Jeong Do-jeon

Where they went

6 related events

1. 1
   1391The Gwajeon Lawparticipant

   Yi Seong-gye and the new scholar-officials abolished the magnates’ estates and enacted the Gwajeon Law, granting officials rent rights to land in Gyeonggi only.

2. 2
   1392Founding of Joseonparticipant

   Yi Seong-gye overthrew Goryeo and founded Joseon, moving the capital to Hanyang in 1394.

3. 3
   1394Capital moved to Hanyangparticipant

   King Taejo moved the capital from Gaegyeong to Hanyang, where Jeong Do-jeon laid out the shrines, palace and city walls.

4. 4
   1395Jongmyo Shrine, Seoulrelated figure

   The royal ancestral shrine holding the spirit tablets of Joseon kings and queens. Completed in 1395 with the move to Hanyang, it became a World Heritage Site in 1995.

5. 5
   1395Gyeongbokgung builtparticipant

   The main palace, Gyeongbokgung, was completed in the new capital; Jeong Do-jeon named it after a line in the Book of Songs.

6. 6
   1398First Strife of Princesrelated figure

   Yi Bang-won killed Jeong Do-jeon and the crown prince and seized power; after a second strife in 1400 he became King Taejong.

Related works

People who appear alongside

• 
  Taejo (Yi Seong-gye)1335 – 1408

  Founder and first king of Joseon, formerly a general who fought Japanese pirates and the Red Turbans

• 
  Taejong (Yi Bang-won)1367 – 1422

  Third king of Joseon, who seized power in the Strifes of Princes and strengthened royal authority

• Jo Jun1346 – 1405

  New Confucian official who drafted the Gwajeon land reform and helped found Joseon

• King Gongyang1345 – 1394

  Last king of Goryeo, placed on the throne by Yi Seong-gye’s faction; the Gwajeon Law was enacted in his reign

Themes this person appears in

• Song, Ming and Samurai JapanAD 960 – 1500

  The age when the civil-minded Song bought peace from Liao, Western Xia and Jin while the lower Yangtze boomed and Neo-Confucianism took shape, and the Ming, having driven out the Yuan, rebuilt the East Asian order through imperial autocracy, the sea ban and tribute — as Japan passed through the Kamakura and Muromachi warrior governments into the Warring States era, and Korea from Goryeo to Joseon

• Changes in the Land SystemAD 687 – 1950

  From nogeup to the end of office land — how the rights granted to officials shrank, and gave way to modern land ownership

• Changes in TaxationAD 755 – 1894

  From land tax, tribute and labour to cash taxes in the Gabo Reform — burdens shifting from people and households to land

• 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

• 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

• GaeseongAD 901 – 2003

  From Wang Geon, lord of Songak, to the Kaesong Industrial Complex — Gaegyeong, Goryeo’s capital for five centuries, and home of the Song merchants

• Seoul18 BC – 1988

  From Hanseong Baekje to the June Democratic Struggle — the Han River land every kingdom fought for, and Joseon’s capital for five centuries