Joseon - Part 2

-1400- Yi Bangwon is enthroned as King Taejong!
   - A man of vigor and energy, perhaps he is the true founder of the real Joseon dynasty in terms of spirit.
   -Began to reorganize the government into a Confucian bureaucracy, completely gutting the former offices.
      -Also set up 6 official government ministries, as well as different offices set up for a system of checks and balances to prevent corruption.
-Also a harsh penalty system, and a redistribution that set up the same 8 regions of Korea that were used until the 20th century!
   -Pyeongan-do, Hamgil-do (Hamgyeong-do), Hwanghae-do, Gangwon-do, Gyeonggi-do, Chungcheong-do, Jeolla-do, and Gyeongsan-do.
      -Each province has a governor who operated out of a special capital, and then the province was administered by high-ranking officers at the level of the great county, which were further broken up into magistrate-level divisions of county, city, island, and town, and all of these positions had to be filled by men who had passed the Civil Service Exam.
   -Also implemented a system of paper money.
   -Trade also flourished due to a crackdown on the waegu.
   -Because rice was in short supply, King Taejeong cracked down on makgeoli!  He even forbade it from being served in the palace!
      -He also opened up the private royal hunting grounds for public use (whatever that means).
      -Also began to strip land property from monks to give to farmers- apparently, he really didn't like Buddhism and thought praying to Buddha was foolish and called it an "empty religion".
         -He also hated geomancy and fortune-telling, and even burned books!
-1408- (former) King Taejo dies, having never truly reconciled with his son, King Taejeong.
-1413- King Taejeong tries to implement the hopae system, which was essentially a plan to have everyone to have national ID cards for "tax collection" purposes, but really it was to control migration.
   -It was mandatory that these tags were worn at all times.
   -The rich had hopae made of ivory and deer horn, while the middle class had them made of wood.  peasants wore small wooden squares, and slaves and "untouchables" wore gigantic wooden tags around their necks.
-King Taejo was able to crack down on the waegu by mounting cannons onto ships, which made fucking them up easier.
   -However, on land, Koreans still hadn't figured out how to make legit guns yet.
      -King Taejeong did, however, send a force of 10,000 "gunpowder troops" to defend the border against the Jurchen.
-King Taejeong was getting old.  Who would succeed him?
   -He had 11 sons from 6 different women.
   -He began a purge, exiling various courtiers and relatives, executing his queens' brothers.
   -Various sources claim different things, but somehow his son, Yi Do, was named as crown prince and married to a princess of the Min clan, and then King Taejeong executed some influential Min family members to keep them from corrupting him.
-1418- King Taejeong abdicates the throne, taking a new position as a military commander and foreign policy officer.
   -His son, Yi Do, is enthroned as King Sejong!