-1339- King Chunghye takes the throne, but there were those who wished to see him dethroned. 2 factions formed between the conspirators and loyalists, culminating in a street battle outside the royal palace. Although the king was injured, the conspirators were beaten and their leader was beheaded.
-However, one of the conspirators was a good friend with Emperor Toghon Temür of the Yuan dynasty, so he fled to him to try and draw the emperor onto their side.
-Toghon Temür then summoned King Chunghye to his court to answer for WTF was going on exactly in Goryeo. He then decreed that all Goryeo citizens must disarm and were not allowed to ride horses (!).
-After this, King Chughye was acknowledged officially as King of Goryeo by the Yuan dynasty.
-1340- King Chunghye was a debauched monster. He took a Goryeo noblewoman, Princess Deongnyeong, as his wife (instead of a Yuan princess). However, he also kept a huge harem of women in "sewing rooms", and even went so far as to start banging the concubines of his father, King Chungsuk.
-Heavily taxed the large rural estates owned by the nobility, as well as their industries, and spent all the money on himself instead of infrastructure.
-Loved spending his time throwing a wooden ball at targets, especially human targets.
-Would sometimes also go into people's houses at night and rape.
-King Chunghye was such a piece of shit that many fled the city and/or became monks.
-Many of these expats ended up in the town of Shenyang in China.
-The poor were miserable, and suicide was common.
-1343- Toghon Temür finally heard about how fucked up Goryeo was at this time, and summoned King Chunghye to his imperial court at Dadu (modern-day Beijing).
-The Yuan ambassador to Goryeo then rounded up King Chunghye's inner circle and arrested them, along with the king. He then imprisoned King Chunghye in a box and sent him to Dadu, where he was to be scolded by Toghon Temür, strapped to a wooden board, and exiled. At some point in all of this, of course, King Chunghye died.
-1344- King Chungmok, son of King Chunghye, was enthroned.
-He was only a boy, so a Yuan regent was the one who really called all the shots.
-1348- King Chungmok died suddenly, and is replaced by his younger brother (still a boy), King Chungjeong.
-During this time, the "waegu" ("Japanese/dwarf pirates") became a bad problem.
-Although for a long time it was believed that they were only from Japan, it's entirely possible that they were not just Japanese, but also Korean (from outlying islands), Chinese, mixed ethnicity, etc. Whatever they were, they were definitely bad actors.
-1351- King Chungjeong sucked, so Toghon Temür dethroned him and replaced him with King Chunghye's brother, King Gongmin (who had been held hostage in Dadu).
-King Gongmin was also a painter, a romantic, and actually loved his wife! However, it may have just been a platonic love, as King Gongmin apparently loved having sex with little boys, as he kept several court catamites around for sex.
-During this time, the people of Goryeo began to seriously question why they were still a part of the Yuan dynasty, especially since it was clear that their Mongol overlords had lost the Mandate of Heaven.
-Secret societies and cults began to pop up all over the kingdom, such as the White Lotus (based out of China).
-The White Lotus actually started a rebellion in northern China. These rebels became known as the Red Turbans.
-1355- The Red Turbans capture Nanjing, and then their ideology begins to shift from Buddhism to Neo-Confucianism.
-Soon, all of China begins to get really rebellious.
-During this time also, King Gongmin was having problems with both the waegu AND Red Turbans.
-1356- The Red Turban army begins to attack Dadu! The Yuan dynasty actually desperately asks Goryeo for help.
-King Gongmin sent troops to help fight off the Red Turbans, but many believe that this is dumb.
-1356- King Gongmin finally agrees that the Yuan dynasty is fucked, so he decides to go and retake the lands in North Korea that were once a part of the Chinese commanderies but still directly under the control of the Yuan dynasty still.
-The Yuan troops were driven out, and now all of the Korean peninsula and traditional "Korean" lands were back under Goryeo control.
-1358- Meanwhile, the waegu raids are still getting worse.
-During this time, many citizens of the Yuan dynasty realized that the Yuan were fucked, so they began to defect to Goryeo lands.
-Other forces, such as non-Red Turban rebels in the Yuan dynasty and random barbarian hordes in the north started to send gifts and tribute to King Gongmin. It was obvious that in northeast Asia, Goryeo was to fill part of the power vacuum that would occur once the Yuan dynasty fell.
-1359- The Red Turbans begin to move into the Liaodong Peninsula and attack Goryeo!
-Goryeo was able to eventually repel the Red Turban army, but soon a Red Turban naval fleet landed inside the kingdom and began to raid!
-Also, the waegu were so bad at this point that they were a direct threat to Goryeo's capital, Gaeseong. The court had to move to Seoul, which was easier to defend.
-Goryeo also set up conscriptions, called "smoke house soldiers", because they enslisted men from any house that had smoke coming out of it.
-1361- The Red Turban army returned, this time with the explicit purpose of conquering Goryeo! Goryeo was still able to defend themselves adequately, however.
-Also during this time, the Yuan dynasty tried to get King Gongmin off the throne, but they were too weak to actually get this done. They were able, however, to get the governor of Jeju Island to rebel!
-1364- Toghon Temür then sent 10,000 soldiers to remove King Gongmin from power.
-Meanwhile, the Jurchen were back and on the rise!
-They had been run out of NE Asia when the Jin dynasty had collapsed (they had fled to maybe Kamchatka or Siberia for a century or so), but now they were back! Goryeo would end up having to deal with them soon, but for now they had to worry about the incoming Yuan troops.
-Goryeo was strong enough at this point to repel the Yuan army, and then as a victory lap they went north and kicked the Jurchens' asses as well! However, the reason for this may have been because the general was trying to avoid going back to the Goryeo royal court, as he didn't wish to "outshine" the king.
-1365- Queen Noguk dies with a huge, elaborate funeral.
-Soon after this, King Gongmin began to have nightmares and maybe grew paranoid about his own mortality, so he befriended a hard-drinking, hard-partying monk named Shin Don that he supposedly envisioned saving his life in one of his dreams or something.
-King Gongmin then just went nuts and started banging young boys and shit, and Shin Don was able to accumulate lots of power (and a harem of women, of course) in the royal court. King Gongmin just kind of resigned himself to only participating in Buddhist rituals, and Shin Don did everything else.
-1367- Goryeo attempts to recapture Jeju-do, as it was no longer able to be protected by the Yuan dynasty.
-1368- The Yuan dynasty finally collapses, as Dadu was besieged by the Red Turbans armies. Toghun Temür soon died while on the run in Inner Mongolia.
-The warrior monk who had led the Red Turbans, Zhu Yuanzhang, crowned himself Emperor of China, kicking off the Ming dynasty!
-At the same time, the Japanese tried to establish a peace treaty with Goryeo. Goryeo could have used this as an opportunity to get the Japanese to crack down on their pirates, but Shin Don was an asshole to the Japanese ambassador and treated him badly.
-Shin Don then began to fill the ranks of the government with his own cronies.
-Luckily for Goryeo, King Gongmin was still able to establish good relations with the Ming dynasty during this time.
-1370- Goryeo began to expand its territory in the north, invading the land held by Jurchens and Yuan rebels.
-There was a power vacuum in Manchuria due to the collapse of the Yuan dynasty, and the Ming dynasty hadn't pacified the region yet.
-During this time also, Shin Don tried to stage a coup to dethrone King Gongmin! But this failed, and, as a result, King Gongmin had Shin Don executed.
-Now that Shin Don was gone, King Gongmin was finally back in power. The Yuan dynasty had collapsed, the Goryeo court was divided between the old guard of Yuan loyalists and the new school of pro-Ming dudes.
-1373- A Mongol rebel sent word to Gaeseong that he had just raised a big army, and was on his way to conquer Beiping (modern-day Beijing, formerly Dadu/Khanbaliq under the Yuan dynasty).
-Meanwhile, Goryeo was in serious trouble!
-The were raiding everywhere. and alsp they destroyed a bunch of Goryeo ships in a naval battle as well.
-In order to fight against the waegu fleets, King Gongmin developed a ship that could shoot fire arrows, but unfortunately it required gunpowder, which could only be obtained from the Chinese, and they refused to give out the secrets to its production.
-1374- the Mongol rebel army wanted to ally with Goryeo and demanded a shitload of horses from Jeju-do. The problem was that Jeju was still controlled by Mongols too, but they weren't allied with the Mongol rebels in Manchuria.
-Goryeo finally invaded Jeju-do and reconquered it, driving off the Mongol overlords.
-This year also brought about the death of King Gongmin, who was stabbed to death in his sleep by some conspirators over some drama with a concubine or something OR it was a plot by an anti-Ming faction, it's unclear.
-King Woo (or U) was enthroned, although he had a military general as his regent. However, the Ming dynasty refused to accept this boy as a legitimate ruler, especially given his dubious origins as perhaps not really the true son of King Gongmin.
-Also, the caravan that had all of the tribute from Goryeo was raided by bandits, so they had no gifts to give the Hongwu Emperor.
-Shit got pretty heated back in Goryeo over this, resulting in the pro-Yuan faction convincing King Woo's regent to side with the Manchurian rebels in rebellion against the Ming dynasty.
-The waegu still continued to be a blight upon the land during this time still as well.
-By 1377, Goryeo had finally stolen the secrets to its production through bribery, and were able to produce their own rockets and fire arrows, developed by Choi Mu-seon, Goryeo's Superintendent of Gunpowder.
-1378- General Yi Seong-gye, a badass who had done a bunch of successful military campaigns earlier, was appointed as supreme commander of the Goryeo military.
-General Yi immediately decreed that all the monks must fight as warriors to defend the lands against the waegu.
-Although at this time Goryeo did have gunpowder, they hadn't quite developed the weapon technology to use it for land battles.
-The waegu decided at this time to mount a huge attack on Gaeseong. Luckily, General Yi arrived just in time to attack the pirates from behind and wipe them all out. The Japanese even sent troops to fight and help Goryeo as allies. I guess they hated the waegu as well.
-1379- The Goryeo army and the navy finally had gunpowder! This gave them a huge advantage against the waegu.
-1380- King Woo decides to officially side with the Ming dynasty.
-This was a dumb move because the Ming didn't like him, and it pissed off the Manchurian rebels and their sympathizers. It also pissed off the common folk too (for whatever reason).
-Also, King Woo was turning into yet another drunkard ruler.
-Meanwhile, General Yi continued to fuck up the waegu. He also went on to defeat would-be Jurchen invaders as well.
-1380-1385- In order to accept King Woo as legit, the Ming dynasty demanded a ludicrous amount of tribute. King Woo continued to play this game until he was finally accepted by the Ming court.
-However, in 1385 King Woo randomly changed his mind and began to befriend the Mongol rebels in Manchuria (in hopes of betraying them and taking over their territory).
-This was really dumb because I guess the region was occupied by Ming forces, who greatly outnumbered Goryeo's forces. Plus, Goryeo didn't have enough money to truly finance this campaign, plus they still had the waegu to worry about.
-The weather was also really rainy and shitty, the soldiers knew it was a suicide mission so morale was low, soldiers were deserting, and even General Yi cried because he knew that the situation was completely fucked. General Yi decided that King Woo was going to bring the downfall of Goryeo, so he turned the army around instead and marched on Gaeseong!
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