A History of Korea (35 page)

YI PANGW
N’S PURGE OF CH
NG TOJ
N, 1398

Six years after the founding of the new dynasty, for which he played the role of mastermind as well as lieutenant, Ch
ng Toj
n was killed by a militia sent by Yi Pangw
n, the fifth son of the dynastic founder. The prince, furious over Ch
ng’s betrayal in publicly backing Pangw
n’s half-brother for designation as the crown prince, now considered the scholar-official a major stumbling block to his own ascent to the throne. Despite having worked in tandem to achieve the common cause of toppling the Kory
monarchy, the two had grown increasingly at odds over the issue of royal succession. Pangw
n, uneasy at the prospect of not getting his just reward, purged his former partner, thereby eliminating from the scene the primary intellectual force in the expression of dynastic legitimacy. From the inception of the Chos
n era, then, a pattern of struggle was laid between ambitious monarchs and pious officials that would feature prominently in the dynasty’s politics as a whole.

Had it not been for this bloody moment, Yi S
nggye, the dynastic founder, would have enjoyed unquestioned primacy in the saga of dynastic
founding. Like Kim Yusin and Wang K
n, the leading figures in the Silla unification and Kory
founding, respectively, Yi was a military figure who began from the geographical fringes of the reigning kingdom. And it was Yi’s audacity, foresight, and capacity to mobilize a wide range of followers—from military men to scholar-officials and even foreigners—that made possible the monumental change of a dynastic turnover. In contrast to Wang, however, Yi had to deal with potential trouble not from rival warlords but rather from rival sons. When he formally proclaimed the new dynasty in 1392, Yi could scarcely have foreseen that the monarchy he labored to establish would almost immediately begin to fray from the ravages caused by his own progeny. From the historian’s vantage point, this particular episode—indeed, the entire process of dynastic turnover from Kory
to Chos
n—brings into relief major issues affecting the historical judgment of the Chos
n dynasty as a whole, even of premodern or “traditional” Korean civilization itself.