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.