Seongjong

Seongjong of Goryeo (15 January 961 – 29 November 997) (r. 981–997) was the sixth ruler of the medieval Korean kingdom of Goryeo. Reign Seongjong was born on 15 January 961, the second son of Daejong, and a grandson of King Taejo (the founder of the Goryeo Dynasty). He ascended the throne after his cousin and also his brother-in-law King Gyeongjong died in 981. After he ascended the throne, Seongjong was at first content not to interfere with the provincial lords, and to appease the Silla aristocracy. Seongjong married a woman of the Silla royal clan. In 982, Seongjong adopted the suggestions in a memorial written by Confucian scholar Choe Seung-ro (최승로; 崔承老) and began to create a Confucian-style government. Choe Seung-ro suggested that Seongjong would be able to complete the reforms of King Gwangjong, the fourth King of Goryeo, which he had inherited from Taejo of Goryeo. Taejo had emphasized the Confucian “Classic of History (書經),” which stated that the ideal Emperor should understand the suffering of farmers and directly experience their toil. Seongjong followed this principle and established a policy by which district officials were appointed by the central government, and all privately owned weapons were collected to be recast into agricultural tools. Seongjong set out to establish the Goryeo state as a centralized Confucian monarchy. In 983, he established the system of twelve mok, the administrative divisions which prevailed for most of the rest of the Goryeo period, and sent learned men to each of the mok to oversee local education, as a means of integrating the country aristocracy into the new bureaucratic system. Talented sons of the country aristocrats were educated so that they could pass the civil service examinations and be appointed to official government posts in the capital. In September, 995 (the 14th year of Seongjong‘s reign), the nation was divided into ten provinces for the first time. The First Goryeo-Khitan War