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North Korea Dynastic Decline
A combination of literati purges in the early sixteenth
century, Japanese invasions at the end of the century, and Manchu
invasions in the middle of the seventeenth century severely
debilitated the Chosn state, and it never regained the heights
of the fifteenth century. This period also saw the Manchus sweep
away the Ming Dynasty in China, ending a remarkable period when
Korean society seemed to develop apace with China, while making
many independent innovations.
The doctrinaire version of Confucianism that was dominant
during the Chosn Dynasty made squabbles between elites
particularly vicious. The literati based themselves in
neo-Confucian metaphysics, which reached a level of abstraction
virtually unmatched elsewhere in East Asia in the writings of Yi
Hwang, also known as Yi T'oe-gye, who was regarded as Korea's Zhu
Xi after the Chinese founder of the neo-Confucian school. For
many other scholar-officials, however, the doctrine rewarded arid
scholasticism and obstinate orthodoxy. First, one had to commit
his mind to one or another side of abstruse philosophical debate,
and only then could the practical affairs of state be put in
order. This situation quickly led to so-called literati purges, a
series of upheavals beginning in the mid-fifteenth century and
lasting more than 100 years. The losers found their persons,
their property, their families, and even their graves at risk
from victors determined to extirpate their influence--always in
the name of a higher morality. Later in the dynasty, the concern
with ideological correctness exacerbated more mundane factional
conflicts that debilitated central power. The emphasis on
ideology also expressed the pronounced Korean concern with the
power of ideas; this emphasis is still visible in Kim Il Sung's
chuch'e doctrine, which assumes that rectification of
one's thinking precedes correct action, even to the point of
Marxist heresy in which ideas determine material reality. By the
end of the sixteenth century, the ruling elite had so homogenized
its ideology that there were few heterodox miscreants left: all
were presumably united in one idea.
At the end of the sixteenth century, Korea suffered
devastating foreign invasions. The first came shortly after
Toyotomi Hideyoshi ended Japan's internal disorder and unified
the territory; he launched an invasion that put huge numbers of
Japanese soldiers in Pusan in 1592. His eventual goal, however,
was to control China. The Chosn court responded to the invasion
by fleeing to the Yalu River, an action that infuriated ordinary
Koreans and led slaves to revolt and burn the registries.
Japanese forces marched through the peninsula at will until they
were routed by General Yi Sun-sin and his fleet of armor-clad
ships, the first of their kind. These warships, the so-called
turtle ships, were encased in thick plating with cannons sticking
out at every point on their oval shape. The Japanese fleets were
destroyed wherever they were found, Japan's supply routes were
cut, and facing Ming forces and so-called righteous armies that
rose up to fight a guerrilla war (even Buddhist monks
participated), the Japanese were forced to retreat to a narrow
redoubt near Pusan.
After desultory negotiations and delay, Hideyoshi launched a
second invasion in 1597. The Korean and Ming armies were ready
this time. General Yi returned with a mere dozen warships and
demolished the Japanese forces in Yellow Sea battles near the
port of Mokp'o. Back in Japan, Hideyoshi died of illness, and his
forces withdrew to their home islands, where they nursed an
isolationist policy for the next 250 years. In spite of the
victory, the peninsula had been devastated. Refugees wandered its
length, famine and disease were rampant, and even basic land
relationships had been overturned by widespread destruction of
registers.
Korea had barely recovered when the Manchus invaded from the
north, fighting on all fronts to oust the Ming Dynasty. Invasions
in 1627 and 1636 established tributary relations between Korea
and the Manchu's Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The invasions,
however, were less destructive than the Japanese invasions,
except in the northwest where Manchu forces wreaked havoc.
Thereafter, the dynasty had a period of revival that, had it
continued, might have left Korea much better prepared for its
encounter with the West.
The Confucian literati were particularly reinvigorated by an
intellectual movement advocating that philosophy be geared to
solving real problems of the society. Known as the Sirhak
(Practical Learning) Movement, it spawned people like Yu Hyngwn (1622-73), from a small farming village, who poured over the
classics seeking reform solutions to social problems. He
developed a thorough, detailed critique of nearly all the
institutional aspects of Chosn politics and society, and a set
of concrete reforms to invigorate it. Chng Yag-yong (1762-1836)
was thought to be the greatest of the Sirhak scholars, producing
several books that offered his views on administration, justice,
and the structure of politics. Still others like Yi Su-kwang
(1563-1628) traveled to China and returned with the new Western
learning then spreading in Beijing, while Yi Ik (1681-1763) wrote
a treatise entitled Record of Concern for the
Underprivileged.
A new vernacular fiction also developed in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, much of it taking the form of social
criticism. The best known is The Tale of Ch'unhyang, which
argues for the common human qualities of lowborn, commoners, and
yangban alike. Often rendered as a play, it has been a
favorite in both North Korea and South Korea. An older poetic
form called sijo, which consists of short stanzas, became
another vehicle for free expression of distaste for the castelike
inequities of Korean society. Meanwhile, Pak Chi-wn journeyed to
Beijing in 1780 and authored Jehol Diary, which compared
Korean social conditions unfavorably with his observations of
China.
The economy diversified as the transplant of rice seedlings
boosted harvests and some peasants became enterprising small
landlords. Commercial crops such as tobacco, ginseng, and cotton
developed, and merchants proliferated at big markets like those
in Seoul at East Gate and South Gate, at the gate to China at
iju, and at the gate to Japan at Tongnae, near Pusan. The use of
coins for commerce and for paying wages increased, and handicraft
production increased outside government control. The old Kory
capital at Kaesng became a strong center of merchant commerce
and conspicuous wealth. Finally, throughout the seventeenth
century, Western learning filtered into Korea, often through the
auspices of a spreading Roman Catholic movement, which especially
attracted commoners by its creed of equality.
Data as of June 1993
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