All during this reign, so say the records, there were signs and omens of the fall of the dynasty. There were earthquakes, eclipses and comets; worms ate the leaves of the pine trees in the capital, and as the pine tree was the emblem of the dynasty this was ominous; red and black ants had war among themselves; a well in the capital became boiling hot; there was a shower of blood; for many days a fog like red fire hung over the land; black spots were seen on the sun; there was a shower of white horse hair three inches long; hail fell of the size of a man’s hand; there was a tremendous avalanche at Puk-san, near the present Seoul. These ex post facto prophecies show the luxuriance of the oriental imagination.
In spite of the Confucian tendency which had manifested itself Buddhism had no intention of letting go its hold on the government, and we find that in his second year the king took a Buddhist high priest as his teacher, and thus the direction was given to his reign that tended to hasten it toward its fall. He also conferred high positions upon Buddhist monks and so alienated the good will of all the other officials. This hostile feeling took definite shape when Cho Il-si surrounded the palace with a band of soldiers, killed many of the leaders of the party in power together with many of the relatives of the Mongol empress, and announced himself prime minister. To screen himself he told the king that it was not he who had caused the execution, but two other men; and he even went to the extreme of putting to death two of his confiding friends in order to give color to this statement. But Cho Il-si had overestimated his strength and the king, by secret negotiations, was soon able to decorate the end of a pole with his head. Twelve of his accomplices were also killed.
As the Mongol empress was a Koryŭ woman, the maternal grandmother of the crown prince of China was of course a Koryŭ woman. She was living in state in Song-do when her grandson came from Peking to make her a visit. It is said that in the festivities which graced this unusual occasion 5,100 pieces of silk were used in making artificial flowers. Such a feast had never before been seen at the capital of Koryŭ, however frequent they may have been at Peking.
The records state that in 1355 there was a great rebellion in China. We must remember that between the years 1341 and 1368 affairs were in a chaotic state in China. The last Mongol emperor, Tohan Timur, came to the throne in 1333 and gave himself up to licentiousness and luxury. No attention was paid to the filling of offices according to the time-honored law of literary merit, but the best positions were given to Mongols by pure favoritism. This caused widespread dissatisfaction among the Chinese and from that time the doom of the Mongol dynasty was sealed. In 1355 the low-born but brilliant leader Chu Yuan-chang, at the head of the insurrectionary army, crossed the Yang-tse river and took Nanking. This was the great rebellion spoken of in the Koryŭ annals and soon an envoy arrived from Peking demanding aid in the shape of soldiers. Twenty-three thousand men were sent on this forlorn hope. In 1356 a Mongol envoy brought incense to be burned in all the Koryŭ monasteries, doubtless with a view to securing supernatural aid against the rising Ming power. At the same time great uneasiness was again caused by raids of the Japanese, which increased in frequency and extent. One gang of robbers alone carried out of Kyŭng-sang Province, at one time, 200 boat-loads of rice. This year also saw the Ming forces pressing on toward Peking and driving the Mongols back step by step. As the fortunes of the Mongols waned the loyalty of Koryŭ waned accordingly. For the mass of the Koryŭ people, the Mongol yoke had never been less than galling, and they hailed the signs of the times which pointed toward her overthrow.
This tendency to restlessness under the Mongol yoke was shown when the Mongol envoy was carrying the incense about the country to various monasteries. Everywhere he treated the people like abject slaves and trampled on their prejudices and rights. When he came to Chul-la Province the governor promptly threw him into prison and put his son to death. The Mongols in Peking were of course too busy with their own troubles to attempt to chastise Koryŭ for this; and this very impunity added impetus to the anti-Mongol feeling.
In this same year, 1356, we see the first rising of the cloud that was soon to spread over the country and, breaking, clean the land of the corruption which had so long been festering at her core. This event was the coming to the capital of the father of the man who founded the present dynasty, on the ruins of Koryŭ. This man was Yi Cha-ch‘un whose posthumous title, given after the founding of this dynasty, was Whan-jo. As his son founded this dynasty it will be fitting to inquire briefly into his antecedents. His great-grandfather was Yi An-sa, a Koryŭ official who died in 1274, and who was afterwards given the title Mok-jo. His son was Yi Hăng-yi, born in Tŭk-wun in Ham-gyŭng Province, who was compelled by the Mongols to take office under them while they held possession of the north. His posthumous title is Ik-jo. His son was Yi Ch‘un, born in Ham-heung in Ham-kyŭng Province, who held rank under Koryŭ between 1340 and 1345. His posthumous title is To-jo. His son was Yi Cha-ch‘un of whom we are now speaking. He was born in 1315 and at the time of which we are writing he was made prefect of his native place, Sang-sŭng, in Ham-gyŭng Province. This part of Koryŭ had been held by the Mongols during the whole period of their occupation of Koryŭ until their loosening grasp let it fall back into the hands of Koryŭ and the king hastened to reorganise his government there.
The relatives of the Mongol empress still nursed the delusion that they could do as they pleased in Koryŭ, secure in the possession of such powerful friends at Peking. But they soon discovered their mistake, for their misdeeds met the same punishment as did those of others. Infuriated at this they planned an insurrection. They thought this newly acquired district of Sang-sŭng would be the most likely to co-operate with them in this scheme; so they opened negotiations with its people. The king therefore summoned Yi Whan-jo to Song-do and warned him against these traitors. Foiled here, the empress’ relatives appealed to the country to rise in defense of the Mongol supremacy, which was being thus rudely flouted. They learned what Koryŭ thought of Mongol supremacy when they were incontinently seized and put to death and their property confiscated. The next step was the sending back to China of the Mongol “resident.” This was followed by an expedition into trans-Yalu territory which seized all the land there which formerly belonged to Koryŭ. Fearing, however, that he was going a little too fast, the king sent an envoy to Peking to tell the emperor that the local governor of the north was responsible for these reprisals and not the central Koryŭ government. Troops were nevertheless stationed in each of these newly acquired districts and fields were cultivated to provide for their maintenance.
Not long after this the important question of coinage came up. We have already seen that the medium in Koryŭ was little bottle-shaped pieces, but as these were each a pound in weight they could be used only for large transactions. Each one of them was worth a hundred pieces of linen. It was decided to change to a system of regular coinage, and so the silver was coined into “dollars” each worth eight pieces of five-strand linen. It is probable that in all small transactions barter was the common method of exchange although there may have been a metal medium of exchange as far back as the days of ancient Chosŭn, a thousand years before Christ.
The question again came up as to the advisability of moving the capital to Han-yang, the present Seoul. Enquiry was made at the ancestral temple but what answer the spirits made, if any, we are not told. All dishes and implements as well as tile were made black because the peninsula is nearly surrounded by water and black is the color that corresponds to water according to Chinese and Korean notions. Black was substituted for the prevailing color in dress which was at that time blue-green, and men, women and monks all donned the sable attire.
It was at length decided to change the capital to the other site and palaces were ordered built there. They were, so some say, probably outside the present south gate of Seoul.