Choe Chung-heon and the Choe Military Regime

Choe Chung-heon killed Yi Ui-min and seized power, founding a Choe family regime that lasted four generations and some sixty years, with the Directorate of Decree Enforcement as its supreme organ.

In the fourth month of 1196 Choe Chung-heon and his brother Choe Chung-su killed Yi Ui-min, and Choe presented King Myeongjong with a ten-article reform memorial. Yet he deposed two kings, Myeongjong and Huijong, himself. As head of the Directorate of Decree Enforcement (Gyojeong Dogam, 1209) he controlled surveillance, appointments and taxation, and he greatly expanded his private guard, the Dobang. He received Jinju as a fief and set up his own household office there.

His son Choe U ran appointments from a personnel office in his own house (the Jeongbang), gathered civil officials in the Seobang and created the Night Patrol. Split into left and right units and joined by the Sinuigun of escaped Mongol captives, it became the Sambyeolcho. The regime passed through Choe Chung-heon, Choe U, Choe Hang and Choe Ui until Kim Jun and others killed Choe Ui in 1258.