A History of Korea (39 page)

ng. Pangw
n killed yet another fraternal rival in 1400, setting the stage for his ascension to the throne later that year as the third Chos
n monarch, King T’aejong. The violence would not end there, as T’aejong’s efforts to make amends to his father by sending royal emissaries to Hamh
ng were poorly received. Indeed the now “Senior King,” still infuriated by his son’s bloody actions, either incarcerated or outright killed a series of these “Hamh
ng messengers,” or
Hamh
ng ch’asa
, a term that still today serves as shorthand for people, sent for errands, from whom nothing is ever heard. The father finally relented and returned to the capital, where, in a final fit of rage, he fired an arrow in T’aejong’s direction, narrowly missing him!

A RENAISSANCE, REVOLUTION, OR COUP?

These disturbing, in some ways horrific circumstances during the opening decade of the Chos
n can elicit a wide range of perspectives on the significance of the dynastic turnover, and even cast doubt on its authenticity as a major historical event. Indeed, different schools of thought regarding the true meaning of this transition have arisen, and they have heightened the historiographical stakes: the judgment on Confucianism’s impact on Korean and Chos
n history; the location of “legitimate” Korean tradition, especially the underlying tendencies in social and family customs; indeed the larger debates regarding the flow of premodern Korean history, such as stability vs. change, external inducement vs. internal propulsion, and so on. In fact, the prominence of both Yi Pangw
n and Ch
ng Toj
n can illuminate and support each of the main perspectives on the historical significance of the dynastic transition.

Historians who tend to view this moment as a kind of Confucian renaissance emphasize the primacy of ideology in driving the events. Officially, at least, the scholars, officials, and even military
men like Yi S
nggye drew explicitly from the teachings of what Western historians commonly call “Neo-Confucianism” in establishing and justifying the new dynastic order. Neo-Confucianism, a scholarly and ideological movement that, in Korea, began to brew in the late Kory
era, had begun in Song dynasty China in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It sought to resuscitate and refashion the classical texts of Confucianism in order to apply them, expansively, to addressing contemporary problems. The particular version of Neo-Confucianism that came to hold sway in the Chos
n dynasty has often been called the “School of Nature and Principle,” which more specifically referred to the firm link established between human nature and metaphysical doctrine. The proper understanding and practice of human connections lay at the heart of Confucian moral teachings, with filial piety—reverence for one’s parents, explicitly invoked in the Confucian Five Relationships—serving as the core ethic that, when flexibly applied, guided all human interaction. The “great chain” of Confucian cosmology began with the individual’s self-cultivation of filial piety through ritual and learning, which in turn facilitated the application of morality to achieve familial and social harmony, a just political order, and peace under heaven. The founders of Neo-Confucianism in China and their transmitters to Korea preached the need to implement systematically these latent Confucian teachings.