Chŏng To-jŏn

Chŏng To-jŏn (October 6, 1342 – October 6, 1398), also known by his art name Sambong, was a prominent Korean scholar-official during the late Goryeo to the early Joseon periods. He served as the first Chief State Councillor of Joseon, from 1392 until 1398 when he was killed by the Joseon prince Yi Pang-wŏn. Chŏng To-jŏn was an adviser to the Joseon founder Yi Sŏng-gye and also the principal architect of the Joseon dynasty's policies, laying down the kingdom's ideological, institutional, and legal frameworks which would govern it for five centuries.

Background and early career
Chŏng To-jŏn was born from a noble family, the Bonghwa Chŏng clan, in Yeongju, Goryeo. His maternal grandmother was a slave according to the Veritable Records, though the credibility of this account is called into question. His family had emerged from commoner status some four generations before, and slowly climbed up the ladder of government service. His father was the first in the family to obtain a high post. Despite all his difficulties, he became a student of Yi Che-hyŏn and along with other leading thinkers of the time, such as Chŏng Mong-ju, his penetrating intelligence started to affect the Korean politics.

Relationship with Yi Sŏng-gye
Chŏng To-jŏn's ties with Yi Sŏng-gye and the foundation of Joseon were extremely close. He is said to have compared his relationship to Yi Sŏng-gye, to that between Zhang Liang and Emperor Gaozu of Han. Chŏng To-jŏn's political ideas had a lasting impact on Joseon Dynasty politics and laws. The two first became acquainted in 1383, when Chŏng To-jŏn visited Yi Sŏng-gye at his quarters in Hamgyong province. After Yi Sŏng-gye (Taejo of Joseon) founded Joseon in July 1392, he appointed Chŏng To-jŏn to the highest civilian and military office simultaneously, entrusting him with all necessary power to establish the new dynasty. Deciding all policies from military affairs, diplomacy, and down to education, he laid down Joseon's political system and tax laws, replaced Buddhism with Confucianism as national religion, moved the capital from Kaesong to Hanyang (present-day Seoul), changed the kingdom's political system from feudalism to highly centralized bureaucracy, and wrote a code of laws that eventually became Joseon's constitution. He even decided the names of each palace, eight provinces, and districts in the capital. He also worked to free many slaves and reformed land policy.

Conflict with Yi Pang-wŏn
After Joseon was established in July 1392, Chŏng To-jŏn soon collided with Yi Pang-wŏn over the question of choosing the crown prince, the future successor to Yi Sŏng-gye (Taejo of Joseon). Of all princes, Yi Pang-wŏn contributed most to his father's rise to power and expected to be appointed as the crown prince even though he was Taejo's fifth son. However, Chŏng To-jŏn persuaded Taejo to appoint his young eighth son Yi Bang-sŏk (Yi Pang-wŏn's half-brother) as the crown prince. Their conflict arose because Chŏng To-jŏn saw Joseon as a kingdom led by ministers while the king was to be largely symbolic figure, whereas Yi Pang-wŏn wanted to establish the absolute monarchy ruled directly by the king. Both sides were well aware of each other's great animosity and were getting ready to strike first. After the sudden death of Queen Sindeok in 1398, while King Taejo was still in mourning for her (his second wife and mother of Yi Bang-sŏk), Yi Pang-wŏn struck first by raiding the palace and killed Chŏng To-jŏn and his supporters as well as Queen Sindeok's two sons including the crown prince, in a coup that came to be known as the First Strife of the Princes. Taejo, who helplessly watched his favorite sons and ministers being killed by Yi Pang-wŏn's forces, abdicated in disgust and remained angry with Yi Pang-wŏn well after Yi Pang-wŏn became the third king of Joseon, Taejong of Joseon.

For much of Joseon history, Chŏng To-jŏn was vilified or ignored despite his contribution to its founding. He was finally rehabilitated in 1865 in recognition of his role in designing Gyeongbokgung (main palace). Earlier Chŏngjo published a collection of Chŏng To-jŏn's writings in 1791. Chŏng To-jŏn's once-close friend and rival Chŏng Mong-ju, who was assassinated by Yi Pang-wŏn for remaining loyal to the Goryeo Dynasty, was honored by Yi Pang-wŏn posthumously and was remembered as symbol of loyalty throughout the Joseon Dynasty despite being its most determined foe.

Two ideas set forth by Chŏng To-jŏn strained his relationship with Yi Pang-wŏn. Chŏng believed that the new dynasty, Joseon, should be governed primarily by the neo-Confucianist officialdom and not by absolute monarchy. Such thinking of Chŏng is detailed in his book Joseon Gyeonggukjeon, on which the official state legal code, Gyeongguk daejeon, is based. A scene in the Veritable Records describes Yi Sŏng-gye praising Chŏng for Joseon Gyeonggukjeon, but it is speculated that Yi Sŏng-gye was not fully literate and did not comprehend the extent of what Chŏng was suggesting. However, Yi Pang-wŏn, who had passed the civil service examination of Goryeo, would have understood the implications of Chŏng's thinking.

Chŏng also pushed for the abolishment of private armies. Shortly after Joseon's founding, Chŏng and other prominent scholar-officials set out to identify the trappings of Goryeo that precipitated its demise and put forth reform ideas. Unequal land ownership and private armies were generally agreed to have contributed to rampant corruption. Chŏng argued that land should be returned to the central government (and distributed to small farmers) and that private armies should be abolished, including those of the princes. Yi Pang-wŏn was not pleased according to the records where Chŏng demanded that all private armies be sent to the central government to be trained for the military campaign into Liaodong that Chŏng claimed was necessary. None of the princes complied.

Death
In 1398, Chŏng To-jŏn was slain by Yi Pang-wŏn in the First Strife of the Princes. It is unclear exactly how he died, and the accounts in the Veritable Records and Sambongjip do not agree on the precise way in which he died. The Veritable Records depict that Chŏng To-jŏn begged Yi Pang-wŏn for his life, whereas Sambongjip portrays a more dignified last moment in which Chŏng left a death poem lamenting his poor judgment and gracefully accepted his death. The credibility of either account is questioned. The story conveyed in the Veritable Records could be a result of the vilification of Chŏng throughout Joseon history. It is also argued that Yi Pang-wŏn could not have afforded to allow Chŏng the time to compose a poem in the midst of a full-blown coup.

Intellectual activity
Chŏng To-jŏn was a major opponent of Buddhism at the end of the Goryeo period. He was a student of Zhu Xi's thought. Using Cheng-Zhu school's Neo-Confucian philosophy as the basis of his anti-Buddhist polemic, he criticized Buddhism in a number of treatises as being corrupt in its practices, and nihilistic and antinomian in its doctrines. One of the more famous of these treatises was the Bulssi Japbyeon ("Array of Critiques Against Buddhism"). He was a founding member of the Sungkyunkwan, the royal Confucian academy, and one of its early faculty members.

Chŏng To-jŏn was among the first Korean scholars to refer to his thought as Silhak, or "practical learning." However, he is not usually numbered among the members of the silhak tradition, which arose much later in the Joseon period.

Political thought
Chŏng To-jŏn argued that the government, including the king himself, exists for the sake of the people. Its legitimacy could only come from benevolent public service. It was largely on this basis that he legitimized the overthrow of the Goryeo dynasty, arguing that the Goryeo rulers had given up their right to rule.

Chŏng To-jŏn divided society into three classes: (a) a large lower class of agricultural laborers and craftsmen, (b) a middle class of literati, and (c) a small upper class of bureaucrats. Anyone outside this system, including Buddhist monks, shamans, and entertainers, he considered a "vicious" threat to the social fabric.

Reception
Immediatedly following his death, he was criticized as a betrayer of the Goryeo dynasty and a greedy politician who had attempted to take power from his king. For the next 300 years, he was regarded as a treacherous villain. For example, Song Si-yŏl, the most reputable philosopher of the 15th century Joseon dynasty, always included a word "insidious" when he mentioned about Chŏng To-jŏn. Yi Ik, also a renowned Korean philosopher of the Middle Age of the dynasty, referred to him as "a figure who deserved to be killed" in his book, Seong Ho Sa Seol.

However, with the surge of revisionism in the 18th century, his work started to be assessed with a different angle. Chŏngjo, 22nd King of Joseon, republished Sambong Jip, recognizing his work building the political systems and intellectual foundations of the dynasty.

Works

 * Sambong Jip, a three-chapter collection of poetry, but according to the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, a collection of works published in 1397 and supplemented and republished in 1781 that consist of his  poetry, prose, philosophy, and institutional reform plans
 * Joseon Gyeong Gukjeon - volumes 7 & 8 of the 1791 edition of Sambong Jip
 * Daemyeongryul Joseoneohae
 * Gyeongje Mungam
 * Bulssi Japbyeon
 * Simmun Cheondap - contained in volumes 9 & 10 of the 1791 edition of Sambong Jip
 * Simgiri
 * Hakja Jinamdo
 * Jinmaek Dogyeol
 * Goryeo Guksa
 * Jin Beop - volume 13 of the 1791 edition of Sambong Jip
 * Goryeosa

English translations


In addition, the translation of his Chinese poem "Plum" is included in

Family

 * Father
 * Chŏng Un-gyŏng (1305–1366)
 * Mother
 * Lady U of Yeongju U clan
 * Grandfather - U Yŏn
 * Siblings
 * Younger sister - Lady Chŏng of the Bonghwa Chŏng clan
 * Younger brother - Chŏng To-jon (?–1398)
 * Younger brother - Chŏng To-bok (1351–1435)
 * Wife
 * Princess Gyeongsuk, Lady Ch'oe of the Gyeongju Ch'oe clan
 * Son - Chŏng Chin (1361–1427)
 * Son - Chŏng Yŏng (?–1398)
 * Son - Chŏng Yu (?–1398)

In popular culture

 * Portrayed by Lee Ho-jae in the 1983 MBC TV series 500 Years of Joseon: The King of Chudong Palace.
 * Portrayed by Kim Heung-gi in the 1996–1998 KBS1 TV series Tears of the Dragon.
 * Portrayed by Baek Seung-hyeon in the 2012–2013 SBS TV series The Great Seer.
 * Portrayed by Cho Jae-hyun and Kang Yi-seok in the 2014 KBS1 series J eong Do-jeon.
 * Portrayed by Ahn Nae-sang in the 2014 film The Pirates.
 * Portrayed by Kim Myung-min in the 2015–2016 SBS TV series Six Flying Dragons.
 * Portrayed by Lee Kwang-gi in the 2021-22 KBS1 TV series The King of Tears, Lee Bang-won.