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.
Join our Patreon to get more stuff
https://patreon.com/darksideofseoul
Book a tour of The Dark Side of Seoul Ghost Walk at https://darksideofseoul.com
Listener Mail! Send us a message (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, email) and we might read it on air.
Music by Soraksan
Top tier Patrons
Angel Earl
Joel Bonomini
Jamie Staley
Shaaron Cullen
Devon Hiphner
Minseok Lee
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
- Saw poem Kim Jongjik (Kim Ilson’s mentor) wrote about assassination of Xiang Yu
- (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
- Prince Yeonsan ordered interrogation of those involved in draft of royal history containing the poem
- 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
- Rivalry between Kim Ilson (scholar) and Yi Geukdon (merit subject)
- 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
- (Sept 1503) punishment of high official
- Yim Sahong brings up the death of Yeonsan’s mother
- 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
- 2 of his father’s concubines Jeong So-yong and Eom So-yong → beat to death (March 20)
- Next took aim at scholar elite → purge, purge, purge
- Yim Sa-hong promoted
- Background
- 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
- Scholar elite
- 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
- Jang Nok-su beheaded. Crowds threw rocks at her corpse’s genitalia.
- 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)
- Killed all concubines
- 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
- Lived a life of abuse and depravity
- 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
- COUNTERPOINT Re: Destroying all the houses
- Mausoleum on Ganghwa Island
- Notable media
- The King and the Clown 왕의 남자 (2005)
- The Treacherous 간신 (2015)