method of use was such that the types were practically indestructible and large numbers exist and are in active use to this day. So far as the evidence goes these were the first metal type ever made, though xylography had been known since the very earliest time.
In 1406 the emperor sent an envoy asking that a copper Buddha on the island of Quelpart be brought to Seoul for the king to do obeisance to it, and that it then be forwarded to China. The king, however, refused to bow before it. During this same year the law was promulgated forbidding the imprisonment of criminals for long periods of time. It also beheld the execution of all the brothers of the Queen. We are not told the reason of this but we may surmise that it was because they had been implicated in seditious proceedings.
In 1409 the Japanese, Wŭn-do-jin, was sent to the Korean court to present the respects of the Japanese sovereign.
The kings of Koryŭ had set aside large tracts of land in Whang-hă Province for hunting purposes. These by order of king T‘ă-jong were now restored to the people and they were ordered to cultivate them. In 1413 the land suffered from a severe drought and the courtiers all advised that the monks and the female exorcists and fortune-tellers be called upon to pray for rain; but the king replied, “Buddhism is an empty religion and the exorcists and fortune-tellers are a worthless lot. If I were only a better ruler Heaven would not refuse us rain.” He thereupon ordered all the sorceresses, fortune-tellers, exorcists and geomancers to deliver up the books of their craft to the government and a great fire was made with them in front of the palace.
King T‘ă-jong’s great sorrow was his son the Crown Prince, Yang-yŭng. This young man was dissolute and worthless. He would not pursue the studies prescribed by his tutors but spent his time in hunting, gambling and in less reputable pursuits. The people cried out against him and made it known that it was not their will that he should reign over them. The father saw the justice of the complaint and the young man was banished to Kwang-ju and the fourth son, Prince Ch‘ung-nyŭng, was proclaimed heir to the throne.
King T‘ă-jong retired in 1419 in favor of this son Ch‘ung-nyŭng who is known by the posthumous title Se-jong Chang-hŭn Tă-wang.
T‘ă-jong had been a radical reformer and worked a revolution in Korean life similar to that which Cromwell effected in England. His greatness is exhibited in three ways. (1) He was the first king who dared to break away utterly from customs whose only sanction was their antiquity. (2) He was wise enough not to force all these radical reforms at once, but spread them over a period of nearly two decades. (3) He recognised that a king is the servant of the people. It may be in place here to call attention to a peculiar custom of the east. We refer to the custom of surrendering the throne to a successor before one’s death. The benefits of this custom are soon cited. The retiring sovereign becomes the tutor of the incoming one. The young ruler has the benefit of his practical suggestions and of his immense influence. He thus does away with much of the danger of revolution or rebellion which so often accompanies a change or rulers. If the new king proves inefficient or otherwise unsatisfactory it is possible, through the father’s influence, to effect a change. In other words the young ruler is on trial and he undergoes a probation that is salutary for him and for the people as well. It also helps greatly in perpetuating a policy, for in such a case the father, knowing that his son is to assume the reins of government while he still lives, takes greater pains to initiate him into the secrets of government and in forming in his mind settled principles which, while they may not always perpetuate the same policy, at least ensure an easy gradation from one policy to another. This perhaps was the crowning feat of T‘ă-jong’s greatness. He knew enough to stop while his success was at its height and spend some years in teaching his successor how to achieve even a greater success. Let us see how these principles worked in the case of this new king.
The young king began in a modest way by consulting with his father in regard to all matters of importance. The retired king had taken up his quarters in the “Lotus Pond District” where he was at all times accessible to the young king and where he took cognizance of much of the public business. The new ruler was characterized by great evenness of temper, great astuteness and untiring diligence. He is said to have risen each morning at dawn.
He ordered the making of musical instruments, including metal drums and triangles. Under his supervision a clypsehydra[clypsehydra] was made and a work on astronomy was published. It is said that with his own hand he prepared works on “The five rules of conduct,” “The duties of King, Father and Husband,” “Good Government and Peace,” and a work on military tactics. The custom of collecting rare flowers and plants and growing them in the palace enclosure was done away and it was decreed that no more of the public money should be squandered in that way. He built a little straw thatched cottage beside the palace and compelled the officials to attend him there in council. He put a stop to the evil practice of letting concubines and eunuchs meddle with state affairs, for when one of his concubines asked him to give one of her relatives official position he promptly banished her from the palace.
In the second year of his reign, 1420, the king showed his partiality for literature and literary pursuits by founding a college to which he invited thirteen of the finest scholars that the kingdom could furnish, and there they gave themselves up to the pursuit of letters. In the early summer the dreaded Japanese again began their ravages on the coasts of Korea. Landing at Pi-in, Ch‘ung-ch‘ŭng Province, they easily overcame the local forces and marched northward along the coast into Whang-hă Province. They there informed the Korean generals that they did not want to ravage Korea but that they were seeking a way into China. They lacked provisions and promised to go immediately if the Koreans would give them enough rice for their sustenance, until they should cross the border into China. Forty bags of rice were given to them, but when the king learned of it he was displeased and said, “When they return we must destroy them.” The southern provinces were put into a state of defense and Gen. Yi Chong-mu was put at the head of a punitive expedition. It is said that a fleet of 227 war vessels and an army of 107,285 men rendezvoused at Ma-san Harbor. They were provided with two month’s rations. This powerful flotilla sailed away and soon reached the island of Tsushima. There it burned 129 Japanese boats and 1939 houses. Over a hundred Japanese were killed, twenty-one prisoners were taken and 131 Chinese and eight Korean captives were liberated. The fleet then sailed toward Japan and arrived at Ni-ro harbor. There, the records say, they lost 120 men and so abandoned the enterprise. This is good evidence that the numbers of the army are overestimated, for a loss of a hundred and twenty men from such an immense force would not have caused an abandonment of the expedition.
The emperor sent a messenger asking for the four jewels that are supposed to come from the bodies of good monks when they are incinerated.
These were said to be kept at Heung-ch‘ŭn monastery at Song-do. King Se-jong replied that there were no such jewels in the peninsula. He ordered the discontinuance of the custom of building monasteries at the graves of kings, and the people were commanded not to pray to Buddha in behalf of the king. The great expense incurred in providing for the huge stone that covered the sarcophagus of a king made him change the custom and it was decreed that thereafter four smaller ones should be used instead of the one great one.
One of his most statesmanlike acts was to decree that every man charged with a capital offense should have three trials and that detailed accounts of each of these should be furnished for the royal inspection. Following out the policy of a gradual suppression of Buddhism, he interdicted the observance of the festival called the To-ak.
In the fourth year of his reign, his father died. It is said that at the time of his death there was a severe drought, and on his deathbed he said, “When I die I will go and ask Heaven to send rain,” and the story goes that on the very day he died the welcome rain came. To this day it is said that it is sure to rain on the tenth day of the fifth moon, and this is called the “T‘ă-jong rain.” We see that under that father’s tutelage he had continued the policy of reform, but what he had done was only the beginning. The law was made that if a prefect died the prefects along the road should furnish transport for his body up to the capital. The eunuchs were enjoined not to interfere in any way with the affairs of state. The term of office of the country prefects was lengthened, owing to the expense entailed upon the people by frequent changes. It was made a crime to delay the interment of a corpse simply because the geomancers could not find an auspicious spot for the burial, and all geomancers’ books were ordered burned. Every adult male was required to carry on his person a wooden tag bearing his name. This was for the purpose of identification to prevent the evasion of taxes and of military service. It is but right to say that this law was never strictly carried out. Korea has always suffered from the existence of armies on paper. The king edited a book on agriculture telling in what districts and in what kinds of soil different species of grains and vegetables would thrive best. He paid attention to penal laws as well. Beating was to be administered on the legs rather than on the back; no murderers were to be bound in prison who were under fifteen years or over seventy; no prisoner under ten or over eighty was to suffer under the rod; even the king’s relatives, if guilty of crime, were not to be exempt from punishment.
These important reforms occupied the attention of the king up to the year 1432, the fourteenth of his reign, but now the border wars in the north claimed his attention. At this time the wild tribes across the Ya-lu were known under the collective name of Ya-in. These savages were ravaging back and forth across the border, now successful and now defeated. King Se-jong decided that the peace of the north was worth the outlay of some life and treasure; so, early in the year 1433 an expedition under Gen. Ch’oé Yun-dok crossed the Ya-lu in six divisions, each consisting of a thousand men or more. These had agreed to make a common attack on Ta-ram-no, the stronghold of the robbers, on the nineteenth of the fourth moon. This was successfully done with the result that 176 of the enemy were left dead, and 236 captives and 270 head of cattle were taken. All of this was at the cost of just four men.
The northern portion of Ham-gyŭng province was as yet but sparsely settled, and reports came in that the Ming people were coming in great numbers and settling there; so the king felt it necessary to do something to assert his rights. A great scheme for colonization was made and people from the southern part of the province were sent north to occupy the land. But there were two powerful Yŭ-jin chiefs across the Tu-man river who were constantly crossing and harrying the people along that border line. These were Ol-yang-t’ap and Hol-ja-on. It was not until the year 1436 that they were really silenced and then only after repeated and overwhelming victories on the part of the Korean forces. During these years thousands of people from the southern provinces were brought north by the government and given land in this border country.
About this time a Japanese named Chŭng Seung was Daimyo of Tsushima. He sent fifty boats across to the Korean shore and the trade relations were revived which we may feel sure had been sadly interrupted by the long period of piratical raids. The government made these people a present of 200 bags of rice and beans. Sixty “houses” of people also came from that island and asked to be allowed to live in the three ports, Ch’ep’o, Yŭm-p’o and Pu-san-p’o. The king gave his assent and from that time until about the present day, with only temporary intermissions, the Japanese have resided in one or other of these three places, although Pu-san (Fusan) has always been the most important of them. In the year 1443 the custom of giving the Daimyo of Tsushima a bonus of 200 bags of grain a year was instituted. The number of trading boats that could come was strictly limited by the Korean government[government] to fifty, but in extreme cases where sudden need arose through piratical raids or other cause the number could be increased. This custom continued without interruption until 1510.
The most striking feat that King Se-jong accomplished and the one that had the most far-reaching and lasting effect upon the people was the invention of a pure phonetic alphabet. This alphabet scarcely has its equal in the world for simplicity and phonetic power. He was not the first one to see the vast disadvantage under which the people labored in being obliged to master the Chinese character before being able to read. We will remember that in the days of Sil-la the scholar Sŭl-chong had invented a rough way of indicating the grammatical endings in a Chinese text by inserting certain diacritical marks, but this had of course been very cumbersome and only the ajuns or “clerks” were acquainted with it. Another similar attempt had been made near the end of the Koryŭ dynasty but it too had proved a failure so far as general use by the people was concerned. King Se-jong was the first man to dare to face the difficulty and overcome it by the use not of modifications of the Chinese characters but by an entirely new and different system, a phonetic alphabet. It can scarcely be said that he had the genius of a Cadmus, for he probably knew of the existence of phonetic alphabets, but when we remember that the Chinese character is considered in a sense sacred and that it had been in use in the peninsula exclusively for more than two thousand years we can place him but little lower than the great Phoenician.
Korean histories are almost a unit in affirming that the alphabet is drawn from the Sanscrit and from the ancient seal character of China. Where then did King Se-jong have access to the Sanscrit? Some have argued that his envoys came in contact with it at the court of the Emperor at Nanking. This is possible but it is extremely unlikely that they gained such a knowledge of it in this way to make it of use in evolving their own alphabet. On the other hand it is well known that the monasteries of Korea were filled with books written in the Sanscrit or the Thibetan (which is an offshoot of the Sanscrit) character. It is believed by some that Buddhism was entirely crushed in the very first years of the dynasty, but this is a great blunder. Buddhism had begun to wane, but long after the end of King Se-jong’s reign it was still the predominant religion in Korea. Most of the officials, following the lead of royalty, had given it up, but the masses were as good Buddhists as ever. The probabilities are therefore overwhelming that when the histories refer to the Sanscrit they mean the Sanscrit contained in these Buddhist books and which had been a common feature of Korean religious life for centuries.
Comparison reveals the fact that the Korean consonants are mere simplifications of the Sanscrit consonants. On the other hand there are no similarities between the Korean and Sanscrit vowels. King Se-jong’s genius lay in his recognition of the fact that the vowel lies at the basis of articulate speech, and in this he was in advance of every other purely Asiatic alphabet. Each syllable was made up of the “mother and child” the mother being the vowel and the child being the consonant. If we examine the ancient seal character of China with a view to ascertaining the source from which the Koreans drew their symbols for the vowels we shall find at a glance that they consist in the simplest strokes of those ideographs. Every Korean vowel is found among the simpler radicals of the Chinese. What more need be added to prove that the statements of the Korean histories are correct?
In this work the king made use of the two distinguished scholars Sin Suk-ju and Sŭng Sam-mun. Thirteen times the latter was sent with others to Liao-tung to consult with a celebrated Chinese scholar Whang Ch’an, who was in banishment in that place. For the prosecution of this literary plan and the work growing out of it the king erected a separate building in the palace enclosure. There he caused to be compiled and printed the dictionary of the Korean language in the new alphabet which was called the ön-mun. This celebrated dictionary is called the Hun-min Chöng-eum.
King Se-jong died in 1450 and was succeeded by his son Hyŭn whose posthumous title is Mun-jong Kong-sun Tă-wang. His brief reign of two years is a good sample of what Confucianism will do for a man if carried to excess. Upon his father’s death he refused to be comforted and neglected the necessary precautions for preserving his health. Long nights he lay out in the cold thinking that by so doing he was showing respect for the memory of his father. Such excesses joined with the lack of a proper diet soon made it clear that his health was permanently undermined. This was a source of great anxiety to the officials and to the people, for the heir to the throne was a young boy, and the king’s brother, Prince Su-yang, was a powerful and ambitious man. The king himself entertained grave fears for his son and shortly before he died he called together the leading officials and made them solemnly promise to uphold the boy through every vicissitude. Then he turned to the wall and died.