-1392- King Taejo founds the Kingdom of Joseon, named after the ancient Korean kingdom of "(Old) Joseon" (Gojoseon). This followed the trend of renaming kingdoms after past kingdoms for legitimacy (like Goryeo and Gogoryeo).
-Ruled also by a Neo-Confucian court.
-However, King Taejo was old and still injured from his horse accident, so in order to maintain stability he replaced corrupt elite officials with strict technocrats who had performed well on the civil service exam.
-These were essentially people who were aligned with King Taejo's ideological revolution.
-Also, King Taejo was still indebted to allies who had supported him during the war effort, and unfortunately these people were granted positions based on loyalty instead of merit.
-Meanwhile, the Ming dynasty were pissed off. How is it that the Koreans could just all of a sudden declare themselves a new kingdom without the approval of the Ming emperor??
-Luckily, King Taejo was able to smooth things over with the Ming court, and pledged loyalty to the Ming dynasty.
-King Taejo also wanted to move the capital from Gaeseong, but he couldn't decide on Pyeongyang or Seoul.
-Ming also moved their capital from Beijing to Nanjing.
-King Taejo finally decided on Seoul- nicer weather, closer to agricultural land, safer, and a good spot according to Korean geomancy.
-However, King Taejo ignored some advice to build the palace in a sacred way, which horrified the geomancers.
-One problem also was that Seoul was designated as an administrative center, but not a cultural center, so it was kind of a boring place.
-To recognize the creation of this new kingdom, envoys were sent from many other neighboring countries, including the Ayutthaya Kingdom (Siam/Thailand), the Majapahit Empire (Indonesia), and the Ryukyu Kingdom (Ryukyu Islands).
-Joseon also began to work closely with the Ashikaga shogunate (Japan) to crack down the waegu.
-Joseon ambassadors were also able to pacify the northern Jurchen hordes who lived in Joseon territory, and were able to assimilate them into the kingdom.
-However, there was still a problem with the monks.
-They had too much power, and were completely revered by the common folk, and acted as local lords over their region of influence. They were very different form the Korean Buddhist monks of today. Back in the day, these monks even had slaves who worked while the monks partied it up!
-King Taejo began to undermine their power by declaring the revival of an old law- that all grandchildren of slaves are to be considered free.
-Prime minister Jeong Dojeon was the social architect for this new society, and a strict Neo-Confucian. He believed that a righteous king ruled by having all of the power, but should still spend most of his time participating in Confucian rituals and delegating power to his courtiers. The king must also study the Chinese classics and constantly engage in intellectual sparring with his ministers.
-We actually have excellent records of the Joseon dynasty due to the numerous historical chroniclers and their epic compilation "The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty".
-One big problem though- King Taejo had 8 sons among 2 different queens.
-Immediately there was a struggle for power, and even Prime Minister Jeong Dojeon was killed in the fighting.
-Most of the fighting was between the clans of the two queens (Gang and Han).
-A melee broke out in the streets and some of the people were killed. Finally, to end the violence, King Taejo named Prince Yi Bang-gwa (King Jeongjong) as heir, and retired to his royal villa in Hamhung, officially abdicating. However, he did return to the city as adviser sometimes.
-King Jeongjong was enthroned in 1398, although there was still a lot of family drama, including attempted coups and other crapola.
-He immediately declared that all private militias controlled by elite lords must be given over to the crown in order to consolidate power, which of course resulted in a revolt (that was quickly squashed). However, because of this, the aristocracy was crippled.
-1400- finally, as a result of the fighting and the fact that King Jeongjong was not a strong, driven ruler, he also abdicated (like his father) the throne.
-He was replaced by his younger brother, Yi Bangwon (King Taejong), who was much more charismatic and powerful.
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