Seonjo

Seonjo 14th King of the Joseon Dynasty
Portrait between around 1592 and 1593
Spelling of names
Hangeul	선조
Hanja	宣 祖
Revised Romanization	Seonjo
McCune-Reischauer	Sŏn-jo
Reign
Reign of	August 1567
Reign until	March 16, 1608
predecessor	King Myeongjong
successor	King Gwanghaegun
Life dates
Born on the	November 26, 1552
place of birth	Hanseong
Birth Name	이연
Hanja	李 昖
Revised Romanization	Yi Yeon
McCune-Reischauer	Yi Yŏn
father	Prince Deokheung (Yi Cho)
mother	Princess Hadong of the Hadong Jeong clan
Death dates
Died on	March 16, 1608
Place of death	Hanseong
tomb	Burial Donggureung in the city of Guri province Gyeonggi
Spouses, mistresses, offspring
Woman (s)	Queen Uiin of the Bannam Park clan Queen Inmok of the Yeonan Kim clan Gong of the Gimhae Kim clan and eight other ladies of the court
Sons	Prince Yeongchang (Yi Ui) Prince Imhae (Yi Jin) Prince Gwanghae (Yi Hon) and eleven other princes as sons of the ladies of the court
Daughters	Princess Jeongmyeong and ten other princesses as daughters of the ladies of the court

Seonjo ( Korean : 선조 ) (born November 26, 1552 in Hanseong , Joseon ; † March 16, 1608 in Joseon) was the 14th King of the Joseon Dynasty ( 조선 왕조 ) (1392-1910) during his reign from 1567 to 1608 in Korea .

Life

King Seonjo was the son of Prince Deokheung daewongun ( 덕흥 대원군 ) and grandson of Jungjong ( 중종 ), the 11th king of the Joseon Dynasty. On his mother's side, he was a grandson of a concubine of the king and was recognized by Queen Insun as the legitimate successor of King Myeongjong ( 명종 ) two years before his enthronement . Seonjo, also known by his maiden name Yi Hagyun ( 이학윤 ) and known as Prince Haseonggun Gyun ( 하 성군 균 ), became heir to the throne at the tender age of 16 in the absence of a successor to King Myeongjong, who died in 1567. It was initially Queen Insun who helped the young king in the background to regulate the affairs of state and Yi Hwang ( 이황 ) (1501–1570), who held the ministerial office for rituals, was his first teacher, followed later by other scholars of the court. It was also Yi Hwang who in his work Maneon Bongsa ( 만언 봉사 ; 萬 言 封 事 ) described the royal rules and made economic, military and administrative recommendations to the 22-year-old king. He presented the work to Seonjo at the beginning of 1574.

Japanese invasion

At the beginning of the Japanese invasion (1592–1598), which began with the landing of 158,700 Japanese soldiers on April 12, 1592 and to which the Joseon army could not counter, King Seonjo and his court staff escaped from Hanseong on April 30 ( 한성 ), the capital of the country, today Seoul , to the north in safety. Two days earlier, Seonjo had named his son and later King Gwanghaegun ( 광해군 ) crown prince and divided his court with him into two groups for security. On June 11, Seonjo and his court staff had to leave Pyeongyang ( 평양 ), which had served as a place of refuge, and flee to Euiju ( 의주 ) on the north-western border of the empire. The critical situation for the empire and the royal family changed with the entry of the Ming Empire's army into the war and the successful destruction of the Japanese naval forces by General Yi Sun-sin ( 이순신 ). After King Seonjo returned to Hanseong in 1593 and the court found all palaces destroyed, Seonjo and his court temporarily resided in Deoksugung Palace, which is now open to the public.

His performance

Concerned about the poor health of the population, it became King Seonjo's concern to improve the health of the population through better medical treatment. For this purpose, he called the doctor of the royal court, Heo Jun ( 허준 ) (1539-1615) in 1596 and informed him that in his opinion all recent Chinese medical books were only copies of older ones and they were not worth it to be read. He realized that the diseases of those days were caused by inadequate health care and that the existing medical books were too complex and extensive. He also noticed that the common people had no knowledge of the effects of the locally available medicinal herbs. So King Seonjo commissioned his medical expert Heo Jun to write a single work in which the most essential medical knowledge was summarized, the cultivation and use of the medicinal herbs was described, as well as the knowledge about acupuncture and that the book was for the people in the People should be understandable. The work that Heo Jun then created up to its publication in 1613 went down in history under the name Donguibogam ( 동의보감 ) and was included in the UNESCO Register of World Document Heritage in 2009 as Memory of the World .

death

King Seonjo died on March 16, 1608 and was buried in the royal tomb of Donggureung ( 동구릉 ) in the city of Guri ( 구리 ) in Gyeonggi-do ( 경기도 ) province .

literature

• Han Young Woo : Joseon Era . In: A Review of Korean History . Volume 2 . Kyongsaewon Publishing Company , Pajubookcity, Gyeonggi-do 2010, ISBN 978-89-8341-092-4 (English).
• Sun Kwan Song : Intellectuals and the State: The Resilience and Decline of Neo-Confucianism as State Ideology in Joseon Korea . Ed .: University of London . 2013 (English, online [PDF; 4.5 MB ; accessed on November 2, 2018] dissertation).
• Taehyung Lee and others: Data Mining of Acupoint Characteristics from the Classical Medical Text: DongUiBoGam of Korean Medicine . In: Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine . Volume 2014 , December 9, 2014, doi : 10.1155 / 2014/329563 (English, Online [PDF; 2.5 MB ; accessed on November 2, 2018]).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Han : Joseon Era . In: A Review of Korean History . 2010, p.  307 .
2. ↑ Sun : Intellectuals and the State ... . 2013, p.  65 .
3. ^ ^{A b} The Royal Tombs of the Joseon . (PDF 1.6 MB) Korea Tourism Organization , accessed on November 2, 2018 .  
4. ↑ Sun : Intellectuals and the State ... . 2013, p.  66 .
5. ↑ Sun : Intellectuals and the State ... . 2013, p.  69 .
6. ↑ Sun : Intellectuals and the State ... . 2013, p.  85 ff .
7. ↑ Hideyoshi Japanese invasion 1592-98 . (PDF 314 kB) University of Helsinki , accessed on November 2, 2018 (English).  
8. ↑ Deoksugung Palace . (PDF 31.4 MB) In: Discover Seoul Pass . Seoul Tourism Organization , 2016, accessed November 2, 2018 .  
9. ↑ Lee et al: Data Mining of Acupoint Characteristics from the Classical Medical Text: DongUiBoGam of Korean Medicine . 2014, p.  2 f .
10. ↑ Donguibogam: Principles and Practice of Eastern Medicine . In: Memory of the World . UNESCO , 2009, accessed November 2, 2018 .