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| 1506–44 |
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| The reign of Chungjong returned to a more stable period. He favored the Neo-Confucians and patronized the scholar Cho Kwang-jo (1482–1519), who taught basic Confucian values of rule by moral exemplar. He enacted the “village compact” system, as in China. He also saw to it that certain basic texts be translated into Korean. He was ousted and executed during factional strife that set off the third literati purge (1519). | 1 |
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| 1545 |
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| The last of the literati purges again hit the Neo-Confucian elite hard, though as before, their base in rural society remained intact. | 2 |
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| 1567–1608 |
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During the reign of King S njo (b. 1552), the Neo-Confucian literati came to dominate central governmental affairs. Private Confucian academies through which Neo-Confucian elites fortified local control began to appear throughout the land; by the end of Snjo's reign, there were more than 100. Beginning in 1575, factional strife within this newly risen elite began to rip it apart, and the private academies joined in the political fray. | 3 |
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| 1592 |
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| The first Japanese invasion (See 1592), sent by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was met by irresoluteness and poor planning. The king and his minions fled Seoul, further infuriating the populace. The Japanese armies laid waste the land. Almost single-handedly, Admiral Yi Sun-sin (1545–98) rebuilt the Korean navy, created his celebrated “turtle ships” (with protective canopies to ward off enemy fire), and eventually defeated the Japanese navy. His victories cut off supply lines to the Japanese army, ensuring Japan's defeat. | 4 |
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| 1597–98 |
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| The second Japanese invasion was met by a better-prepared Korea and by Chinese reinforcements. When Hideyoshi died in 1598, Japanese forces withdrew. | 5 |
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| 1606 |
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| The newly formed Tokugawa shogunate in Japan commenced amicable ties with Korea. | 6 |
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| 1608–23 |
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| The reign of King Kwanghaegun (1571–1641) restored domestic and diplomatic peace to the peninsula. | 7 |
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| 1610 |
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The culmination of nearly two centuries of writings on Korean medicine, Tong i pogam (Exemplar of Korean Medicine), was completed. Many of its remedies were developed as a result of the famine and destruction caused by the Japanese invasions. | 8 |
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| 1623–49 |
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| The reign of King Injo (b. 1595), brought to the throne by one faction (the “Westerners”) of the Neo-Confucians, moved Korea toward an openly pro-Ming and anti-Manchu stance. | 9 |
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| 1627 |
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| The Manchus invaded Korea. When Emperor Taizong of the Qing demanded that Korea accept vassal status to the Manchus, Injo refused and the Manchus invaded again (1636). Korea became a vassal state. | 10 |
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| 1708 |
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| A Uniform Land Tax Law, enacted in the 17th century, was promulgated nationwide. Also in the early 17th century, new methods of improving the rice yield enabled farmers to double-crop. This enriched some, but at the expense of others. The former were able to acquire land and rent it to poorer peasants, thus creating a new class of non-yangban landlords. | 11 |
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| 1785 |
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| The Rites Controversy brought to a head the issue of Catholicism, as was the case in China and Vietnam, and King Chngjo (b. 1752, r. 1776–1880) banned the religion as heterodox. | 12 |
| Buddhism declined as Neo-Confucianism soared to supremacy with the rise of the yangban. T'aejo forbade the building of new temples, and in 1406 T'aejong suppressed all but 242 temples nationwide and confiscated all their lands and slaves. Further acts of repression followed in the 16th century. In the early 17th century, Korean scholars became interested in Catholicism. Texts, not missionaries, circulated, and it was seen as a religion that could help correct the social and political ills of Chosn. | 13 |
| The greatest Neo-Confucian thinker of the Yi period, Yi T'oegye (Yi Hwang, 1501–70), developed basic ideas laid out by Zhu Xi on the primacy of principle to material force. He also dealt with issues of moral self-cultivation. Other major figures of this school included Yu Sng-nyong (1542–1607), Kim Sng-il (1538–93), and Chng Ku (1543–1620). The most famous advocate of the primacy of material force was Yi Yulgok (Yi I, 1536–84); he also formulated proposals on the reform of government and the economy. The most important Korean supporter of the Wang Yangming school was Chng Che-du (1649–1736). Under King Sukchong (r. 1674–1720), the “Westerners” faction divided into bitterly squabbling Old and Young Doctrine cliques. Neo-Confucianism had ousted its original foes of the older yangban elite only to divide into warring factions. Many retired from the infighting to pursue teaching careers at local private academies. General intellectual antipathy for the “Westerners,” principally by those prevented from having a voice in Yi social or political life, began to take form as a school of“practical learning” (sirhak), at once a scholarly and reformist political movement. The social rupture in the yangban order over the 17th and 18th centuries also caused practically oriented scholars to focus attention on their own society and those who had allowed it to decay. Sirhak scholars turned to many different kinds of institutional learning, the first being agricultural conditions and land systems. One important name in this institutional approach was Yu Hyong-wn (1622–73), who examined many aspects of Yi-dynasty institutions. He was followed by Yi Ik (1681–1763). Another sirhak-oriented school argued for the enrichment of the country through the promotion of commerce. The great stylist Pak Chi-wn (1737–1805) accompanied an official Korean emissary to Beijing in 1780 and wrote a diary in which he lamented how poor Korea was by comparison with China. There were many similar accounts of travelers to China who were vitriolic in their condemnation of the unproductive yangban style of life. | 14 |
| Painting in Korea, as in China at the time, was seen as an avocation, not a full-time profession, by the yangban class. Kang Hi-an (1419–64) and An Kyn—the former a yangban aristocrat and the latter a government painter—were two early masters in the ink-and-brush style. In the 17th century, a trend toward realism appeared in landscape painting, as in the work of Chng Sn (1676–1759). Genre painting also became popular in the 18th century. | 15 |
| In literature, S K-jng compiled his Tongmun sn (Anthology of Korean Literature) in 1478, bringing together Korean writings over the ages in Chinese. From the middle years of Chosn, new poetic styles (kasa and sijo) emerged for composition in Korean. Some sirhak scholars, such as Pak Chi-wn, turned to writing fiction in literary Chinese. However, the most important new development in literature as a whole was the use of han'gl, the Korean alphabet. There were authors from non-yangban classes as well. (See Korea, 1800–1910) | 16 |
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