Ch 10 - Political Turmoil

Yonsangun and the Censorate

King Songjong's successor, Prince Yonsan, regularly clashed with the censoring bodies of government. Yonsangun's independent-minded determination to exercise the full authority of his position was routinely challenged by rural literati in the Samsa, men who stridently attacked the higher levels of government in an effort to take on a role in governmental deliberations equal to that of the highest officials themselves.

King Songjong seemed to be haunted by the Case of 1478 throughout his remaining years. The vindictiveness and contentiousness of the Censorate grew with each new charge and countercharge that emanated within the halls of Choson's government. Songjong had long wanted to bring Im Sa-hong back from exile and in 1488 he appointed the former Royal Secretary to the post of Fourth Deputy Commander of the Five Military Commands. Officials from the Censorate, joined by the OSC's First Counselor, insistently protested the appointment. When two of Songjong's highest officials expressed no objection to Im's reinstatement, the Censorate turned on them as well. Finally, after the State Councilors sent the king a memorial stating they had no direct knowledge as to whether Im Sa-hong was an amoral man or not, the Censorate and the OSC accused the High State Council of buckling under to the king and sheltering a man known to be evil. Censor-General An Ho attacked their defense of Im as tantamount to "pointing to a deer and calling it a horse." King Songjong's anger over the accusations nearly pushed him to take punitive action against the Censorate and the OSC.

Im Sa-hong was far from alone in being on the receiving end of attacks from the Censorate. The reigning family's "marriage kin" had become a favorite target of the Censorate in the late 1490s and they strongly challenged the traditional favoritism shown to members of the royal family. Second Minister of Personnel Yun Ul-lo, the elder brother of King Songjong's second queen, Chonghyon, was charged by the Censorate in 1490 with the crime of tax conversion. The State Tribunal reduced the charge to complicity and gave him a rather light sentence. King Songjong reduced the sentence even further, citing Minister Yun's close ties to the palace. After the Censorate protested, demanding the full penalty of the law, the king relented and ordered Yun punished as requested.

Three years later, when Yun Ul-lo was appointed Second Magistrate of Seoul, the censoring bodies went on the attack again, this time including Yun's younger brother, Tang-no, and his father, Yun Ho in the crossfire. The Censorate criticized the king for appointing Yun Tang-no to an official rank despite the fact Yun had never served as a Local Magistrate. Songjong strongly defended his appointment, but to no avail. After other high officials concurred in the Censorate's position, the king reluctantly withdrew Yun Tang-no's promotion. The issue of Yun Ul-lo's appointment remained a contentious issue with the Censorate and Yun never got to enjoy the perquisites of his post. At every opportunity for over three months the Censorate continued to raise the question until Songjong finally relented and transferred Yun to a lesser post.

With the near constant din of the Samsa ringing in his ears, King Songjong fell ill in 1494 and died. He was succeeded by his son, Prince Yonsan, one of the few Korean monarchs never given a posthumous title. History has always referred to him simply as Prince Yonsan, or Yonsangun. The young prince ascended the Choson throne amidst the vilifying and slanderous campaigns that emanated from the Samsa under his father. The attacks were particularly strident against the arrogant behavior of the royal marriage kin and the many recent erroneous personnel appointments. Third State Councilor Ho Chong voiced his concern that by instigating vituperative attacks against the higher levels of government, the Censorate was taking on a role in governmental deliberations equal to that of the highest officials themselves.

The rural literati in the Samsa quickly and effectively thwarted Yonsangun's independent-minded determination to exercise the full authority of his position. During his first year on the throne, Yonsangun faced a series of attacks against Second State Councilor No Sa-sin, a conflict that exemplified the relationship between the royal palace, the highest levels of the Yi bureaucracy and the Censorate. No Sa-sin came from a powerful political blood line and passed the civil examination in 1453. He rapidly advanced under Sejo's reign and was enrolled as a Merit Subject under both Yejong and Songjong. In 1494, No Sa-sin collided head on with the Censorate over the question of Buddhist funeral rites for the late King Songjong.

Tradition required the Buddhist rite of building "journey smoothing halls" to speed the soul of the departed king or queen into the afterlife. The day after Songjong's death, the Minister of Rites noted that the official Confucian rites prescribed no such ceremony. Furthermore, Songjong had not believed in Buddhism. Unsure of how to proceed, Yonsangun consulted Queen Chonghyon, Songjong's wife, who remarked that her husband left no instructions to the contrary. She concluded that since Buddhist funeral rites had been performed for all his predecessors they should not now be discarded. Yonsangun issued a royal command to this effect and defended it over the heated objections of the Censorate and the Office of Special Councilors.

Officials in the OSC became so preoccupied with protesting the royal decision they failed to prepare the proscribed funeral eulogies on time. When Yonsangun referred the matter of Buddhist rites for King Songjong to the High State Council, Second State Councilor No Sa-sin claimed the Censorate was making a mountain out of a mole hill and that Yonsangun should not even reply to further criticism on the subject. Councilor No's comments incurred the immediate wrath of both the Censorate and the OSC. They charged him with being ingratiating and seeking to gag the Censorate to have his own opinions go unchallenged. The following day, Cho Yu-hyong led a group of over one hundred National Academy students in a scathing attack on Buddhism in general and a personal assault against No Sa-sin for the grave error of his advice.

Following the initial mourning rites for King Songjong, Yonsangun turned his attention to government affairs, particularly the behavior of Cho Yu-hyong and the other National Academy students. Yonsangun regarded their actions as a display of contempt for higher authority and immediately imprisoned them all. Despite pleas for leniency from the Royal Secretariat, numerous Board Ministers and State Councilors, Yonsangun banished three of the students and barred Cho Yu-hyong and twenty-one others from ever taking the civil examinations. Within a matter of days the Censorate launched a sweeping attack on Councilor No Sa-sin for supporting Queen Chonghyon's wishes in the Buddhist rites controversy and for his failure to support the imprisoned students.

In the world of Yi politics, serious conflicts often erupted from unimportant, even insignificant issues. The issue that led to a climactic final act in the acrimonious battle between Second State Councilor No Sa-sin and the Censorate grew out of a criminal case involving Queen Chonghyon's younger brother, Yun Tang-no. Yun had been brought before the State Tribunal on charges that he lived with a "female entertainer," kisaeng, during the period of national mourning for King Songjong. High State Councilors No Sa-sin and Sin Sung-son argued that Yun's behavior could not be construed as reprehensible since he had already fathered children by the woman. Although Yonsangun announced he would pardon Yun, the Censorate doggedly pursued the matter. The OIG took the unusual step of refusing to accept the roster of criminal cases from Yonsangun that listed Yun's pardon. Four times the roster was submitted and four times it was refused. Infuriated, Yonsangun relieved the entire Censorate and handed them over to the State Tribunal on charges of willful insubordination. Although they were released the following day, Councilor No Sa-sin went on record as supporting Yonsangun's "eminently fitting" action.

The Censorate resurrected its charges against Yun Tang-no and attacked No Sa-sin's "eminently fitting" comment as a betrayal of the High State Councilor's duty to prevent the king from ruling in error. In his response to the charge, seventy-year-old No Sa-sin all but admitted his support for some restraint on the Censorate. Angry officials in the Censorate immediately demanded No Sa-sin be tried on the charge of attempting to gag them to further his own ambitions. The increased level of abusive language against Councilor No Sa-sin forced him to remain secluded in his home while awaiting royal judgment. Yonsangun took no action against his Chief State Councilor however, and ordered him to resume his duties. No Sa-sin responded with a letter of resignation that forcefully detailed his case against the Censorate and the OSC and provided a remarkable glimpse of the nature and character of the Samsa. He noted that the rural literati regarded "the imputation of faults to others as forthrightness, calumniation of their superiors as lofty [virtue]."

The literati never considered whether a matter was serious or trivial, it mattered only that they spoke the words of the Confucian sages. They usually attacked in a major group effort and endeavored to win their points at all costs, even to the point of arrogantly placing themselves on an equal status with the king. No Sa-sin wrote,

"When the Censorate speaks out, then the Office of Special Counselors [sic] follows suit, and, when the Office of Special Counselors [sic] has spoken, then the National Academy students follow up in turn - A sings and B harmonizes, together thus forming a chorus."

When they indicted a man for some crime, he continued, and their request for punishment was not granted,

"...they then invariably ferret out the man's past errors, like blowing apart the feathers of a bird to seek out the skin blotches underneath, only stopping when they have encompassed his downfall...."

No Sa-sin lamented the steady growth of this dangerous practice and the deterioration of integrity and sincerity in government. He feared the usurpation of political authority by the Samsa would bring nothing but continued grief in the Yi government. He concluded the only remedy was the well-considered action of a shrewd and intelligent ruler to curb the Censorate.

When Yonsangun refused to accept Councilor No's resignation and restated his support for the State Councilor, the Censorate threatened that either No Sa-sin departed or they had to go. Yonsangun ordered the Censorate officials to resume their duties. They failed to respond. In retribution, the king discharged the entire department and instituted legal proceedings against the lot of them. He redesignated the offices of the Inspector-General and the Censor-General as concurrent appointments and staffed them with high-level incumbent bureaucrats. He then filled the Censorate posts by appointing fresh graduates of the civil examination system.

This somewhat oblique attack on the problem with the Censorate proved unsuccessful however, and Yonsangun soon abandoned his concurrent office experiment. The raucous struggle between Yonsangun and the Censorate over No Sa-sin's fate abated in 1495, when the king relieved Councilor No of his post and appointed him Great Lord of Sonsong to bring some peace to the government. The partial triumphs of the Censorate in the No Sa-sin affair did nothing to slow the Samsa in exercising its censoring function. If anything, the Censorate became even more promiscuous in selecting targets after No Sa-sin's removal, more intemperate in its language, and more intractable in its self-righteous assertions. As a consequence, the political scene in Seoul became even more turbulent.

The Censorate made all manner of petty attacks against the Yi bureaucracy throughout 1497. In particular, Second Censor Choe Pu made a number of gratuitous attacks on several high-ranking government officials. He branded Yonsangun's father-in-law, Chief State Councilor Sin Sung-son, as weak and womanish. Although he conceded Second State Councilor O Se-gyom to be a talented official, Choe gave him the nickname the "clock-watcher." He excoriated Minister of Taxation Yi Se-jwa for thwarting Yonsangun's desire to decrease the land tax. Minister of Rites Pak An-song was denounced for his abysmal ignorance of rites procedures. Choe accused Second Minister of Personnel An Chim of appointing corrupt clansmen. Choe Pu asserted that each of these men had abused the power of their positions and asked that all be demoted and replaced by worthier men.

When No Sa-sin accused the Censorate of trying to bully others into silence, the Censorate again retorted that he was trying to gag them. They went after No Sa-sin again and, although the issue was trivial, it quickly led to a heated exchange. Fourth Censor Cho Sun unleashed the most violent of attacks against the State Councilor, saying in part,

"No Sa-sin ... wants to cause the king not to heed the words of the Censorate, thus forcing reliance on his own words so that he may dare to realize his personal ambitions....No Sa-sin's crimes are so grave that, even if he were sentenced to death, it still would not suffice; ... If this crime of his goes unpunished, then who among your subjects will speak out with forthrightness to the king?"

This tirade infuriated Yonsangun, who went directly after Cho Sun and promptly jailed him. The Censorate continued its attack on Councilor No, but nothing they said moved Yonsangun to relent. They also intensified their scrutiny of the government, particularly in the familiar areas of the legal safeguards enjoyed by Buddhism, Buddhist practices both by and for the aristocracy and the royal family, the favored treatment given marriage kin, and the lavish and excessive granting of rewards. In an atmosphere of intensifying turbulence, the Samsa's unrelenting assaults hardened Yonsangun's attitude toward the censoring bodies and their role in government. Increasingly reluctant to yield to pressure from the Samsa, Yonsangun's mounting anger over the concept and practice of criticizing government operations was about to unleash a terrible storm over the capital.