At the time of which we write the great sewer of the city had a line of ancient willows extending the whole length. This was found to be a disadvantage and they were hewn down and the sewer was walled in as we see it today. Two more factions arose about this time. They were called the Nak and the Ho. Their differences were caused by conflicting theories as to the interpretation of the Confucian classics.
The greatest act of this king, and the one that casts the greatest luster on his memory, was reserved for the twilight of his reign. What led to it we are not told, but in the eighty-ninth year of his life, by a single stroke of the brush, he emancipated all the serfs in Korea. Up to this time all the common people had been serfs of the yang-bans or noble class. In every district and in every ward each man of the common people owed allegiance to some local gentleman. It took the form usually of a tax or tribute in kind and was very loose in its application; but on occasion the master could call upon all these people for service and he could even sell them if he so desired. This is the reason why it is exceedingly rare that a family removes permanently from any locality, at least nominally. A man may go from place to place, or may live permanently at the capital, but when asked where he lives he will invariably name the exact spot where he originated and where the seat of his family is still supposed to be. When the common people were serfs they could not move at will, and the custom became so ingrained in them that to this day its effects are plainly seen. This aged king put forth his hand and decreed that this serfdom should cease once for all. It was different from slavery. That institution still continued and has continued to the present day. This serfdom included all the people who did not belong to the so-called yang-ban class. It is quite plain that the line of demarcation between the common people and the nobility was very much more clearly defined than at the present day. We find no indication that the order was resisted in any part of the country. It is probable that the serfdom had gradually become largely nominal and the people only gradually came to realize what the edict realty meant. Even to this day the spirit of serfdom is a marked characteristic of the people.
His ninetieth year beheld the complete mental and physical collapse of the king. He could not attend to the ancestral sacrifices; his mind continually wandered from the subject in hand. He would order a meeting of his councillors and then forget that he had ordered it, or forget what he had ordered it for.
Hong In-han hated the young Crown Prince. It had long been his ambition to see on the throne the son of the princess who had given up the project of becoming queen. He worked with all his might to have the fatal day put off, when the royal seals should be put in the hands of the prince. He was all the more dangerous as he was the prince’s uncle, and therefore more difficult to handle.
When the aged king insisted upon giving up, this man said, “Not yet, you have many years more to reign,” and he succeeded in delaying the matter, hoping that something might intervene to prevent the consummation that he dreaded. At one time when the king called a clerk to record his decree that the Crown Prince, from that day, should assume the reins of power, Hong violently pushed the clerk away and prevented it. The officials were all in a state of trepidation over these high-handed proceedings, fearing that they might become compromised, but help was at hand. Sŭ Myŭng-sŭn memorialized the king and set forth this Hong in such a light that the king with a last effort asserted himself and the young prince became king. A near friend of Hong was banished as a hint that Hong himself might expect punishment if he persisted in making trouble. Early the next year more of Hong’s friends were banished. The aged king took the newly appointed King to the shrine of his foster father and made him swear that he would ever consider himself the son of that man rather than of his real father. The young man asked that the record of his father’s death be expunged from the official records and so they were taken outside the Northwest Gate and “washed” in the stream.
In the third moon of 1776 the old man died. The new king is known by his posthumous title of Chöng-jong Tă-wang. He immediately raised his adopted father to the rank of Chin-jong Tă-wang and gave his real father the title Chang-hön Se-ja.
The reign just ended had been rich in literary products. The names of same of the books published are: “How to deal with the native fever,” “The evil[evil] deeds of the Soron party,” “Conduct and Morals,” “Fortifications and Military Tactics,” “A Catechism of Morals,” “A reprint of the Confucian work So-hak-ji,” “An Abstract, in 100 volumes, of five important historical and geographical works.” This last was called the Mun-hön Pi-go.
In spite of the oath that he had taken, the young king built a separate shrine to his father and worshiped at it in the same manner as at the ancestral temple. This was in accord with the letter of the oath, for he religiously refrained, from calling his father by that name. He likewise honored the memory of his father by decreeing that if anyone mentioned the fact that he had been enclosed in a box and starved to death it would mean death. He banished the son of the princess who had encompassed his father’s death. The high-handed Hong In-han who had worked so hard to prevent his accession was first banished to Yö-san and enclosed in a thorn hedge, and then was poisoned by royal edict.
His first year of rule was marked by an attempt to assassinate him and put his brother on the throne, but the assassin was taken, knife in hand, and upon his confession Hong Sang-bom and his whole family were seized and put to death. At last in sheer self-defense the king was obliged to put his brother to death. At the same time he forbade the presence of sorceresses in the capital and banished many who had been instrumental in his father’s death. From this it would appear that there was a powerful clique in Seoul who were trying every means to accomplish his overthrow.
Being without issue, the king, at the instigation of his mother, took a concubine, the sister of one of his favorites, Hong Kuk-yung. This resulted very unfortunately, for when this concubine died her father was drawn into treasonable operations.