CultureJanuary 1794 – September 1796(Lunar)

Hwaseong Fortress built

Jeongjo built a new fortress at Suwon, where he had moved his father’s tomb. Jeong Yak-yong helped design it and introduced a crane; the work was recorded in a detailed royal protocol.

Banghwasuryujeong pavilion and pond, Hwaseong Fortress, Suwon
Jpbarrass · Public domain · Source

In 1789 Jeongjo moved Crown Prince Sado’s tomb from Mount Baebong in Yangju to Mount Hwa at Suwon, naming it Hyeollyungwon, and relocated the town of Suwon to the foot of Mount Paldal. Hwaseong was built around the new town.

Work began in the 1st month of 1794 and, though planned for ten years, finished in the 9th month of 1796, after two and a half. Drawing on a Chinese treatise on machines, Jeong Yak-yong designed a lifting crane and pulleys that made heavy stones easy to raise. Workers were hired for wages rather than conscripted. The walls combined stone and brick, with observation towers and cannon bastions.

Jeongjo stationed the outer division of his royal guard there and fostered trade, meaning the city to be a base of royal power; in 1795 he made a celebrated procession there for his mother Lady Hyegyeong’s sixtieth birthday. The construction record allowed the walls, damaged in the Korean War, to be restored faithfully, and the fortress became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

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States and rulers at the time: Joseon — Jeongjo
Places: Hwaseong Fortress

People

Jeongjo1752 – 1800
leader · Twenty-second king of Joseon, founder of the Gyujanggak library and builder of Hwaseong Fortress
Jeong Yak-yong (Dasan)1762 – 1836
participant · Silhak scholar who helped design Hwaseong; exiled to Gangjin, where he wrote the Mongmin simseo

Before and after

Earlier: 1793 Jeongjo’s Jangyongyeong Guard
Later: 1795 Kim Man-deok’s Famine Relief on Jeju

Related works

Documentary: History Special Episode 147: Hwaseong in Suwon Was a Cutting-Edge 18th-Century FortressDocumentary · 2002 · KBS1
TV episode: Naked Korean History Episode 26: How Did Jeongjo Avenge His Father's Sorrow?TV episode · 2022 · Jeong Hae-deuk · tvN STORY

Themes that include this event

Islamic Empires and the Atlantic World1500 – 1800
Three centuries in which the Ottomans of Suleiman I, the Mughals of Akbar and the Safavids of Abbas I flourished and then faltered, while across the Atlantic the slave trade and colonies transformed the Americas, leading to American independence
Reformation and Absolutism1517 – 1796
From Luther’s Ninety-five Theses to Catherine the Great — the wars of religion of a divided Christendom ended at Westphalia, and absolute monarchs armed with divine right, standing armies, bureaucracies and mercantilism, followed by the enlightened despots of eastern Europe, contended for the balance of power among sovereign states
Changes in Architecture1200 – 1910
From Geungnakjeon at Bongjeongsa to Seokjojeon at Deoksugung — Goryeo bracket styles, Joseon palaces, walls and multi-storey temple halls, and the Western buildings of the Korean Empire
Science and Technology HeritageAD 633 – 1861
From Cheomseongdae to the Daedong yeojido — instruments and maps that measured the sky, kept time, gauged rain and charted the land
Intangible and World Heritage2000 BC – 1850
From the dolmens to Namhansanseong on the World Heritage List, from Jongmyo ritual music to ssireum on the Intangible Heritage lists — where each came from and when it was inscribed
Suwon1601 – 1919
From Jeongjo’s new city of Hwaseong to the tragedy of Jeam-ri — where a king’s filial devotion and reform politics were built into stone walls