A History of Korea by Professor Kyung Moon Hwang

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 Chosn 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.
    One can see why, then, Chng Tojn, Yi Pangwn, and other Chosn founding fathers perceived in Neo-Confucianism not only an update to the millennium-long influence of Confucianism as a group of political doctrines, but a comprehensive approach to ethics, politics, social order, economy, and culture. The impressive range of Neo-Confucian legislation in the first few decades of the Chosn era reflected this ideology’s systematic reach, and indeed the intricate attention given to even the realm of the family was among the most striking features ( Chapter 8 ). Nevertheless, it bears noting that some Neo-Confucian practices, such as the state examination system and even male primacy in tracing family heritage, had long been in existence in Korea. Conversely, most of the new legislation inspired by Neo-Confucianism, especially in regard to instituting a patrilineal lineage system, took centuries toimplement. In short, it can be said that Neo-Confucian ideology, however important, cannot account for all or even most of the thrust behind the dynastic turnover. Chng Tojn and Yi Pangwn, both successful passers of the Confucian civil service examination in the late Kory, subscribed to this ideology, for example, and Yi still found reason to eliminate Chng.
    An alternative viewpoint claims that the dynastic turnover represented a revolutionary moment, but one driven not by ideas but rather by material changes and socioeconomic imperatives. The agitation of lower-level elites, and specifically the middle- and small-scale landowners, stood as the indispensable source of support for Yi Snggye’s efforts to dismantle the late Koryaristocratic order. To this vanguard, the significance of Neo-Confucian doctrine was utilitarian—in the service of class interests of smaller landowners struggling against the stranglehold on power of the capital elites and estate landlords. The rise to prominence of both Chng Tojn, from a lowly local official background, and Yi Snggye, scion of a military family in the far northern fringe of the Koryrealm, would seem to validate this perspective. In spite of the attractiveness of this theory in suggesting a deeper desire for social change and, by extension, a great rupture and hence a compelling story of historical progress, it appears somewhat overdrawn. Notwithstanding the dynastic founder’s family history and Chng Tojn’s own humble background, extensive studies of the social background of the new capital elites have shown that, for the most part, they came from the Koryaristocracy.
    A third vantage point, in fact, prefers to consider the dynastic turnover as representing neither a social nor an ideological revolution, but rather a historical moment limited in significance, at least initially, to the realm of politics. It required a combination, in other words, of a