Yi Dynasty

Yi Dynasty, Korean dynasty also known as Choson, founded in 1392 by General Yi Song-gye, who overthrew the Koryo dynasty. The 26 kings of the Yi dynasty ruled Korea consecutively from 1392 until annexation by Japan in 1910. Hanyang (now Seoul) became the capital. Compared to the Koryo dynasty, Confucianism alone was stressed as the basis of moral and administrative life, especially the revived discipline of Neo-Confucianism, supplanting an increasingly corrupt Buddhism as the intellectual basis of Korean culture.

The first 200 years of Yi rule saw a flowering of culture and intellectual activity. Partly this was a result of good relations with Ming dynasty China, which could shelter Korea from attack from the north. Korea became a tributary state of the Ming emperors. Printing with movable type, introduced in the 13th century, allowed voluminous production and dissemination of books on all subjects. Government was codified and reformed, and Korean scholars made considerable contributions to Confucian thought. In 1443 the fourth monarch, Sejong the Great, devised Han'gul, the phonetic script of the Korean language, which simplified the task of learning to read and write by replacing Chinese characters.

In 1592, however, the Korean peninsula was ravaged by Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the military ruler of Japan, who wished to use it as a springboard to invade China. Though defeated by Korea's greatest naval hero, Admiral Yi Sun-shin, he launched a further invasion in 1597. Korea was able to beat off the attacks, with help from Ming forces, but the country was devastated and impoverished. As a consequence, it was in no state to resist attacks which then followed from the Jurchen (Manchu) tribes to the north, and in 1637 the Yi king was forced to sign an unconditional surrender after the capture of Seoul.

Although the victory of the Jurchen in China, where they installed the Qing dynasty, restored Korea's good relations with its most powerful neighbour, Koreans retained some allegiance to the principles of the Ming, refusing to wear the queue which the Manchus imposed upon the Chinese. The Yi dynasty became inward-looking. Gradually this restored prosperity as agriculture developed and mercantile trade based on a cash economy took root, bringing wealth to wider sections of the population. Culture too became more attentive to the preferences and the way of life of ordinary people.

The only exception to the closure of Korea was the increasing visibility of Christian missionaries, especially Catholics, though the incompatibility of Christianity and Confucianism over ancestor-worship did cause problems. The government attempted to drive out Catholicism with persecutions and executions on three occasions in the 19th century, but to no avail.

During the 19th century the dynasty began to suffer from the same symptoms of decay as the Manchu in China. Higher taxes and popular discontent over heavy-handed government provoked peasant discontent and, on occasion, uprisings. A new religion, Tonghak (“Eastern learning” as opposed to Catholicism), based upon traditional animism, won many converts among farmers with its calls for social reform.

On top of this came renewed interest from the Western powers. Several Western overtures were rejected and ships sunk in the 1860s, as the Yi dynasty pursued a determined policy of national seclusion. Its difficulties were compounded by pressure from Japan, which was rapidly modernizing following its Meiji Restoration in 1868. The Japanese government took the Korean refusal to establish diplomatic relations with their new regime as a deliberate insult. A Japanese fleet forced Korea to open the ports of Inch'ǒn, Pusan, and Wǒnsan to Japanese vessels in 1876. In turn this provoked the Chinese to station troops in Korea to protect their interests. Thus once again Korea became prey to rivalry between its larger neighbours. The government attempted its own modernization, and Korean students and officials began to go abroad to study in China and Japan. The government, however, was as indecisive as the Chinese. A reformist coup in 1884 was crushed by Chinese forces, but Yi rule became increasingly fragile as attempts at modernization incurred heavier taxes. Then in 1894 a Tonghak uprising provoked both China and Japan to intervene, sparking off the Sino-Japanese War between them. The outcome left Japan increasingly dominant in the region, and after imposed reforms, Korean resistance, and a second triumph in the Russo-Japanese War, it annexed Korea in 1910, ending the Yi dynasty.