Nights at the Hall of Worthies
Wind, campfire and river sounds change with every scene, and the music follows the story.
Sejong, who took the throne in 1418 at the age of twenty-two, lost Sim On, the father of his queen, Lady Sim, that winter. It was a death ordered by the Retired King Taejong, who had handed over the throne but kept his grip on the army. Though she had lost her father, the queen stayed at the king’s side. When the Retired King Taejong died in the fifth month of 1422, the young king’s era at last began.
Characters
In 1420, aged 24
Mother of ten children
Always took the night duty
Imagined character in this episode
Imagined character in this episode
A winter night in the 1440s, Gyeongbokgung Palace. Even at an hour when everyone was asleep, there was one hall where the lights did not go out.
in the Hall of Worthies?
is still reading.
Its name was Jiphyeonjeon, the Hall of Worthies — “the house where the worthy gather.”
The king had first gathered young scholars there
some twenty years before.
In 1420, the king greatly expanded the Hall of Worthies, which until then had existed in name only, and gathered there young, gifted scholars of his own choosing.
Find that way for me.
The scholars studied old institutions and books and reported to the king, and read and debated the classics together in his presence.
In 1426, the king gave three young scholars an unexpected order.
Stay at home and do nothing but read, as much as you like.
Then show me the fruits of it.
Leave to read books in place of state business — this was sagadokseo, “reading leave.”
The king, too, read memorials and books deep into the night. On such nights, a light burned late in the queen’s quarters as well.
Your Majesty.
It is the people’s business;
I cannot put it off.
Nearly all the people of Joseon were farmers.
Yet the farming books the country had were Chinese. They had been written for China’s soil and China’s weather.
Joseon’s farming
had to be learned from Joseon’s farmers.
The king sent orders to the governors of the provinces.
They were to seek out the old farmers in every village, ask how they had farmed all their lives, and write it down and send it up.
OfficialHow do you choose your rice seed?
Old farmerPut it in water and you’ll see. The ones that float, we throw away; we only use the ones that sink.
In 1429, a book gathering those words came out — the Nongsa jikseol, “Straight Talk on Farming.”
It was published in the king’s name, but those who made it were the old farmers of Joseon.
In 1430, the king set out to change the tax law.
Until then, officials toured the fields every year, judged how good or bad the harvest was, and set the tax accordingly. Often they simply set it as they pleased.
Before settling on a new law,
the king decided to ask the people first.
3rd month, 1430.
Officials went around the capital and the districts of the eight provinces, asking.
OfficialThe new tax law — yes or no?
From high officials to nameless farmers, for five months —
172,806 people answered.
98,657 said yes. 74,149 said no.
In the south, where the land was fertile, most were in favor; in Pyeongan and Hamgil Provinces, where the land was poor, nearly everyone was against.
More were in favor. But the king did not put the law into effect right away.
For fourteen years after that, the king revised the law again and again.
He divided the land into six grades by its fertility, and each year’s harvest into nine grades by how good or bad it was.
He did not listen only to the side that won.
For a long time, he listened to why the losing side said no.
In 1444, the new tax law, the Gongbeop, was finally settled.
Slaves who belonged to the state worked in the government offices of Hanyang. Even a slave woman who had given birth had to come back to work after just seven days.
be home soon…
The newborn she had left at home cried for milk.
In the spring of 1424, the king’s eldest daughter, Princess Jeongso, died at the age of thirteen.
For three days the king suspended court audiences and closed the markets, and had the meat dishes taken from his table.
The twelfth day of the fourth month of 1426: the day the mourning for his daughter came to an end. In the funeral oration addressed to her, the king wrote:
but love has none.
Five days later, on the seventeenth day of the fourth month, the king issued a decree.
Let a slave woman of a government office who has given birth
rest for one hundred days.
It applied to slave women in every government office, in the capital and in the provinces.
In 1430, the king issued another decree: since some women worked until the month they were due and gave birth before they could even get home, let them rest for a month before giving birth as well.
Even so, when day broke, her husband Makdong had to go out to work.
In 1434, the forty-year-old queen gave birth to her eighth son. He was her tenth child and the youngest: Grand Prince Yeongeung.
…Truly, so hard.
In the fourth month of that same year, the king issued one more decree.
Let the husband of a slave woman who has given birth
rest for thirty days as well.
Husbands who could not rest could not care for the new mothers, and some even lost their lives; it was truly pitiable. It also went against the way of husband and wife helping each other — that was the reason.
That year, Makdong, a government slave, did not go out to work for thirty days.
He heated water, made porridge, and held the crying baby until it slept.
Makdong…They say the king ordered it.
DeokgeumHas the king… ever given birth too?
The king, too, had a wife who had borne him ten children.
For the queen in the palace, for the slave woman of the government office — the night of giving birth was just as long.
Years went by, and it was the 1440s. New faces came to the Hall of Worthies.
Among them, a young scholar named Sin Suk-ju took on the night duty that others shunned — because it meant he could read the books of the Hall of Worthies to his heart’s content all night long.
Every night the king sent a eunuch to look in on the Hall of Worthies.
EunuchHe is still reading.
Eunuch…He is still reading, even now.
Only when the first cock crowed did the young scholar fall asleep, slumped over his desk.
The king took off the sable coat he was wearing.
SejongDon’t wake him. Cover him with it.
When Sin Suk-ju opened his eyes in the morning, he lay under the king’s fur coat.
That night, the king did not sleep either. When the queen looked in toward dawn, he was sitting there in nothing but a thin, unlined robe.
with your fur coat…
who was colder.
The young scholars of this room would one day refine the new letters together with the king.
But the longest of all those nights
had yet to come.
