The Founding of the Joseon Dynasty

Palace signage generally says "Joseon dynasty founded 1392." The sentence is accurate, but what actually happened that year was far more awkward than it sounds.

Yi Seong-gye acceded as the first monarch of the new dynasty in the seventh lunar month of 1392. And the state name was still "Goryeo." A new country had been founded and had no name of its own. This article is about those seven months, and about how the name was finally settled.

At a glance

Accession, 7th lunar month 1392
Yi Seong-gye took the throne as the new dynasty's first monarch, but the state name remained Goryeo.
November 1392: Ming asks
Only when Ming demanded to be told the new state name quickly were the ministers convened to decide it.
'Joseon' from February 1393
After going through the form of asking Ming to select it, Joseon was used as the state name from February 1393.
The name comes from Gojoseon
'Joseon' descends from Gojoseon and carried a sense of history continuing from Dangun.

The founding begins with an army turning around

Joseon's beginning is the same event as Goryeo's end.

In 1388 Yi Seong-gye and the other commanders turned their army back at Wihwado and removed King U and Choe Yeong, who had driven the Liaodong campaign. They allied with the scholar-official class and carried through a reform of private landholding, and after removing King Chang and conservatives such as Yi Saek and Yi Rim, finally founded the Joseon dynasty in 1392.

The state that resulted existed on the Korean peninsula for 518 years, from 1392 to 1910.

For seven months it had no name of its own

This is the most interesting part of the period.

Joseon used "Goryeo" as its state name for about seven months after the founding. Yi Seong-gye acceded as the new dynasty's first monarch in the seventh lunar month of 1392, but the state name was left as Goryeo.

The encyclopedia notes the problem with that arrangement: it did not make sense for a new dynasty to go on using the name Goryeo, a long-standing name descended from Goguryeo.

Even so, the decision was deferred. What forced it was an external demand. When Ming, in November 1392, demanded to be told quickly what the new state name was, Yi Seong-gye and the founding leadership only then convened the ministers, deliberated, and settled on Joseon. They then went through the form of requesting Ming to select it, and used Joseon as the state name from February 1393.

In other words, the state name was not a declaration the new dynasty had prepared from the start. It was a name arrived at in answer to a diplomatic request.

Why 'Joseon' in particular

The choice had a clear logic behind it.

"Joseon" descends from Gojoseon, and carried the consciousness of historical succession — that history had begun with Dangun and continued from him — which had risen among leading intellectuals in the late Goryeo period.

A second reason lies on top of that. Gija, whom Confucian scholars believed to be the figure who first established Confucian civilisation in this land, was also said to have been a king of Gojoseon; so for a ruling class committed to Confucianism, "Joseon" was a name fully qualified to serve as the new dynasty's state name.

Put together, one name asserted two lineages at once: an ancient descent from Dangun, and the ideological legitimacy of being where Confucian civilisation began. For a dynasty adopting Neo-Confucianism as its state ideology, no name could have been more convenient.

Knowing both that Gojoseon and Joseon are different states two thousand years apart, and that the later one deliberately took the earlier one's name, connects the museum's two galleries.

The evidence that the new dynasty was unsteady

The years right after the founding were not smooth.

The purge of those who had opposed the founding took the form of adding an amnesty to the enthronement edict and then publishing a list of those excluded from it — 56 people were punished. Even so, speech and conduct denying or diminishing Yi Seong-gye's authority continued for quite some time.

Then, in 1394, when it emerged that some officials had divined the new dynasty's fortunes and suspicion followed that part of the Goryeo royal house was plotting rebellion, King Gongyang and his sons — and indeed the entire Goryeo royal house — were hunted down, and all but a few were killed.

And the encyclopedia continues immediately: "The move of the capital to Hanyang, too, was decided only after these events had been gone through." Why the capital moved when it did is taken up in the move to Hanyang.

Places connected to Joseon's beginning

Frequently asked questions

When was Joseon founded?

In 1392. Yi Seong-gye acceded as first monarch in the seventh lunar month of that year, and the dynasty lasted 518 years, until 1910.

Was the country called 'Joseon' from the moment it was founded?

No. For about seven months the state name remained 'Goryeo'. When Ming demanded in November 1392 to be told the new name, the ministers deliberated and settled on Joseon, which came into use in February 1393.

Why was the name 'Joseon' chosen?

It descends from Gojoseon and carried the idea of history continuing from Dangun. Gija, believed by Confucian scholars to have first established Confucian civilisation in Korea, was also said to have been a king of Gojoseon, which made the name suitable for a Confucian ruling class.

Are Gojoseon and Joseon the same country?

No — they are separated by roughly two thousand years. The later dynasty deliberately took the earlier name.

How was Joseon founded?

Yi Seong-gye turned his army back at Wihwado in 1388, removed King U and Choe Yeong, carried through land reform with the scholar-official class, removed King Chang and Yi Saek and other opponents, and founded the dynasty in 1392.