King Taejo
- This article is about the Joseon Dynasty monarch; for the 10th century king, see King Taejo of Goryeo.
King Taejo, also known as Yi Sŏnggye, was the founder of the Korean Joseon Dynasty.
He was born the son of Yuan Dynasty officials of Korean ethnicity, and was raised in the Shuangcheng (K: Ssangseong) commandery of the Yuan Empire, what is today North and South Hamgyeong province. There, he grew up in a fairly multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environment, surrounded by Jurchens, Mongols, Han Chinese, and Koreans.
The head of a faction of military officials who allied with literati (civil) officials in seeking social reform, his preference for negotiation with Ming Dynasty China rather than military means of solving a territorial dispute over his home region of Ssangseong played a role in causing the fall of the Koryo Dynasty, and the establishment of his own, new, Joseon Dynasty, in 1392.[1]
The court produced twenty-six formal portraits of King Taejo; however, only one is known to survive today. The surviving painting, today in the collection of the National Museum of Korea, is an 1872 copy of an original, enshrined in Gyeonggijeon Hall in Jeonju in 1410, and restored in 1763. Gyeonggijeon Hall was one of six official portrait halls established by the court to host royal portraits in the provinces, thus extending the sense of royal authority out into the countryside.[2]
| Preceded by: None |
King of Joseon 1392-1398 |
Succeeded by: King Jeongjong |
References
- Adam Bohnet, “Ruling Ideology and Marginal Subjects: Ming Loyalism and Foreign Lineages in Late Chosŏn Korea.” Journal of Early Modern History 15:6 (January 2011): 484.
