The King’s Reason: Yi Song-gye and the Centralization of Power in early Choson

Abstract

This paper examines the founder of Chosŏn, Yi Sŏng-gye. Contrary to the usual depiction of him as a Confucian revolutionary, the author’s research has uncovered a leader that, though deeply committed to Buddhism on a personal level, possessed a realistic outlook that lead to the establishment of Neo-Confucianism as the official ideology of his new dynasty. This paper discusses the political expediency of Neo-Confucianism for centralizing power under Yi Sŏng-gye’s new government. It concludes that the founder’s support of Neo-Confucian stemmed from practical rather than ideological considerations, thus shedding new light on the conventional conception of Yi Sŏng-gye.