뉴스레터

Question

There is a growing interest in King Gwanghae as the film featuring him became a recent box-office hit. Historically, who really was King Gwanghae?

Answer

In an old Korean national media program, it was predicated that "the 1623 coup of Injo was a historical stain on Joseon that caused the decline of the dynasty." More interestingly, the program praised the Later Jin, the two-time invader of Joseon that devastated the land of the Joseon people and took them as prisoners, with such phrases as 'the rising Late Jin of the continent', 'the Later Jin that took control of the Middle Kingdom', or 'The Jurchens are invincible once they number 10,000' while declaring the defeat of Joseon as fact. One has to wonder if it was a national media of Late Chin or Korea. The sentiment that pervaded the program, I call it defeatism. Defeatism. A result of being brainwashed by the colonialists demanding 'obedience and submission to the strong.' An exposed spiritlessness disguised as circumspection, incapable of taking control of the situation or creating dynamism. As much as they wanted to praise Prince Gwanghae through that program, shouldn't they have at least pointed out the 'invasion' first? Shouldn't they have paid respect to the choice of 'defeat with dignity' and 'death with dignity' over 'going with the flow'? Shouldn't they have 'painfully' sympathized with the 'resistance' against the invasion and the resulting 'trauma?'

The True Nature of Prince Gwanghae's Neutral Diplomacy-Pragmatic Diplomacy

The Daedong System (大同法: Uniform Tax Law), the innovative policy proposed by Yi Yi and Yu Seong-ryong, failed as soon as it started because Prince Gwanghae had no understanding of the system and the Northern Faction regime with vested interests in the existing Bangnap System (防納: Tribute Contract System) was against it. Consequently, neither stable livelihood for the people nor tax revenues was secured. Furthermore, endless plots of treason followed, rendering it impossible to achieve social integration. A believer in geomancy and divination, Prince Gwanghae spent most of his time on the large-scale palace construction work throughout his reign, exploiting the people. He even diverted the iron to be used for the Weapons Bureau (軍器寺) to building the palace.

In 1619, he sent soldiers to fight the Simha (深河) Battle without equipping them with sufficient provisions and weapons. The results? Nine thousand out of 13,000 were killed in action. When the Emperor of Ming sent 10 nyang of silver as consolation for the wounded and the war bereaved, Prince Gwanghae pocketed even that to use for the palace construction work. One has to wonder who the real king of Joseon was. By this time, Prince Gwanghae was busy scheming (?) to win over Later Chin, although there was not much he could do as a ruler with not much power after his failed home administration, other than seeing how the wind blows. This is the true nature of Prince Gwanghae's neutral diplomacy and pragmatic diplomacy. But don't we all know that opportunism has been always disguised as pragmatism?

What We Need to Relearn About Prince Gwanghae

About his fratricide of killing his older brother, the 'downplaying' Prince Imhae, and his younger brother Great Prince Youngchange, they call it 'a tragedy of politics' or 'the nature and vanity of political power,' ascribing it to the nature of political power, as if every other people that was killed is not even worth considering. They follow the downplaying of his fratricide with comparing him with the powers behind the coup, as if to say 'nothing much improved after the coup,' as people would say when complaining about politics-"All politicians are the same," "Change of powers, what difference does it make?" There are actually some historical records indicating that the post-coup vassals were not much different from those in power during Gwanghae's reign. Nevertheless, it was in the politics of the Injo reign subsequent to the coup that efforts were made to thwart and publicize the attempt of those vassals to become privileged powers. I feel sorry for those rebels who staged the coup. It might have been their last resort, but did they have any idea as to how they could lead the country in such a complete mess? The fifteen years of Prince Gwanghae's reign were lost years for the people of Joseon. If the administration and operation of Joseon, the country feared most by the Ming Dynasty at the time, had been normal even a little bit, at least the Manchu Invasion we would face in the early 17th century would have taken quite a different course.