In the year 1743 the king put roofs upon the West and North-east Gates. Before that time they had been simply arches. He set on foot an agitation against the use of silk, and ordered that no more banners be made of that material. He utterly did away with the last remnant of the Soron party by an edict in which he stated that all who would go by that name were traitors. There was a popular superstition that the third and sixth on the list of successful candidates at the government examinations would soon die; so the examiners were careful to substitute other names, in case a friend or relative found himself in this awkward predicament. The king happened to see this done once and upon inquiry found that the names of two Song-do men were being substituted in place of those of some friends of the examiners. In anger he ordered the names to be all mixed up again, and that each man be made to run his chance of sudden death. One of his most salutary reforms was the doing away with the mudang or sorceress class, who did and still do so much to corrupt the morals and degrade the manners of the Korean people. This period beheld the invention of the one-wheeled chair, but its use was always confined to the third official grade. A step backward was taken when it was decreed that no one above the ninth official grade could be beaten as punishment for crime. It tended to build up another barrier between the upper and lower classes. And yet it was not an unmixed evil, for a public beating must inevitably lower the dignity of the office that the culprit holds. There was such universal complaint against both the land and the poll taxes that the king put it to vote at a plebiscite called in Seoul in 1750, and the people voted unanimously for a house tax instead, and the king complied. The next year a grandson was born to him, who was destined to be his successor. He found it necessary to police the four mountains about Seoul to prevent the trees all being cut down. He built for the first time a fortification at the Im-jin River. In 1751 famines in different localities drove crowds of people to Seoul and the government was obliged to feed them; then the king’s mother died; then the queen died. The king said there must be some extraordinary cause for all these calamities. He believed it was because wine was being secretly used in the palace. It was denied, but he was incredulous and ordered that even in the ancestral sacrifices the use of wine be dispensed with and that water be used instead. The provincial general of Ham-gyŭng Province was convicted of having used wine and the king went outside the South Gate to see him executed. The culprit’s head was set on a pole in view of the populace. Following up the good work of doing away with sorcery, the king banished from Seoul all the blind exorcists.
The year 1753 was marked by two events of importance. A woman created a great disturbance in Whang-hă Province by claiming to be a Buddha and inciting the women everywhere to burn up the ancestral shrines. The trouble ended only when the king sent a special officer to seize and execute her.
We are told that by this time the secret study of the tenets of Roman Catholicism had resulted in its wide diffusion in the provinces of Whang-hă and Kang-wŭn. There was uneasiness at court on account of the rumor that the people were throwing away their ancestral tablets, and the king ordered the governors of those provinces to put down the growing sect. This was more easily ordered than done, and as no deaths followed it is probable that the governors did little beside threaten and denounce. Two years later a work of importance was completed. The great sewer of the city was quite inadequate to carry away the sewage of the city and every time a heavy rain fell the sewer overflowed and the street from the great bell to the East Gate became a torrent. The king gave two million cash out of his private purse and the sewer was properly cleaned out. He also appointed a commission on sewerage and ordered that there be a systematic cleaning out every three years.
We have now arrived at the thirty-eighth year of the reign, corresponding to the year 1761 A. D. Up to that time the reign had been a brilliant one, not because of military successes but because of social, economic and other reforms. So far, it stands side by side with the reign of Suk-jong Tă-wang, who with the aid of the illustrious Song Si-ryŭl, effected such far-reaching reforms. We have yet seen but few signs of that growing senility which forms such a marked characteristic of the remainder of this reign. The king was now over seventy years old and he had lost that vigor of mind which characterized the earlier years of his reign. But he still possessed all that imperiousness of will which likewise characterized him. Good judgment and will power should decline together or else the results may be disastrous, as is illustrated in the remaining years of his reign.
We will remember that his first son had died and his second son had been made heir to the throne. He in turn had a son who was now eight years old. The evils which we are about to relate grew out of the fact that the heir was not as strongly attached to the Noron party as its adherents desired and they feared that his accession might result in a resuscitation of the defunct Soron party. The truth is the son carried out in fact what his father commanded, but did not live up to—namely the obliteration of all party lines. The old man, while always preaching the breaking up of party clanishness, remained a good Noron to the end of his days and the Norons had all the good things in his gift. The king perhaps thought that party lines had been lost sight of, but it was only the overwhelming ascendency of the Noron party[party], which made comparison absurd. Instead of destroying party lines he did the very opposite in putting all the power into the hands of a single party. This suspicion against the Crown Prince on the part of the party in power was the main cause of the disturbance which followed, but its immediate cause was the ambition of a woman, a not unusual stumbling-block in the path of empire. This woman was the sister of the Crown Prince who desired that her husband be made king. Her name was Princess Wha-whan Ong-ju. One of the palace women also hated the Crown Prince. All these people desired his removal from the field of action and all had different reasons. The Noron party[party] wanted to save themselves; the Princess wanted to become queen, and the palace woman wanted revenge; why, we are not told.
It did not take long to find a way. Hong Kye-heui, Hong Pong-han and Kim Sang-no, three choice spirits came together and began laying plans for the overthrow of the Crown Prince. They first instructed the soldiers about the person of the Prince to steal women or goods and, when questioned about it, claim that it was at the order of the Prince. One day when the king was taking a walk behind the palace he came across a shallow excavation in the earth, covered with thatch. Looking in, he found it filled with mourners’ clothes and other objects of mourning. Inquiring what it meant, he was told that the Crown Prince was impatient to have him die and that he had prepared the mourners’ garments in advance. This aroused the anger of the king. He never stopped to think that it might be a trick against the Prince. Every thing lent color to the suspicion. Again, one day, the king found the palace woman, above mentioned, weeping bitterly. She said it was because the Crown Prince had offered her indignity. So by degrees plotters, bringing apparent evidence from several sides, which could not but seem conclusive, gradually estranged the king from his son and at last caused the removal of the latter to another palace, the one called the “Old Palace.” These things preyed upon the mind of the Crown Prince and made him ill, but to add to this, it is said they administered drugs to him which tended to unbalance his mind and make him violent toward those about him. Then the Princess his sister arranged a trip to P’yŭng-yang for his health. It was intended that while he was there he should be charged with plotting to bring a force to overthrow the king and usurp the government. On his return, as he was approaching the city near night, an official came in to the king and announced that the Crown Prince was outside the gate and intended to come in that night and seize the scepter. This threw the king into a frenzy of rage. He immediately had all the gates put under double guard and sent out demanding the reason of the Prince’s treasonable actions. The latter denied all treasonable intentions, but it was too late. The old man was unable to reason calmly about the matter. On the fifteenth day of the fifth moon the king went down to the “Old Palace” to sit in judgment on his son. It was an exceedingly hot day. When the Crown Prince came in and bowed before his father, the latter said “Do you realize how you have sinned?” The Prince replied that he was not conscious of having sinned against his father in any way whatever. As the king had already decided in his mind that the Prince was guilty, this denial made him simply furious. He screamed “If you do not die it will mean the destruction of the dynasty. So die.” He then ordered all the assembled courtiers to bare their swords but they hesitated, for they knew the Prince was innocent; but when the king leaped up and drew his sword they had to do likewise. The Prince calmly said “I am no criminal, but if I am to die it ought not to be before the eyes of my father. Let me return to my apartments and then do with me as you will.” The king was too far gone with rage and excitement to care for the dignity of his high station or to care for appearances. “No,” he screamed, “It must be here before my eyes.” Thereupon the Prince undid the girdle about his waist and proceeded to strangle himself. The whole court were horrified, excepting the king, who could no longer be called sane. They rushed forward, undid the cord and dashed water in his face to bring him back to consciousness, in spite of the king’s loudly vociferated commands to the contrary. They joined with one voice in asking the king’s clemency, but they might as well have asked a maniac. He threatened to kill them too if they persisted in thwarting him. He then ordered a heavy plank box to be brought in and the Prince was commanded to get into it. But at the moment he was trying to beat his brains out against a stone and did not hear the command. One of the officials ran to him and spread out his hands on the stone and received the blows that were intended to end the life of the unhappy Prince. Being dissuaded from this, the Prince arose and went to his father and said “I am your only son, father, and though I may have sinned, overlook it and forgive me. You are not like my father now. You will recover from this passion and lament it.” This enraged the king to such an extent that he could hardly articulate as he ordered the Prince to get into the box. At this moment they brought up the little grandson to plead for his father’s life, but the king raised his foot and gave the child a kick that sent it reeling back into the arms of those who had brought it. It was evident that there was nothing to be done; so the Prince proceeded to climb into the box. It was now dark and when the cover was nailed on it was not noticed that there was a large knot-hole in one side of the box. One of the officials came and spoke to the Prince through this hole. He was overcome by the heat and asked for water and a fan, which were passed in to him. One of those who were interested in the Prince’s death told the king what was going on, and he hurried out and ordered a heavy plank nailed over the hole, and banished the man who had helped the Prince. The assembly broke up, but the Prince was left in this narrow prison day after day to starve. Each day one of the palace servants gave the box a heavy blow with a stone. At first it elicited an angry protest from the Prince but the fourth day he only said “I am very dizzy. Please leave me in peace.” On the seventh day there was no response, and the servant bored a hole and put in his hand and felt the cold body of the dead Prince. The body was wrapped in grave-clothes and taken away for burial. He received the posthumous name of Sa-do. It is a singular fact that from that day to his end, some fifteen years later, the king never expressed sorrow for this act of cruelty. It is also significant that the Princess never tried to carry out her plan of having her husband become king. The horror of this scene seems to have turned her mind away from its purpose. At any rate she drops from the page of history without being given an opportunity to atone even in part for the terrible crime for which she was largely to blame. The king still looked upon his grandson as the heir to the throne, but he made him disown his dead father and take his uncle as father. He likewise made the boy solemnly promise never to change his mind in this. We see from this that the king continued to the very end to think that the Prince was guilty and his deed justifiable.
The year 1764 found an octogenarian on the throne. From this time on, the king was exceedingly feeble, but he clung to life with a tenacity that was amazing, and was destined to encumber the throne for a full decade still. His increasing weakness made it necessary for his physicians to prescribe a little wine. He acquiesced, and from this time the laws against the use of wine were relaxed somewhat. Its use was soon resumed in connection with the ancestral worship, but only at the importunity of the princess.
These declining years are by no means barren of interesting events. The annual sacrifice in behalf of the country had always been made at Pi-băk Mountain in Ham-gyŭng Province, but it was told the king that as Păk tu Mountain stood at the head of the country and dominated the whole, as it were, the sacrifice should be made on or near that mountain, So it was decreed that from that time on the sacrifice should be performed at Un-ch‘on Mang-dŭk-p‘yŭng, eight li beyond Kap san and in full view of the great Păk-tu-san or “Mountain of the White Head.” And it was further decreed that those who took part in the service should be secluded for four days before the event, should bathe often and put on clean clothes and forego all commerce with women.
In 1767 the king ordered a full census of the country. It was found to contain 1,679,865 houses, containing 7,006,248 people. In other words there had been an increase of over 800,000 since the year 1657. He also ordered the making of a new rain gauge. The first one is said to have been made by King Se-jong. He did away with the punishment that consists in beating the tops of the feet until, frequently, the toes drop off. On account of the danger of ship wreck in rounding the corner of Whang-hă Province the king ordered the discontinuance of annual naval tactics at Chang-nyŭn, excepting for the boats regularly stationed there. He built a palace in Chŭn-ju in Chŭl-la Province and had sacrifices offered there, for although Ham-gyŭng Province is said to be the birthplace of the line, the family really originated in the south. The king also revived the ancient custom of having a bell hang in the palace gateway, to be struck by anyone who had a grievance to lay before the king.
A split occurred in the Noron party in the year 1771. The two factions were called respectively the Si and the Pyŭk. The former held that the father of the Crown Prince was an innocent man and had been unjustly punished, while the latter held the reverse. It is evident that those who claimed he was innocent were making a bid for favor with the prospective king.