The king dies.... seeds of discord sown.... the new king.... extensive
reforms.... party changes.... strife.... a great reformer.... the
ajuns checked.... abuses remedied.... a convent broken up....
various reforms.... revenue.... forestry.... memorialists
rebuked.... honest examinations.... the people cared for.... the
census.... numerous reforms.... qualities of a good prefect.... the
king dies.... a noble record.... the new king.... a bad outlook....
party strife.... census.... Japanese settlement at Fusan....
ceaseless quarrels.... a minister falls.... wholesale execution....
plot and counter-plot.... reforms in the navy.... calamities....
reign of terror.... Roman Catholics.... trouble brewing.... change
of party.... unutterable cruelty.... the queen deposed.... concubine
made queen.... a great statesman dies of poison.
In the tenth year of his reign, 1659, having exposed himself to the sun
and rain while sacrificing to heaven to secure the cessation of a great
famine that was on the land, the king was taken ill, an abscess broke
out on his temple and after a short illness he expired. In connection
with his death arose a contention that was destined to cause the death
of many men. The mother of the dead king was still living. She had worn
mourning for three years after the death of her elder son, and now the
question was whether she should assume it for an equal length of time
for this her second son. Song Si-ryŭl and Song Chun-gil argued that one
year only was sufficient. The other side was taken by Yun Hyu and the
debate was fierce and long. The classics were ransacked for proof texts
in support of either contention. The Prime Minister decided in favor of
the shorter term and the Queen Mother wore mourning for but a year. Song
Si-ryŭl also laid up wrath against himself by neglecting to have the
king’s body wrapped tightly in bandages, until it had swollen so that it
required two planks joined together to form the bottom of his coffin.
This was considered a great misfortune and ere a year had passed Song
was obliged to retire precipitately to the country to avoid being mobbed
for the offense.
The new king entered upon the duties of his exalted position as a mere
lad, in 1660. His posthumous title is Hyon-jong Tă-wang. His first duty
was to give his father burial. The geomancers said he ought to be buried
on a site near the town of Su-wŭn, but the courtiers thought that was
too near the main road, so a place was selected outside the East Gate.
This first year was one of reform. The penalties for murder were too
small. If a high class man committed murder he could get off with a
hundred blows and ineligibility for office for a short time, but now the
king, with the advice of the court, made all high class murderers
permanently ineligible for office. It must be borne in mind that the
demarcation between the upper and lower classes was much more distinct
in those days than it is at present.
Looking carefully into the condition of things, the king found many
abuses that required correction. He ordered that the army be better
clothed; he examined into the cases of many of the prisoners of state
and liberated not a few; he remitted the tax on hemp and ginseng in
Ham-gyŭng Province; he remitted the tax on the gold mines at Tan-ch‘ŭn
which had amounted to a thousand ounces a year; he lowered the land tax
in Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province. These voluntary retrenchments called for
economy at the capital and the king discontinued the royal stables, to
meet the falling off in revenue.
A word is necessary here as to the complexion of the political parties.
The old Tong-in had gone to pieces and in its place we find the Nam-in,
the So-ron and the Sŭ-buk parties. We have in all then the
Nam-in with Hŭ Mok as leader
So-ron ” Yun Cheung ” ”
No-ron ” Song Si-ryŭl ” ”
Sŭ-buk ” Yu Yöng-gyŭng ” ”
Among these the names of the Nam-in and No-ron were the most prominent
and their leaders, Hŭ Mok and Song Si-ryŭl were deadly enemies of each
other. There was no intermarriage between these different parties. Each
had its separate color. The Nam-in was red, the So-ron blue, the No-ron
white and the Sŭ-buk black. It was not the men but the women who wore
these distinctive colors and even to this day it is common to see the
party colors in the collars of women’s coats. The men were distinguished
by the shape of the coat collar. The No-rons and Nam-ins had a collar
cut square at the bottom; the So-rons had a bulging curve at the bottom
and the Sŭ-buk had a plain curve. These things sound childish but in
those days they meant life and death. The number of men who have been
sacrificed upon the altar of party strife mounts up into the hundreds of
thousands. The violent and unreasonable strife between them prevented
anything like concerted action when the country was threatened from
without. They made it impossible for any man to be judged according to
his true merits. They effectually blocked the efforts put forth by
honest men to secure a clean and honest government. There is nothing
more despicable in political life than the continued excitement of
fierce passions when there is no principle at stake and when personal
aggrandisement is the only goal.
But at the time of which we write the No-ron party, with Song Si-ryŭl at
its head, was so overwhelmingly predominant that party strife was for a
time almost held in abeyance. The remarkable character of this reign is
largely due to his efforts. The reign from beginning to end was one
grand march of progress, reform following reform with such rapidity that
the reign fairly scintillates with them. To realise how great a part
Song Si-ryŭl played in these movements it is necessary to know the
enormous power wielded by a Prime Minister in Korea, especially when he
enjoys the entire confidence of the king. His power to keep the king
informed or misinformed makes him practically the ruler of the land.
That Song Si-ryŭl was a real reformer is shown by the frequency with
which, during many a decade after his death, statesmen would break out
in panegyrics on his memory. It is shown also in the passionate hatred
of political enemies who saw in him a successful rival. We have little
evidence that this man ever lowered himself to the plane of common party
politics. Let us then review the fifteen years of this reign and see the
stamp of his great personality upon it.
We have already mentioned some of the reforms inaugurated. First he
gained a signal victory over his rival Hŭ Mok who tried to have him
degraded because of his position in regard to the period of the queen’s
mourning. Song Si-ryŭl went over the whole ground again, cited history
in support of his views and silenced by a simple and conclusive argument
the captious criticism of his detractors, but he showed his greatness in
not using his power to have his enemies killed, an act of generosity
which later cost him his life. The following are some of the reforms
instituted, and we give them here in full, for they afford a deep
insight into the condition of the people.
It had been very common for men to leave their families and go off to
some monastery and become monks. Now, the Buddhist monasteries are the
poor-houses of Korea. Beggary is uncommon, but often, when a man has no
visible means of support, he will shave his head, don the garb of a monk
and spend part of the year at some monastery and the remainder in
receiving donations from the people in the shape of rice or money. To do
this they necessarily desert their families. To counteract this evil the
king sent forth an edict that no more men with family ties should desert
them in this way, and furthermore that all monks who had families living
should doff their religious garb and come back to the world and support
their families like honest men.
The _ajun_ is a peculiar excrescence on the body politic of Korea. He
is the prefect’s clerk, or factor, or agent, or pimp, or
jack-of-all-trades. He is in a large sense the incarnation of all his
master’s vices, to which he adds many of his own. A royal edict was
promulgated which brought a host of these men to justice and compelled
them to disgorge much of their illgotten gains, which were given back,
so far as possible, to the people from whom they had been extorted. In
this case the reform was notable because of the limit which was put to
it. Ordinarily in Korea, when a man is caught and made a public
example of in this way, the law extends the punishment to the near and
remote relatives of the culprit, and many innocent men suffer with the
guilty; but in this case only actual offenders were punished. It was
strictly forbidden to call to account any man’s relative because of
his fault.
For many years all the salt factories and fisheries had been groaning
under a heavy tax which went to support an almost unlimited number of
the king’s relatives; but now these taxes were entirely remitted. We are
not told what the relatives did. Let us hope they went to work.
It had become customary for the tax collectors to demand a poll tax not
only from grown men, who alone were taxable according to law, but from
children as well. This abuse was likewise remedied.
The king gave up entirely the wild project of assaulting China, which
had been a pet scheme of his father, and he likewise found no cause for
supporting such a large military retinue about his person, and they were
discharged.
There was a flourishing Buddhist convent just west of the Kyöng-bok
Palace, in Chá-kol. The king wished to do away with it, but some
objected on the ground that it formed an asylum for aged palace women,
and because there were many royal tablets stored there. We may well
imagine the consternation of these objectors when the king said
concerning the tablets, “Well, dig a hole and bury the whole lot.”
The useless custom of having masked dancers accompany the royal
procession when returning from the ancestral temple was done away. The
king put an end to the custom of taking girls by force and compelling
them to become palace women. It must be only with the free consent of
the girl’s father. He consented to send men to various places where
sulphur was mined to see that the people of the surrounding country were
not ill-used. At the same time he ordered that no more sulphur should be
dug at Tal-sŭng-wi-gung inside the South Gate. He ordered that the tombs
of the king of Koryŭ should be kept in good repair. He quelled a great
popular excitement in the south, which arose from the rumor that various
Buddhas in the monasteries were sweating, by showing that it was caused
by the frost bringing out the moisture which had been absorbed during
the rainy season. The rumor was probably false, but how politic it was
to take it for granted and turn it off by giving some natural cause
rather than merely to deny the rumor. He added however the command that
as these Buddhas had caused such a disturbance they must be burned.
At that time the province of Chŭl-la contained about 190,855 _kyul_ of
land, a _kyul_ being supposed to produce forty bags of rice. The revenue
was set at thirteen pecks of rice from each _kyul_. The revenue from
24,084 _kyul_ was set aside for the support of the king’s relatives,
royal grave-keepers and for men whom the king particularly desired to
honor because of distinguished services. The revenue from the remaining
169,771 _kyul_, amounted to 147,134 bags of rice, 69,280 of which came
up to the capital and 85,916 were stored for use by officials in the
country. A certain amount of forest land was customarily set aside for
fuel supply for the different palaces, but through maladministration
these palaces each had much more forest land that it was entitled to,
and as a consequence the people had to suffer. So the king ordered a
redistribution of the forest lands and a correction of the fuel bill. He
sent twenty bags of cotton seed into Ham-gyŭng Province, for he desired
to see this useful plant grown in every one of the eight provinces. The
island of Quelpart being still very wild and the people uncultivated,
the king, for the first time in the history of the peninsula, made an
attempt to civilize them, by offering them government offices and by
establishing schools for them. He also did the same for the river towns
along the Yalu. As the wild tribes of Sŏl-han and Pyŭl-hă frequently
came across the border and looted the people’s houses at and near
Chang-jin, a general was sent to take care of Korean interests. When
1403 scholars from the country came to the capital and memorialized the
king against Song Si-ryŭl they were told that they were engaged in a
mere party strife and had not the interests of the country at heart, and
that if scholars meddled with the affairs of government they would be
severely handled. Along the Tuman River the people were utterly
ignorant, and scarcely knew whether there was a king at all; so men were
sent to found schools among them and teach. Nepotism existed to such an
extent, especially in connection with the government examinations, that
the king decided that no relative of any of the examiners should be a
candidate for honors. He established a criminal court in Seoul and took
all criminal cases out of the hands of the prefects, as they often
judged from prejudice rather than from the facts. He lessened by half
the tax that had been levied for the making of arms. The government
seized all common prostitutes and made them government slaves. Being a
devout Confucianist the king commanded that the names of Confucius’ four
disciples be never pronounced aloud. He diminished the garrison of
Su-wŭn from 6000 to 4000 on the plea of economy. He gave presents of
money to all unmarried women over thirty years of age, as some
compensation for what, in Korea, is considered the hardest of hard lots.
He was so affected by distress which he saw in the country during one of
his frequent trips to the hot springs, that when he returned to the
capital he laid aside many of the luxuries both of his wardrobe and his
table. He made camps for the poor who flocked to Seoul because of utter
want in the east country. One was outside the Water Mouth Gate, and the
other at A-o-gă. He likewise furnished them food and medicine. When a
boatload of Chinese belonging to the Ming dynasty, which had fled
southward, was driven by a storm on Quelpart the king promptly forwarded
them to Peking rather than lay himself open to any possible charge of
bad faith toward the Manchu power.
When some one tried to evade the payment of revenue by claiming that the
boat that was bringing it was wrecked, he decided that if this happened
again the owner should be decapitated. The king restored the copper
types which had been destroyed at the time of the Japanese occupation of
Seoul. He built a shrine to the unfortunate Tan-jong Tă-wang. He
remeasured the lands in the southern provinces for a proper adjustment
of revenue. He decreed that though a traitor’s family must be punished
with him, married daughters should be exempt from punishment. He
acquiesced in the suggestion of the minister of war that the scaling of
the city wall be made a capital offense, but when the courtiers
represented that if such a small crime deserved death everybody would be
a candidate for the executioner’s sword, he recalled the edict.
One of this king’s most interesting edicts was in connection with the
census. Having ordered a numbering of the people, he found that
objections were raised, because it would mean a more systematic and
thorough collection of taxes. So he put forth the edict that whenever
murder occurred, if the murdered man’s name was not on the list of tax
payers, the murderer would be immediately pardoned. Of course everybody
hastened to get their names on the books and to let it be known.
He forbade marriage between people of the same family name. A commission
was appointed to go and break off the point of dangerous rocks that
obstructed the channels along the coast and among the islands. No
governor was allowed to appoint any relative of his own to any position
in the province. A man who came up from the south and charged Song
Si-ryŭl with treason, but could give no evidence to substantiate the
charge, was put to death.
It was customary to expose infants born of incest, and they were allowed
to die in the streets. The king ordered that the government pay the
expense of the rearing of such unfortunates. He gave decent burial to
those who died in the mat sheds outside the wall, where contagious cases
were carried and left to die. He named nine kinds of men who would make
good prefects. (1) Men of good life and conduct. (2) Good scholars. (3)
Skillful men and those who fostered trade. (4) Natural leaders. (5)
Fearless men. (6) Students of human nature. (7) Men without an itching
palm. (8) Men renowned for filial piety. (9) Good authors.
In the fifteenth year of his reign, 1674, he was taken ill. The death of
his mother worked upon his spirits and aggravated his disease, and death
ensued. He needs no encomiums except the bare list of the great things
that were done during his reign. They will go down to posterity as his
lasting monument. His genius coupled with that of his great adviser,
Song Si-ryŭl, ranged through every phase of political and social life,
revenue, finance, political economy, agriculture, mining, official
rectitude, civil service, social ethics, sanitation, education, internal
improvement, the army, popular superstition, slavery, penalties, foreign
relations, border police, famine relief, consanguineous marriage,
publication; these and many other important topics demanded and secured
from him careful attention. He put down party strife with a heavy hand,
and only once or twice during the whole period of his reign does it
raise its malignant head.
His son succeeded to the throne, known by his posthumous title Suk-jŏng
Tă-wang. Party spirit had not been dead but only in abeyance during his
father’s strong reign. It now broke out again. Memorials poured in upon
the young king urging the evil practices of Song Si-ryŭl, and the young
king thought there must be some truth in them because of their very
numbers. He became the center of a very storm of charge and
counter-charge, of attack and defense. Being but fourteen years old and
of a naturally vacillating temperament, he was first the tool of one
party and then of another. His whole reign, which covered a period of
forty-six years, was one maelstrom of party strife and was fruitful of
more startling than useful events. His leading characteristic was
capriciousness. Again and again he turned from one party to another,
each turn being accompanied by numberless deaths. But we must not
anticipate.
It will be noticed that when his reign began in 1675 the Nam-in party
was in power with Hŭ Jŭk at its head. The strife over Song Si-ryŭl had
resulted in his banishment to Wŭn-san. He was the Bismarck of Korea in
that when his master died the aged councillor found in the son the same
gratitude that the Iron Chancellor did. It would be an endless as well
as a fruitless task to describe the party fights that took place. It
will be enough to say that the reign was one long fight from beginning
to end. During the early part of the reign, in 1677, a complete census
of the country was made. It was probably the conclusion of work begun by
the former king. It was found that in the whole country there were
1,234,512 houses, containing 4,703,505 people.
Some excitement was caused when it was found that Chinese histories were
claiming that Prince Kwang-hă was a good man, and that In-jo Tă-wang had
revolted against him. After a sharp party fight the king decided to send
an envoy and request the emperor to have the mistake corrected.
In 1678 the Japanese again insisted that their quarters in Fusan be
enlarged. Consent was given to move the settlement seven _li_ to the
south, to the town of Cho-hyang. This is the present site of the town of
Fusan. From east to west its length was 372 _tsubo_ and 4 feet. From
north to south it was 256 _tsubo_. Two official reception halls were
built, one called the East Hall and the other the West Hall. The houses
were all built by Japanese carpenters from Tsushima and the work covered
a period of three years. The Korean government gave 9000 bags of rice
and 6000 ounces of silver to cover the expense, and undertook to keep
the place in repair. That this colony was kept up in good style is shown
by the fact that Korea made repairs on these buildings in 1721, 1724,
1748, 1765, 1780, 1786, 1794, 1801, 1813, 1822, 1831, 1836, 1850, 1853,
1857, 1864.
The most trivial matters were made occasions for party fights. A storm
occurred on a day when the king was to go out, and the No-ron party
claimed that it was a dispensation of providence to spoil a plot of the
Nam-ins to revolt and seize the reins of power. Whoever took a firm
position on any point found later that it became the basis for an
accusation and a cause for death. So it was with the Prime Minister Hŭ
Jŭk who advised the building of a fortress near Song-do. This later
caused his death. The courtiers accused each other in the royal presence
about the most trivial matters, such as quarrels between their
concubines, the cutting of fuel timber, the profligacy of the Prime
Minister’s son, and such like, while great matters of state seem to have
taken care of themselves.
And so we arrive at the year 1680. The Nam-in are still in full power
and Hŭ Jŭk is still master of the situation. But see how small a thing
accomplishes his downfall. The day arrived for ancestral worship in Hŭ
Jŭk’s house, but it was very rainy. The king thoughtfully ordered the
eunuchs to get out the palace awning of oiled paper and carry it to the
Minister’s house and let him use it during the ceremony. The eunuch
replied that Hŭ Jŭk had already taken it. Instantly the king’s kindly
feeling was changed to anger and hatred by the insolence of the Minister
in thus appropriating the awning. He sent a messenger and discovered
that a crowd of the adherents of the Nam-in party had congregated at Hŭ
Jŭk’s house. They were immediately denounced as traitors. The generals
were called and the house was surrounded with troops. All the leading
men in the Nam-in party were killed on the spot. The names of the killed
are Hŭ Jŭk, Hŭ Kyŭn, Yu Hyŭk-yŭn, Yi Wŭn-jŭng, O Chŭng-ch’ang, Yi
T’ă-sö, Chöng Wŭn-no, Kang Man-ch’ŭl, Yi Wŭn-sŭng and Yun Hyu. The
king’s two cousins, Princes Pok-sun and Pak-pyŭn, and eight others were
banished. The No-ron party were then called back to power. The king
brought back from exile the great Song Si ryŭl and also Kim Su-han, whom
he made Prime Minister. In twenty-four hours a trusted minister and
party were totally overthrown and every place was filled with a member
of the opposition. The next few months were spent in hunting down the
remaining leaders of the Nam-in party and securing their execution. Some
were hung, some poisoned and some decapitated. One instance of this will
suffice. Hŭ Să and Hŭ Yŭng, two influential men lived at Yong-san. There
was no valid charge against them, so Kim Sŭk-ju told the king he would
find one. To this end he sent one Kim Whan-go to Yong-san and gave him
money to build a fine house adjoining that of the prospective victims.
Before long he had them involved in treasonable plans and as soon as
enough evidence was collected the two men were seized and put to death,
and with them a large number of their immediate friends. Man-hunting was
not so much a public necessity as a private pastime.
The newly installed general-in-chief found great abuses in the army and
thousands of names on the rolls, of men long since dead. Taxes were
being collected in an utterly lawless way. These abuses were done away
and others probably as bad or worse took their places, for as power
meant spoils the newly victorious party was not likely to forego any of
its privileges. We are borne out in this supposition by the fact that
about this time the king began the custom of making an annual visit to
the temple of heaven to pray for good crops. This indicates that the
people were being badly governed. He paid considerable attention to the
navy and appointed An-ju, Suk-ch‘ŭn, Sun-an, Yöng-yu, Cheung-san,
P’yŭng-yang, Yong-yang, Kang sö, Sam-wha, Ham-jong and No-gang in
P‘yŭng-an Province and Chang-nyŭn, Eun-yul, P‘ung-ch‘ŭn, Hŭ-sa and An-ak
in Whang-hă Province to be naval stations. It was only at this late date
that the second king of the dynasty received the posthumous title of
Chöng-jong Tă-wang.
Attention was paid to the border forts along the Yalu, expenses were
curtailed and garrisons were supported out of the land tax of the
adjoining districts. It was a time of many severe calamities. A fire in
P’yŭng-yang burned 344 houses and a flood in Ham-gyŭng Province
destroyed 906 more with great loss of life. Song Si-ryŭl had not
forgotten his old master, now some ten years dead, and he suggested to
the king that Hyo-jong Tă-wang be honored with the _Se-sil_, that is,
that his tablet be not removed from the ancestral temple after the
fourth generation, as was customary, but should remain there
permanently. It caused a great commotion, but the aged minister carried
the day. It is true that few monarchs of the line better deserved that
honor than did Hyo-jong Tă-wang.
The year 1684 beheld a sort of “reign of terror.” It arose in the
following manner. A messenger from the Japanese on Tsushima came post
haste announcing that a large band of Chinese pirates was about to land
on Korean soil. A panic followed in Seoul and thousands fled
precipitately to the country. Bands of thieves took advantage of the
confusion to commit many lawless acts. They formed a sort of secret
society and their principles were anarchistic. They made it an object to
raid houses where money was to be found. They seized ladies as they were
passing along the streets in covered chairs, and violated them. They
seized officials whom they hated, and put them to death. The government
found one of their books and in it was written their oath of membership.
Three cardinal principles were set forth; (1) To kill as many noblemen
as possible, (2) To violate as many women as possible, (3) To steal as
much personal property as possible. Seven men who had carried away and
ravished a widow of Kong-ju were caught and decapitated. One of them was
her own cousin and he belonged to the so-called “knife gang.” After a
time the disturbance was suppressed.
One incident of a peculiarly Korean character deserves mention. Some
money was stolen from the strong room of a fortress near Song-do. The
store-house keeper was suspected but there was no evidence. So the
commandant secretly questioned the keeper’s little son and found that
the suspicion was correct. The keeper was punished but the commandant
was also cashiered from the fact that he had induced a boy to
incriminate his own father.
The native records say that in the twelfth year of this sovereign, in
1686, Roman Catholicism entered Korea for the first time. Certain
foreigners entered the country and preached the new doctrine. We are not
told of what nationality these men were but it was long before any
European attempted to enter Korea. We are told that the new doctrine
spread rapidly and that some of the highest officials asked the king to
send the foreigners out of the country. Whether this was done cannot now
be learned. Nothing is said of this in the French work on the Roman
Catholic Mission in Korea, and it is somewhat difficult to understand.
It would hardly be found in the records, however, were there not some
ground for the statement.
* * * * *
The following year beheld events that were to result in another violent
revolution and in the driving from the seat of power the No-ron party
and the reinstatement of the Nam-in. It all grew from the king’s taking
a concubine, Chang, who soon gained complete ascendency over him. A
rumor arose that the queen was to be deposed and when Han Söng-u
expostulated with the king, the latter flew into a passion and drove him
away. The following year the concubine presented the king with a son,
the most unfortunate thing that could have happened, for, the queen
being as yet childless, it served to put the king more entirely under
the influence of the concubine. Trouble followed immediately. The king
said “I am now forty years old and have no son by the queen. The people
are getting uneasy. As I have gotten a son by a concubine I intend to
make him Crown Prince, and anyone may object at his peril.” In this way
he threw as it were a torch into a powder magazine. The No-ron party who
were in power, were in arms at once for they knew that the opposition
had been using the concubine to undermine their influence. Memorials
poured in from all sides reminding the king that he was still young,
that there was no need of haste in appointing the queen a successor.
These memorials the king answered by banishing the senders. Even Song
Si-ryŭl who had entered a mild protest, was stripped of rank and sent
outside the city. The Nam-in party then stepped once more into power.
From the Prime Minister down all offices were again turned over to them.
Song Si-ryŭl was banished to Quelpart, but the Nam-in were not content
with that, and demanded his death. So he was summoned back to Seoul.
Posthumous honors were given to many of the Nam-ins whom the king had
ordered killed at the house of Hŭ Jŭk.
Not long after this the king began to make preparations to put away his
queen. To this end he made the following statement. “For a long time I
have been aware of the queen’s jealous disposition and evil mind, and I
have borne with it patiently but now I can endure it no longer. Since I
have taken the concubine Chang it has been still more unendurable. The
queen and the concubine Kim have been putting their heads together in an
attempt to frighten me into putting away Chang, but I saw through the
plan. Now what shall we do?” Time and again the officials came pleading
for the queen, but the king was utterly deaf to all they had to say. He
piled unjust accusations upon her without deigning to give a single
proof. Large numbers where banished and a few killed outright because of
their intercessions with the king. The most notorious case was that of
Pak T‘ă-bo whose name has passed into a proverb. He with two others
memorialized the king begging him to drive away the concubine and retain
the queen. The king’s rage knew no bounds. He came out and took his seat
in front of the In-jŭng Gate of the Chang-dŭk Palace and had the man
brought before him. When asked why he had written the memorial he
answered, “Because of the treatment the queen has received.” The king
then ordered red hot plates to be passed along his limbs. Still he would
not express sorrow. Then bowls were broken into small pieces and the
fragments were piled up on the mans already burned limbs, a plank was
placed across them and men stood on either end of it and jumped up and
down. The pieces of pottery were of course ground into the man’s legs.
As he still remained firm he was tied with a rope and hoisted to the top
of a high pole in a cruelly painful position. As he still remained
unmoved he was banished to the south. His aged father accompanied him as
far as the river and there he died of his wounds. This, so far from
stopping the flood of petitions, only increased it, for immediately
16,000 men with Chöng To-gyŭng at their head sent in an appeal and
likewise all the country scholars and all the students of the Confucian
school. But every petition was returned by the passion-blinded king.
In the fifth moon of the year, 1689, the king deposed the queen,
stripped her of all her titles, degraded her to the level of the common
people and sent her back to her father’s house, not by way of the great
gate of the palace but by a side gate, in a white sedan chair, the badge
of a criminal. Concubine Chang was proclaimed queen and her father
became a prince. We will remember that the aged Song Si-ryŭl had been
ordered back from Quelpart to meet his fate at the capital, but even the
popular sympathy which a public execution at Seoul would have aroused
was denied him, for the king sent a draught of poison to be administered
on the way, and so in an obscure country village the grand old man drank
the deadly potion and passed away. Some of his followers who afterwards
memorialized the king in regard to him were killed or banished, together
with the deposed queen’s relatives. The following year the son of the
newly appointed queen was made Crown Prince.