“If it had not been for you I never could have become king. Your goodness and faithfulness are never to be forgotten. Heaven and earth witness to it from generation to generation. Let us abjure all harm to each other. If I ever forget this promise let this oath witness to my perfidy.”
But soon the king began to see the ludicrousness of his position. His sons had been banished, himself without a particle of power and the voice of the people clamoring to have Gen. Yi made king. The pressure was too great, and one day the unhappy king handed over the seals of office to the great dictator Gen. Yi T‘ă-jo and the Wang dynasty was at an end. The king retired to private life, first to Wŭn-ju, then to Kan-Sŭng and finally to San-ch‘ŭk where he died three years after abdicating. The dynasty had lasted four hundred and seventy-five years in all.
END OF PART II.
PART III.
MODERN KOREA.
1392-1897.
PART THREE.
MODERN KOREA.
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.