Combine the sadism of Game of Throne’s King Joffrey and Ramsay “The Bastard” Bolton with Robert Baratheon’s appetites, and you have Prince Yeonsan.

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NOTES

Previously on The Joseon Dynasty…

• The horny and prodigious King Seongjong
• First wife (Queen Gonghye) dies
• Concubine Lady Yun is elevated to queen
• Pisses off Seongjeong’s mom Queen Mother Insu and her allies and the Sarim faction
• Seongjeong’s mom conspires with concubines Jeong So-yong and Eom So-yong 
• During dinner, a jealous Queen Yun scratched the king’s face.
• Queen Yun banished then brought back and forced to drink poison. (1482)
  • Vomited blood on her white garments
  • Asked her mother to give her blood stained cloth to her son
    • “Someday my son will repay me.”

1494-1506 10 Yeonsangun → Psycho slut obsessed with mom’s death

• • Not to be confused with the county in North Korea
  • Possibly believed his stepmother was his birth mother
  • Hated learning while growing up
  • Killed Jo Sa-seo, one of his tutors
  • King Seongjong dies (1494)
  • Annals of Seongjong
    • Recorded poltergeists and a woman ghost who talks and eats right before Yeonsangun’s crowning
  • Early days of reign
    • Helped the poor
    • Strengthened national defense in response to pirates
    • Possibly the first king to use a sort of toothbrush
      • Had toothaches, like his predecessors
    • Possibly the most artistically inclined of Joseon kings
    • No Sasin and Buddhist funeral rites
      • National Confuciam Academy
      • No pleaded leniency on rivals
  • Rivalry between Merit-subjects and Scholar-officials
    • Regional rivalry
    • Yun Tangro
      • Brought in an entertainer and took her as his concubine during king’s mourning period
      • Anti-No-Sasin scholars protested this. 
      • Merit-subjects defended, since Yun had royal blood
      • Hint of the brewing Rivalry to come
      • No no longer plead leniency
      • Also, Yeonsan took every bit of friction as a personal challenge to his absolute power
  • (1498) Literati Purge (Muo-sawha)
    • Rivalry between Kim Ilson (scholar) and Yi Geukdon (merit subject)
      • Kim wrote shit about Yi in history of King Seongjong about playing with prostitutes during Sejo’s mourning period
      • Yi was later assigned historiographer and saw what Kim wrote
        • Saw poem Kim Jongjik (Kim Ilson’s mentor) wrote about assassination of Xiang Yu
          • Kim Ilson noted it in the margins as an allegory of Danjong’s death (considered treason)
          • Because Yeonsan was direct descendant of Sejo
          • Used it to accuse all scholar elites
    • (July) Yu Jagwang, et al, accused (the dead) Kim Jongjik of high treason
      • Prince Yeonsan ordered interrogation of those involved in draft of royal history containing the poem
        • Wanted to get rid of scholars anyway
      • 32 officials punished
        • Kim Ilson and two others executed by dismemberment
        • 2 beheaded
        • 19 banished to remote places and sold into slavery
        • 4 expelled from office (including Yi Geukdon for not reporting it sooner)
        • 4 demoted
        • Body of Kim Jongjik hacked to pieces
    • Scholars still remonstrated about merit-subject corruption
    • Yeonsan was so aggressive that some scholar-officials and merit-subjects formed alliances just for survival
    • Split into loyalist and anti-loyalist factions
  • Yim Sahong & Yu Jagwang → Serious opportunists with grudges
    • Switched sides to get revenge on rivals
    • Serious grudges

• Yim Sahong
• • • • • Early on, rose high
        • (1477) He and Yu falsely accused Chief Royal Secretary Hyeon Seokgyu of provoking dispute
          • Ousted Hyeon and was promoted
          • Impeached by scholar officials for false accusation
        • Banished to Uiju
        • Son sold into slavery because once studied under Kim Jongjik (Purge of 1498)
        • Back (1503)
      • Yu Jagwang
        • Also banished. To Dongrae.
        • Rehabilitated (1486)
  • (1504) Literati Purge “Gapja-sahwa”
    • Background
      • Yim Sahong brings up the death of Yeonsan’s mother
        • There is one theory that Prince Yeonsan thought that his stepmother was his birth mother
        • Yeonsan orders an investigation on the execution of his mother
      • Prince Yeonsan upset to hear the truth about his mother’s death
        • Tried to elevate his mother’s title and rehabilitate her reputation
        • Reprimanded officials’ indifference
        • No Sasin suggested elevating his mother’s status
        • Sarim officials objected, leading more to Prince Yeonsan’s hatred
          • Seongjong demanded to speaking of Queen Yun for 100 years
          • Hated those involved with his mother’s death
          • Dislike of insolent and defiant scholars
          • Combined into an overall hatred of conservative scholars
            • (Sept 1503) punishment of high official
              • Minister of Rites Yi Sejwa accidentally spilled wine on Yeonsan’s robes at a state banquet
              • Immediately dismissed and banished
              • On surface, Yeonsan saw it as a slight against his authority
              • In reality, Yi Sejwa was the guy who delivered the poison to his mother
              • Yeonsan rebuked scholars for not rebuking Yi Sejwa
                • Demoted them
    • Killed or dismissed all those associated with Yi Sejwa
      • Forced Yi Sejwa to commit suicide by hanging
    • Took serious revenge
      • 2 of his father’s concubines Jeong So-yong and Eom So-yong → beat to death (March 20)
        • Bodies soaked in jeotgal and left out to rot
      • Rebuked his grandmother (Great Queen Mother Insu) and pushed her to the ground → shocked to death
      • Many officials on both sides executed
      • Those who were already dead were exhumed and mutilated
      • Hundreds executed, banished, enslaved, dismissed
        • Relatives
    • Next took aim at scholar elite → purge, purge, purge
    • Yim Sa-hong promoted
  • Tyrannical Rule of Prince Yeonsan
    • Lived a life of abuse and depravity
      • Scholar elite
        • Abolished Gyeongyeon (royal study session)
        • Suspended advisor and supervisory role of the Samsa (three royal agencies)
        • Confucian students couldn’t discuss politics
        • Closed National Confucian Academy
          • Forced everyone out
          • Use the Ming guesthouse as school building
      • Closed down the Royal Academy (Seonggyeonggwan) and Wongak-sa Temple and other temples and turned them into stables and his personal pleasure house 
        • Forced 1,000 women (and horses) all around the peninsula to be his private “entertainers”
        • Despite this, it’s said that he didn’t have many children with his concubines. Not as fertile as his father.
      • Demolished a large area of the city to turn into his personal hunting ground
        • 20,000 homeless
      • Forced labor to build these projects
    • The Office of Censors protested (it was their job) → abolished
    • Abolished Hongmungwan (advised king of Confucian teachings)
    • Ordered ministers to wear a sign that read
      “A mouth is a door that brings in disaster; a tongue is a sword that cuts off a head. A body will be in peace as long as its mouth is closed and its tongue is deep within.”
    • Chief Eunuch Kim Cheo-sun 
      • Served three kings
      • Begged Prince Yeonsan to stop
      • Yeonshot shot him with arrows and cut off his limbs
      • Punished his relatives up to seven times removed
    • Disgusted officials stepped down, claiming illness
      • Yeonsan orders punishment to any official who steps down because of illness
    • Jang Nok-su
      • Servant of Prince Je-an
      • After giving birth, learned to sing and dance and became a gisaeng
        • Could sing without moving her lips (ventriloquist?)
        • Although in her 30s, looked like she was 16
      • Yeonsan heard her singing and took her has his concubine
      • Jang treated Yeonsan like a baby 
        • Oedipus complex?
        • Soothing him like a child
        • Yeonsan begging her for affection like a mother
        • No matter how angry he was, he’d laugh with joy when seeing Jang Nok-su
      • When Yeonsan found a woman he wanted, he’d get Jang Nok-su and an official to find out who her husband was and have him stay while he had his way with her for days
      • Yeonsan did what she willed
        • Her brother-in-law Kim Hyo-son given an official post
      • Destroyed her palace house to build a bigger one
    • Grabbed back land and slaves from Taejo’s merit subjects
      • To refill the treasure depleted by his lifestyle
      • Much resistance
    • Banned Hangeul
      • Posters mocking him were written in Hangeul
    • Aided by brothers-in-law and opportunistic Yim and Yu
    • Opposition grew more and more
    • (Sept 1506) Coup
      • Alliance but mostly led by merit-subjects
      • Because scholars were depleted from two purges
      • Prince Yeonsan rode out at dawn, dressed as a civilian
        • Tried to hide in a house
        • Arrested by a soldier who followed him
      • Banished Yeonsan to Ganghwa Island
        • Killed all concubines
          • Jang Nok-su beheaded. Crowds threw rocks at her corpse’s genitalia. 
            • Where Seoul City Hall Plaza is now
        • Killed all four young sons
        • Was mocked 
        • Caught a fever and died a miserable death in exile one week later (Nov 1506, 31 years old)
      • Got rid of all loyalists and anyone related to Yeonsan’s brothers-in-law
      • Replaced Yeonsan with his half brother Jinseong (18 years old)
        • Became King Jungjong
  • Aftermath
    • Mausoleum on Ganghwa Island
      • (Dec 1512) Flood damaged it
      • (1513) Moved to what is now Banghak-dong, Dobong-gu, Seoul
      • No decorations except a stone that says Yeonsangun Jimyo
    • So despised, he has no temple name
    • Name was used to chastise future kings. “You don’t want to be a Yeonsangun, do you?”
    • Question: Was he really that bad, or did his enemies write the history? Or did they write it to help justify deposing him?
      • COUNTERPOINT Re: Destroying all the houses
        • The houses were illegal
        • He built new shelters for them and made sure it was done in the spring
  • Notable media
• The King and the Clown 왕의 남자 (2005)

• The Treacherous 간신 (2015)